Why your team asks you the same question twice a day

Count the interruptions in one day. Most founders we work with stop counting at fifteen. Then look at the questions: can we discount this, do we take this order, who covers Friday, is this good enough to send. They are not random. They are the same six questions in different clothes.

The question is a missing rule

Every repeated question is a decision that lives in your head and nowhere else. Your team is not being lazy; they are being careful. Guessing wrong costs them more than asking costs you, so they ask.

The fix is dull and it works: write the rule down, put a number on it, and say who can break it. “Discounts up to 10% are yours. Over 10% comes to me.” “We take any order under £2,000 without asking.” A rule with a number in it can be used by someone else at nine o’clock on a Saturday.

Rules beat principles

“Use your judgement” is not a rule. “Look after the customer” is not a rule. They sound generous and they push the decision straight back to you, because nobody wants to be the person whose judgement was wrong.

Watch what happens for a fortnight

Some rules will be wrong. A number set too low sends work back to you; a number set too high produces a decision you would not have made. Both are cheap to correct and both teach you something about the business that you cannot learn by being asked.

After a fortnight, count the interruptions again. The ones that remain are the interesting ones — they are the decisions that genuinely need you.