…a principle of management which states that subordinates are responsible for submitting written recommendations to superiors in such a manner that the superior need do nothing further in the process than review the submitted document and indicate approval or disapproval.
Not only do they need to know what you want, but they must also know what you do not want; what will cause the recommendation to be rejected.
Case #1 Delegating to an Existing Team
The pointy-haired bosses said, “That company is too small. Think bigger.”
So we did more work and came back with another choice.
“That company is too big. Try again.”
We made another choice.
“That company is not growing. We want growth.
We chose again.
“That company is growing successfully. They will cost too much. We will not be able to add value. We will probably destroy value.”
They were right on that count. All we would do is add overhead.
Eventually, we went through every single company in that market and quit.
Eight years later they bought the first company for many times the original price.
What was going on here?
This is called the classic Bring Me a Rock situation.
Who was at fault? Both the managers and the team.
The managers, because they were unwilling or unable to articulate what they wanted. Their attitude was, “We will know it when we see it.” They spent exactly zero time thinking about what constitutes an acceptable recommendation or what is unacceptable.
The team, because they forgot the second of the Three Rules for MBAs:
- Gather all the data you can.
- Find out what answer the boss wants.
- Manipulate #1 to match #2.
Sounds cynical doesn’t it. In all my years of planning, I have never found an exception. No. Not. One.
If you don’t follow the rules and fail to give the decision-maker the answer he or she wants, you will get to try again. And try again. And try again.
In this case, both the team and the managers had worked together for some time and each thought the other could read minds.
Case #2 Delegating to an Ad Hoc Committee or Team
So, the Board chartered a survey team, hoping the congregation would go along. The initiative came in last. Wrong answer.
The Board directed another survey with multiple choice answers. Same wrong answer. The congregation had other priorities.
The Board then decided to charter a Building Action Team to consider the facility needs. The Board gave the team a written charter requiring them to include a certain list of ministries. The Board included a history of the studies, proposals, surveys, and the minutes of Congregational Meetings in the charter. The Board withheld studies that showed the validity of the initiative. The Board included a statement at the end of the charter that the team should also consider overbuilding to make the new initiative look less expensive in the future.
The team followed Rule #1. But the Board did not specify what they really wanted: the new initiative. The team prepared a report that reflected the congregation’s priorities, placing the new initiative last and in a separate facility, instead of the Governing Board’s wishes. The team report was rejected.
What was going on here?
In this case, the Governing Board knew what they wanted; they wanted to team to add the facilities for the new initiative so that it did not come from the Board. But the Board could not give the team explicit direction to include the new initiative. They could not tell the team what they wanted, the initiative, nor what was unacceptable, omitting the initiative.
In this case, the team members were not part of the day-to-day operation, so they had no insight into key assumptions. For example, the Board refused to give them a total project cost target; just stating that it should be affordable, whatever that was. The Board did not give any boundaries on assumptions of growth rates, required for sizing future facilities. They did not even provide the business plan for the new initiative, so sizing information was missing.
They were not even told the questions they were expected to answer nor were they given information on the processes they were to follow.
Case 3 Budgeting Surprise
Nonprofit boards are notorious for approving annual budgets without any discussion. I love to wait until the budget has been approved and ask two questions, “Why did you just approve this budget?” and “What would it have taken for you to reject it?” Most Board members respond with the deer-in-the-headlights look. They had never thought of this before.
In this case, an Executive Director came to the annual budget approval meeting with an investment budget that included new hires and new initiatives. This was a surprise to most of the Board and she was sent back for a new budget. Yes, she had not pre-sold it, but the Board had given her no guidelines.
This year was different. She met with the Strategy Committee four months in advance. They issued preliminary budget guidelines. Then she brought those guidelines to the whole board for approval, along with a pro-forma top-level budget. She got further guidance, well before starting detail budgeting. This occurred three months ahead of the annual budget meeting and before the start of the budget process. This Board fully understands that when she brings forward a budget within the agreed parameters, it would be approved without objection. The Board saved a lot of wasted staff labor and expectations.
Final Note
The experts at Manager Tools (and here) recommend that, given a final delivery date, each level of the hierarchy spend one-third of the remaining time defining what they want to see and what they don’t want to see. In this case, the Board spent the first month of three deciding what they wanted in a budget. Then the ED spent one-third of the time determining what she wanted and did not want. Then she passed it to her directs. That sounds like a lot. It is. But the result was a vastly improved solution.