Have you ever had someone on your team come to you asking permission for something they could have decided on their own?
If you’re managing people who lead other people, I bet the answer is yes! It’s one of the things teams struggle with most when I work with them. They tell me, “I don’t know if I have this authority or not. How am I supposed to know without asking?”
That’s why I loved my conversation with Joe Theesfeld, president of Performance Foodservice in Marshall, Minnesota. Joe believes the leaders of the leaders is where a lot of the secret sauce is made. In this post, I’m sharing what he taught me about how to delegate decisions to the middle layer of your team, so your managers can stop waiting on you and start taking initiative.
The middle layer is where the secret sauce is made
We talk a lot about the C-suite. We talk a lot about frontline leaders.
Joe thinks the leaders in the middle get missed.
When you develop your leaders of other leaders, you multiply your own efforts and theirs. Then they develop their own leaders. Joe called it a real cascading effect.
He also said something about common sense that I haven’t stopped thinking about:
Common sense is really our lived experiences.
If someone hasn’t had the same experiences we have, it’s no longer common sense to them. So it’s our job as leaders to teach it on down, instead of writing it off as a generational thing.
How to delegate decisions: empowerment and the 80% rule
I asked Joe how his managers know where their authority ends. He answered with one word: empowerment.
“As leaders, we have a tendency to want to keep control as much as possible. But the magic really happens when we let control go and empower our people to lean in.”
Here’s how his team makes that work:
- The 80% rule. If someone can do the job 80% as well as you can, let them do it. They’ll learn, and they’ll probably fill in that 20% gap.
- Forgiveness over permission. When I said “it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” Joe said, “Hundred percent.” His team lives that daily.
- Fail fast. They might make a few more mistakes than the cautious companies, but they course correct faster. Make the mistake, learn quickly and don’t duplicate it.
None of this works unless people have a safe space to fail. That’s how we all learn!
Be the chief repeating officer
Joe’s leadership style is high expectations, high support. He’ll do whatever is needed to help somebody out, and he expects the same from his team.
He joked that his managers would say he sounds like a record on repeat. His team has a set of imperatives, the non-negotiables for how they show up. Those get repeated until they become part of the fabric.
That’s why Joe tells his leaders that CRO, chief repeating officer, should be one of their titles. (Patrick Lencioni calls it the chief reminding officer, and I love that they landed in the same place!)
One of Joe’s mentors puts it this way:
A confused mind always says no.
If your message isn’t consistent and crystal clear, your team will hesitate instead of taking the next step.
Trust starts with people
Joe isn’t a big believer in the always-open door. Time is our greatest commodity, and leaders have to protect it so they can perform for their people.
Instead, he’s intentional about being visible. He walks the office and the warehouse floor. Those are his office hours.
I pushed back a little here. On a lot of teams I work with, an executive walking around looks like checking up. It only feels like support when there’s trust.
Joe’s answer was relationships. On the warehouse floor, he’s almost never correcting anyone. He’s building culture. One of his associates tells him a joke every single time he walks by!
What if you’re more introverted? Joe’s advice:
- Ask questions until you find common ground, whether that’s a sport or what someone is working on.
- Start your hallway conversations with the person first and work second.
This is exactly what Patrick Lencioni describes in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. The foundation is vulnerability-based trust. My favorite tip for people who don’t love networking is to be more interested than interesting.
Consensus is overrated
This was my favorite part of the conversation! Here’s what Joe wrote down before we recorded:
“Consensus is overrated, and it’s slow. People don’t need to agree with the decision. They need to understand it.”
Chasing unanimous buy-in usually means the loudest skeptic sets the pace.
On Joe’s team, everyone has an obligation to dissent. If you disagree with something Joe says, you’re expected to say so and explain why. They talk it through, and if seven or eight out of ten are on board, they move.
The dissenters still matter. When someone holds out, there’s usually an underlying issue worth unpacking. In Joe’s words, “There’s usually a golden nugget in there for a leader to find out.”
I shared that my least favorite word is compromise. You meet in the middle, nobody’s happy and everyone’s still resentful. Joe’s approach gets you to a decision without that.
Questions leaders ask me
How do I get my managers to make decisions without asking me first?
Teach them your common sense, then give them permission to use it. Joe’s rule is that if someone can do the job 80% as well as you, let them do it. Make it safe to get it wrong, and help them course correct fast.
How do I build trust with my team if I’m an introvert?
Start by finding common ground. Ask questions until you find something you share, and lead your next conversation with that before you get to work. Everybody likes talking about themselves, so being interested will take you further than being interesting.
How do I support an employee who just got promoted to manager?
Remember that doing and leading are completely different skill sets. Joe’s team assesses new leaders, trains and coaches the gaps, then reassesses every six months. Without that support, new managers usually end up doing their team’s work instead of teaching them to fish.
Recap
- The leaders of your leaders are where a lot of the secret sauce is made, so develop them on purpose.
- If someone can do the job 80% as well as you, let them do it.
- Repeat your non-negotiables until they become part of your culture.
- Build trust by finding common ground with people first and talking about work second.
- Your team doesn’t need to agree with every decision. They need to understand it and be heard.
Want this for your team?
Empowering the people in the middle of your organization is a big part of my keynote, Good People to Great Teams. I work with companies that have hired good people they really like, and I help them turn those people into great teams. No trust falls, gimmicks or marshmallows. Just real conversation, honest self-discovery and a lot of laughs!
If you’re planning a conference, leadership summit or company event and looking for a leadership keynote speaker, I’d love to talk.
Not ready to bring me in yet? grab the WALL Blueprint and make your next hard conversation easier.
Desiree Petrich is a keynote speaker, bestselling author of Taking Intentional Action, and host of You’re the Boss, Now What?, a top 2% podcast globally. Through her keynote, Good People to Great Teams, she helps organizations turn the good people they’ve hired into great teams that trust each other. Learn more about bringing Desiree to your next conference or event at desireepetrich.com.
