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Beslutsfattande

The manager as bottleneck — when approvals pile up

Every week someone shows up with a new prototype that 'just needs sign-off'. You can't keep up, you don't grasp every detail — but saying no feels like killing engagement.

Time

40 min

Level

Intermediate

Roles

4

Framework

Delegated judgement

Read the full scenario

Before you begin

3 minutes of prep for the facilitator

Materials

  • ▸A projector or large screen for presentation mode
  • ▸A notebook for each participant
  • ▸A facilitator (can be someone in the group)
  • ▸Water, coffee — and silenced phones

The room

  • ▸Sit around a table, not theatre-style — the conversation should feel horizontal.
  • ▸Close the door. This is not a meeting to drift in and out of.
  • ▸Decide who will document the group's decisions and reasoning.

Say as intro

"There are no right answers in this scenario — only clearer and less clear reasoning. The value comes from where you actually disagree, not from reaching consensus."

Briefing

The situation

Lisa leads a team where several members now regularly build small tools and automations. Every week someone arrives with a new idea or a finished prototype that 'just needs sign-off'. Lisa doesn't have time to review everything properly. She doesn't understand all the technical details. Saying no feels like crushing engagement — saying yes to everything feels irresponsible. She's started pushing meetings to keep up, and is starting to feel like a bottleneck in a system she helped fuel. As a leadership team, you need to help Lisa — and every other manager facing the same problem.

Discussion

Questions to wrestle with

What are we actually reviewing?

  1. 1.When Lisa 'approves' a tool — what is she actually vouching for: the idea, the security, the data quality, or just the fact that she knows about it?
  2. 2.Which approvals genuinely belong with the line manager, and which should live somewhere else?
  3. 3.What's the difference between sound judgement and the illusion of control in this kind of decision?

Build the system, not the hero

  1. 1.If we don't want every manager to become a bottleneck — what support, role or forum is missing in our organisation?
  2. 2.What would have to be true for a team to make a decision on its own without Lisa having to be in the room?
  3. 3.How do we teach managers to tell the difference between 'I don't know and need to learn' and 'I don't know and need to delegate'?

Framework · Delegated judgement

To lean on

Reviews personally

Decisions where the manager's judgement is what genuinely adds value — customer, person, strategy, ethics.

Delegates with guardrails

Decisions someone else (tech lead, data owner, peer review) takes better — manager sets the frame and reviews patterns.

Lets go entirely

Decisions that don't need the manager at all — make the threshold explicit, remove the approval step, trust the process.

Reviews patterns

Instead of individual decisions: the manager looks at trends, exceptions and risks after the fact.

Decision

Possible paths

  1. ASet up an internal 'AI review board' (tech lead, data owner, security) that takes over tool reviews — the manager gets a pattern report.
  2. BMake thresholds explicit: below X risk/data no approval is needed at all, above Y a formal process kicks in.
  3. CTrain every manager in 'delegated judgement' and make it part of performance review that they let go of the right things.
  4. DSlow down: pause new initiatives until review capacity matches the pace.

Triggers

Drop in when the discussion stalls

  • ▸A tool that was approved last month turned out to pull data from a source Lisa didn't know existed.
  • ▸One employee has stopped asking and just started using — 'it's faster that way'.
  • ▸Senior leadership has just asked for a quarterly report on 'AI initiatives per team'.

For the facilitator

Tips to get more out of it

  • Have participants list the three most recent 'AI approvals' they personally made and place them in the framework — the discussion gets concrete fast.
  • Watch for the 'but I'm still accountable' reflex — that's exactly what turns the manager into a bottleneck. Challenge it.

Reflection

To take with you

  • "Does our current leadership development prepare managers to be pattern reviewers rather than individual approvers? What's missing?"
  • "Which decisions in our own leadership team should we be letting go of, delegating, or reviewing as patterns rather than individual cases?"