Four dimensions, scored by you and independently by the people around you. Ordered as a chain, because that is how they actually operate.
One sentence. Where more than one dimension sits in the bottom band, the one upstream is named.
Nobody around you can tell what good looks like before they start, so every judgement call travels up to you, and your calendar is the bill.
Expectation clarity scores 12 of 30 against the people around you. Everything else is downstream of this. It sits upstream of the other three, and it is the only one whose repair moves the others without being worked on directly.
Numbers, not adjectives. Every figure is generated by you or by the people around you.
Of scheduled time, against the three priorities you named in the framing call.
Someone else should be doing it, or it should not be happening at all.
You spoke for more than a third of 71% of them.
Logged live across five working days. 22 could have settled one level below.
Of the 22 that could have settled below you, the dominant reason was not permission and not capability. It was “I tried before and it was overturned.” That accounted for 14 of 22. It is the most common of the four causes, the least often admitted, and the fastest to reverse.
How the four are feeding each other here. This section is the difference between a report and a read.
Do people know what good looks like without asking.
Are decisions held at the level that can carry them.
Does where the time goes match what is said to matter.
Does anything happen when a standard slips.
The diamond shows the mean. This shows the people it was made from.
| Expectation clarity | Decision location | Time integrity | Consequence follow-through | Mean | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| You | 15 | 26 | 13 | 21 | 18.8 |
| Respondent 1 | 14 | 23 | 16 | 21 | 18.5 |
| Respondent 2 | 10 | 12 | 12 | 17 | 12.8 |
| Respondent 3 | 11 | 15 | 14 | 19 | 14.8 |
| Respondent 4 | 13 | 19 | 14 | 20 | 16.5 |
| Spread | 4 | 11 | 4 | 4 |
On Decision location the 4 people around you scored 12, 15, 19, 23. A spread of 11 points on the same question, about the same leader, in the same quarter. Two of them experience someone who distributes decisions well. Two experience someone who holds everything. Both are describing you accurately.
That is authority granted personally rather than structurally. People you trust are given latitude. Everyone else escalates. It reads to you as a difference in the calibre of your people. It is a difference in the design of their authority, and it is yours to fix rather than theirs.
It also explains the blind spot. You score Decision location at 26. Your people score it 17.3. You are not wrong about your own experience of it. You are describing the half of the team that has the latitude.
Each lands in a calendar entry, a meeting agenda or a written standard. Nothing is accepted that exists only as an intention.
Write the standard for the four decision types that generated 14 of the 22 escalations, and publish it to the team in writing.
Removes the overturned-before cause at source. One page, not a policy.
Name, in the next team meeting, the two decisions you overturned last quarter, and say which one you were wrong to overturn.
The cause is a belief about you. Only you can contradict it, and only in public.
Give the two respondents who scored lowest the same standing latitude the top two already have, and tell all four you have done it.
Converts personal authority into structural authority. This is the one that moves the spread.
Written so someone other than you can verify it, without your account of it.
| What will be different | Evidence | Verifiable by |
|---|---|---|
| Escalations of the four named decision types | Decision log re-run for five days. Baseline 34 total, 22 avoidable. | Anyone reading the log |
| The written standard exists and is findable | A link a new joiner can be sent without explanation. | A new joiner |
| Spread on decision location | Four respondents re-score six statements. Baseline spread 11. | The re-score itself |
| Time in code A | Ten working days re-coded. Baseline 19%. | The calendar |