The Anchor
FDI Score: 50-69% | 50 to 69% dependency
Right now your team can execute but they cannot decide without you. The context they need lives in your head and nowhere else, so everything routes back to you before it can move forward. The goal is to change that. When the context lives in the business instead of in you, you stop being the bridge and start being the leader your team actually moves without.
Sound familiar?
Your team can do the work. They're good at it.
But they come to you constantly for context.
How should we handle this client situation?
What's the priority this week? Is this the right call?
They're not asking because they're incapable.
They're asking because the information they need to decide doesn't exist anywhere except in your head.
You're not in the weeds of execution anymore but you're still the hub everything runs through.
Your calendar is full of conversations that exist because your team doesn't have the full picture.
You've built a team. You just haven't built the system that lets them use it.
What this is costing you
The cost here is harder to see because the business looks like it's working. It is working. But it's working at the speed of your availability. Every decision that needs your context is a decision that waits until you have a moment.
Your growth is capped not by your team's ability but by how much of yourself you can pour into keeping them connected. That's a real ceiling and it gets lower the more the business grows.
Where to focus right now
The place to start is the questions. Not all of them. The ones that come up most.
Write a decision log. Every time your team comes to you with a question this week, write down the question and your answer. Do that for two weeks. You'll have a library of documented decisions your team can reference before they ever need to ask you.
Record a Loom for your top five recurring situations. Not a training video. Just you talking through how you'd handle it. Five minutes each. Your team gets your thinking in your voice without needing you in the room. Bonus: you can compile and review them to extract your ‘secret sauce’ and ways of thinking now that you have them.
Create an escalation framework. Define what your team can decide on their own, what needs a heads up, and what actually needs you. Most things will fall into the first category. That clarity alone will cut the back and forth in half.
What becomes possible
When your context lives somewhere accessible your team stops holding their breath waiting for your input. They make real decisions. Projects move faster. And you stop starting every day with a full inbox of people who need a piece of you before they can move.
You get to think bigger because the day-to-day isn't pulling you back in every hour.
If you want to stop being the answer for everything, this is where that starts.
In 30 minutes we will map the context living in your head and show you what it looks like when it lives in the business instead.