I won’t talk at length about my new computer, but Apple delivered it five days early(!). I received it last Wednesday. Today’s newsletter is being written with it. Obsidian, the tool I use as my second brain - and to write this newsletter - used to have an 86 second load time. It’s now 1 second. 🤣
When I start with a new computer, I don’t transfer cruft over from a prior computer. I download what I need when I need it. I like the computer being clean.
It means I search for a lot of “how to” information as I’m getting everything set up. This is where AI really shines!
I use Perplexity for my default search engine. I ask what I need, and Perplexity pops out with a well-formatted and correct answer. No more digging through help docs or forums; the AI does all that. It’s really magical.
In the physical realm, I’ve really enjoyed the monthly rucking series I started in May of this year.
Yesterday we had the seventh event!
It’s been great to get outside and chat with folks for a couple hours while getting exercise. I’ve met cool people doing cool things - and their dogs! If you’re ever in Austin, you’ll have to come out for one.
If you’ve got a cool project going on, I’d love to hear what you’re up to. Email me at heykev@kevinnoble.xyz and tell me what’s lighting your fire lately. 🔥
Have a great week!
Kevin 😁
A Quote
“
People are not numbers. And performance cannot be accurately measured by scores tallied on a card at the end of the year. This is especially so in cases where the person interpreting the card is not intimately familiar with the employee or is influenced by recency bias or their own perceptions of what outputs matter most. These formal appraisals are generally rubbish and poor vehicles for delivering feedback that inspires high performance.
— John Amaechi in "The Promises of Giants"
Three Things
1 - 🥷 What management principles helped SpaceX achieve success? - There’s a quote from one of Seneca’s letters that says, “If a line is good, even if it appears in a bad poem, I will take it.” It means that value can transcend the source. With that in mind, I liked this podcast episode learning about the early days of SpaceX; there’s a lot we can steal from Elon Musk’s approach. For example, use an iterative approach, make fast decisions, and prefer action over extensive planning. The podcast had great details diving into all of this.
2 - 🔎 Arc Search on Mobile - This has been my new mobile browser for several weeks. It has out of the box ad blocking making the Internet a much cleaner place. The “browse for me” feature is extremely capable and well-formatted; I use it when I have a query and am not trying to use a particular website.
3 - 🏹 Civilization VII - I stayed up way too late playing Civilization II on our family’s old IBM PC in the late 90s. I even took off work for the Civ IV release date in 2005 to play! I’ve been on a general video game hiatus for more than a year, but it’s been nine years since the last Civ game released, so I’ll be giving this one a try when it comes out early next year. Are you a Civ fan?
Deep Dive on Moving Authority to Information
“Moving authority to information” is one of my favorite concepts, and something I believe strongly in.
What this means is that you give decision-making authority to those who are more knowledgable; those closest to the work.
I’ve seen the power of this practice first hand, and I’ve seen the negative effects of doing the opposite.
What is the opposite?
Moving information to authority. This is where you educate your boss so they can make a decision that comes back to you to implement.
Sometimes the information even goes up multiple layers to where the authority sits before coming back.
Why do I believe so strongly in moving authority to information?
Because it’s what people need to flourish. It’s what companies need to stay competitive. In the rest of the newsletter I’ll make my case, and give some tips on how to move in this direction if you agree.
“Another desirable and important feature of the model is that any decision be worked out and reached at the lowest competent level. The reason is that this is where it will be made by people who are closest to the situation and know the most about it.”
Decision making is a complex science, but we can simplify it. What do you need in order to make a good decision?
You need information about the decision, and you need the authority to make that decision.
To illustrate the point, I once attempted to order an americano at a coffee shop in Amsterdam. The staff refused because they said it would taste bad!
I had all the information about what I wanted, but not the authority to make it happen 🤣 (PS - they wouldn’t even give me hot water with espresso because they knew my nefarious plans to mix them on my own 😈)
In organizations, information and authority don’t always sit in the same place. Information sits in one area, and authority in another. Organizations have to figure out how to bring these two pieces together.
Because authority is powerful, most organizations resolve this by pushing information to authority. As an example, the information might take the path below.
The long path of info to go up, and the decision to come back down.
Think about the time the information took to go up, and then for the decision to come back down. And imagine if there’s a back and forth required. Sheesh.
There’s another way! What happens if we take the “decider” hat off the top of the org. chart and move it down to the team doing the work?
Where did the info and decision paths go? Oh, right, they're not needed!
Three big things happen: 1) Decisions occur much faster. 2) Employees are more engaged and growing, improving retention and long-term efficacy. 3) The company has greater adaptability and innovation.
Connections to Existing Theories and Practices
This concept is rooted in good theories and has been implemented by successful companies.
On the theory side, Daniel Pink’s book “Drive” argues that enduring motivation comes from the three intrinsic factors of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. The first two of those are consistent with moving authority to information.
Autonomy is the desire to direct our own lives. When you’re in charge of what happens on the decision in front of you, that’s the definition of having autonomy to direct your life!
This man has autonomy to decide where he's going next.
Mastery is the desire to get better at something. When someone feels ownership over a decision, they’re going to learn much more than if they outsource decision making to someone else.
Authorship drives ownership. By being responsible for a decision, you’ll be much more engaged, and more likely to learn from the result.
Have you ever noticed that?
That’s a fine theory, but what about practice?
This is something that the military does, called Decentralized Command by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. Jocko and Leif wrote about this in “Extreme Ownership” and “The Dichotomy of Leadership”.
Pushing the decision making down to the subordinate, frontline leaders within the task unit was critical to our success. This Decentralized Command structure allowed me, as the commander, to maintain focus on the bigger picture: coordinate friendly assets and monitor enemy activity. Were I to get embroiled in the details of a tactical problem, there would be no one else to fill my role and manage the strategic mission.
They argue that when you move information to authority a leader gets bogged down in all the decisions coming up and no longer can effectively serve their own role.
It’s not mentioned in this quote, but this is also by necessity! Time is critical and it’s not always practical to radio back to base to ask them what to do. You’ve got an understanding of the strategic intent, and you’re trusted to make decisions on your own.
"Yeah, hey, it's Tom. I'm out here in the field. Can you approve me moving forward?"
In the business world, this concept is central to how Jeff Bezos created the culture at Amazon. In “The Everything Store” author Brad Stone said “Bezos vowed to run Amazon with an emphasis on decentralization and independent decision-making.”
“We didn’t want to be a monolithic army of program managers, à la Microsoft. We wanted independent teams to be entrepreneurial,” says Neil Roseman. Or, as Roseman also put it: “Autonomous working units are good. Things to manage working units are bad.”
Even now, at Blue Origin, Jeff has said he wants to make it “the world’s most decisive company,” creating a culture that emphasizes rapid decision-making and execution.
Rapid decision-making doesn’t happen if everyone’s routing information to a central authority to decide.
The Opposite - Moving Information to Authority
In a culture where information is moved to authority, people are pushing decisions up to their managers, who then push it up to their manager, and so on.
A few negative things happen in this environment.
The biggest is that people don’t make progress. And people really want to make progress.
In “The Progress Principle” they say, “of all the positive events that influence inner work life, the single most powerful is progress in meaningful work.”
Notably that sentence didn’t say people want to write decision documents for their boss two layers up. 🙄
If you’re not making progress, things are slow, and speed really matters in business! You can’t outcompete your competitors with much of your team waiting around for someone else to decide something.
You’ll also get learned helplessness because people begin to believe - accurately - they can’t do work themselves.
The logjam effect Jocko mentioned for managers up the chain is real! If you’ve got a team of 100+ people trying to get things done, but aren’t allowed to decide things, that’s a LOT of decision documents coming to the leader. There’s just no way they’ll be able to get to them all, and if they do, they won’t be spending a lot of time on them.
"I feel very important, but I'm downing in these decision documents!"
And almost worst of all is the waste. In a culture of moving information to authority teams are spending so much time working on preparing decision documentation, having meetings, aligning, etc. - often more than it takes to actually do the work!
You’re spending 5x more for the same outcome because of all this wasted effort.
Eventually people begin to think that preparing for decisions is the work, and you get a culture that ships more emails and documents than customer-impacting products and services.
Addressing Common Concerns
If I’m painting a picture of a beautiful utopia where everyone’s happy, nothing goes wrong, and everything’s executed well - why aren’t more people doing this?
A decision-making utopia.
There a few common concerns. I’ll share my thoughts on them below.
People will make bad decisions Yes, you may get some bad decisions by moving authority to information.
I’d argue you don’t necessarily get a good decision by having it performed by someone higher up in the org chart!
As with most things, this goes back to hiring and culture. Who you have on the team, and how they work together, has a huge impact on how big of a deal this concern is.
If you’re hiring people with good judgment, they aren’t going to make decisions they don’t feel qualified to make.
Most decisions are two-way doors; you can course correct if someone makes a mistake.
I won’t be important This is the concern coming from the managers. If they’re not busy deciding things, that creates risk for them and their perceived value.
This concerned manager should remember that leaders are judged on the combined output of their entire team.
By being an organizational architect who enabled bigger outcomes in less time through decentralized decision-making, you’re being more impactful in your job - not less.
Not enough context to make effective decisions It’s true that by virtue of sitting in a different (or lower) part of the org. the person may not have the right information to make a decision.
So first, make sure your team is sharing information. Transparency improves quality.
Second, don’t give decision authority to someone that doesn’t have enough information!
This isn’t called “move authority to the lowest level of the org. no matter what” - it’s called “move authority to information.” If the person doesn’t have enough information to make the decision, then you chose the decider incorrectly.
Implementing a Shift
If your environment is a little more on the “move information to authority” side, and you’re ready to reap the benefits of shifting to a more decentralized decision-making culture, you’ll need to assess a few things first.
Staff Quality - Do you have good people? As a leader you’re accountable for knowing whether someone is ready to grow into this increased responsibility. If they’re not, focus on training or hiring first.
Rituals - Do you have rituals that support information and knowledge sharing? Could you detect and intervene if a bad decision is made? Make sure you’ve got good rituals with good data review.
Culture of Learning - Is there high learning safety in your org? If people are not yet free to make mistakes and learn, focus on your psychological safety culture before implementing a change in decision making.
Reaping the Benefits
Decentralizing decision-making isn’t just a productivity hack, it’s a transformation in how your organization operates.
When the authority to make decisions happen where the information resides, work flows faster, and teams feel trusted and valued. This speed and satisfaction don’t just improve daily operations; they create scalability.
As your organization grows, a decentralized approach ensures you aren’t building bottlenecks into the system. Instead, you’re fostering a dynamic, agile culture ready to tackle big challenges.
The results? Happier employees, delighted customers, and a competitive edge in the marketplace.
Call to Action
Start with an assessment. Where are you on this concept? How many decisions are coming to you that could be made lower in the org. where they have more direct information?
How is your staff quality? How sound are your rituals? Is learning safety high?
Next, start making some adjustments. Is there a low-risk decision on your plate that could be made by someone closer to the work?
This week make a change to the decider - remove yourself and get them ready to make the decision themselves.
After that, the sky’s the limit!
Let me know what you think about this idea. Have you worked in an environment of moving information to authority? How was that? Have you tried to implement a more decentralized decision-making environment? How did that go?
