Push recommendations up, not problems
Require reports to bring a recommendation alongside any problem — it’s a delegation practice, not just a time-saver.
Why it works
When people bring problems without solutions, they are implicitly delegating up — pushing the cognitive work back to the manager. Requiring a recommendation trains the analytical and decision-making skills that make genuine autonomy possible. It also reveals how the person thinks, enabling better coaching. The practice works because decision-making skill is developed through doing, not through watching — and "bring me a recommendation" is the smallest viable doing.
How to do it
- Establish a team norm: no problem comes up without a proposed solution, even a rough one.
- When someone brings you only a problem, ask "what would you do?" before offering your own answer.
- Resist the reflex to short-circuit their thinking with your answer — let them work through it with you asking questions.
- Praise the quality of reasoning in recommendations, not just whether you agree with the answer.
Evidence
Learning by doing and the development of decision-making competence through practice are well supported in skill acquisition research. Asking people to generate solutions before receiving feedback is consistent with desirable difficulties research on learning. Kluger & DeNisi's (1996) meta-analysis of feedback interventions further shows that feedback aids performance most when it directs attention to the task and the learner's own reasoning rather than to the self. (mechanistic)
The "bring a recommendation" norm is practitioner advice; its direct effect on delegation quality or team capability has not been isolated in controlled studies.
Sources
- Bjork (1994), Memory and Metamemory Considerations in the Training of Human Beings, in Metcalfe & Shimamura (Eds.)
- Kluger, A. N., & DeNisi, A. (1996). The Effects of Feedback Interventions on Performance: A Historical Review, a Meta-Analysis, and a Preliminary Feedback Intervention Theory. Psychological Bulletin, 119(2), 254-284.
Common mistake
Treating the recommendation requirement as bureaucracy and overriding it routinely — if the manager always ends up solving the problem anyway, people learn to wait rather than think.
Practice this with IX Coach
7 days free, then $40/month (~$1.30/day).
More practices for Delegation Levels, Made Practical
- Name the delegation level explicitly at the start of every task
State clearly whether you want a recommendation, a decision with notification, or a decision without notification — before the work begins.
- Match the delegation level to the person’s current competence and confidence
Over-delegate to someone who isn’t ready and they fail; under-delegate and they stagnate.
- Clarify what people can decide without asking
Define the fence: what decisions can anyone on the team make without checking in?
- Resist reverse delegation (the "monkey back" problem)
When a report brings you their monkey, don’t take it — send it back with the next step owned.
- Debrief after delegated tasks to build for the next level
A delegation debrief is not a performance review — it is a joint analysis of what you both learned.
Related concepts
- The Eisenhower Matrix and Delegation
Urgency versus importance, effective delegation, and how to protect the quadrant that matters most
- Psychological Safety in Teams
What psychological safety actually is, how leaders build it, and where the evidence is real
- The GROW Coaching Model, Made Practical
The four stages, the questions that move each stage, and where the model is strong