Make Decisions Faster at Work: Low-Risk vs. High-Risk Calls (Without Losing Control)

You can make better decisions faster by using one simple shift: push low-risk decisions down to the people doing the work, and pull high-risk decisions up for review. When leaders try to approve everything, teams stall, work piles up, and the day feels like nonstop firefighting. The fix is not “more pressure.” It is clearer rules, better visibility, and tighter follow-through. Done well, you move quickly when it’s safe, and slow down only when quality or process integrity is truly on the line.

1) Why decisions get stuck, the hidden “control habit”

A lot of leaders feel a tightness in their chest when they think about letting others decide. Quality, on-time delivery, cost, safety, it can feel like one wrong call will blow everything up.

But there’s a clean distinction worth holding onto:

“Letting go of control does not mean chaos and a lack of accountability.”

In plain terms, letting go means you build reliable ways of working, then you stop being the bottleneck for every small choice. You still care about outcomes. You just stop trying to personally hold every lever.

Here’s a gut-check question before you jump into a decision:

• Am I stepping in because the risk is real, or because I feel calmer when I’m the one deciding?

That question can save you hours, and it can save your team’s energy.

2) A simple rule: decide low when the risk is low (Autoliv’s “approval bottleneck” story)

One of the clearest examples of faster decision-making comes from a manufacturing company that wanted more improvement ideas from employees.

At first, leaders were approving too much. They became the slow gate. Then they made a sharp change:

• If an improvement did not impact quality or process integrity, leadership stopped being responsible for approving it.
• The team doing the work approved it first.
• The next shift also approved it during the daily transition.
• Engineers only stepped in when an idea might impact quality or process integrity, and only then did it go for management review.

The result was not a small win. Implemented improvement ideas jumped from about 12,000 to more than 100,000.

This is the rule you can borrow:

The “low-risk vs. high-risk” decision filter

Before a decision hits your desk, ask:

• Does this change touch quality or process integrity?
  • If no, keep the decision close to the work.
  • If yes, slow down and review it with the right people.

This is how you move faster without getting sloppy. You do not lower standards. You remove unnecessary waiting.

3) Speed needs visibility: use visual metrics that lead to action

Many teams argue because they cannot see the same reality. Good decision-making needs shared facts.

That’s why making work visible matters. Public visuals create what one leader called “information democracy,” they remove filters and help people stay in touch with what is really happening.

A key line to remember:

“Visual metrics provide focus. Just making them visual, doesn’t work any magic. Making decisions and taking action gives credibility to the numbers.”

So the goal is not a pretty dashboard. The goal is a board that helps you decide.

Here’s how you do it (a simple visual setup)

Use these steps with your team:

1. Start with purpose. What problem are you trying to solve by making this visible?
2. Pick something important but hard to see, like workload capacity, delays, rework, or handoff pain.
3. Decide what actions the visual should trigger. If the board cannot drive a decision, it’s noise.
4. Keep it light to update. The guidance is clear: it should take less than 15 minutes daily, ideally less than 10.
5. Try it for a week, a month, or a quarter, then adjust based on what you learn.

Also, remember this warning:

“Tools by themselves are not enough, no matter how well-intentioned.”

A tool works when the purpose is clear and the next action is obvious.

4) Use short team huddles to make clear agreements (not endless debate)

A fast team is not a team that talks less. It’s a team that makes clear agreements and keeps them.

Short daily huddles can help, but only if they are run with discipline. The guidance is practical:

• Keep huddles short, often 10 to 15 minutes.
• Decide the purpose (usually sharing info people need to do the work).
• Focus on exceptions, not a long report of what’s fine.
• Validate decisions and note who owns each action.
• Add a little appreciation sometimes, a sincere thank you changes the tone.

One rule matters more than the rest:

“Do NOT solve problems during the huddle meetings (other than someone committing to an action).”

This alone can stop meetings from turning into slow-motion fights. The huddle is for clarity and commitments. Problem-solving can happen after, with the right people.

5) Keep decisions from repeating: build a simple learn-and-adjust loop

When teams keep revisiting the same choices, it’s often because nothing changed in the habit that created the mess.

A useful model is the “Habit Loop”:

• Cue
• Routine
• Reward

And a line worth sitting with:

“When a new habit emerges, the brain stops fully taking part in decision making.”

That can work for you, or against you. If your habit is “leader decides everything,” you will repeat it under stress. If your habit is “team decides low-risk changes,” you will repeat that instead.

Martha’s practical shift (from overwhelm to clearer decisions)

Martha led a team that did fine on day-to-day work, but struggled with task and action items. People delayed starting, priorities were unclear, and there was scrambling at the end.

She asked her team for feedback using Keep/Stop/Start. What came back was honest:

• Some people felt pressured to say “Yes” too fast.
• Some felt expectations were unclear.
• Many felt overloaded with special projects.
• Several wanted more coaching and clearer “why.”

Then she changed a simple part of their routine. In meetings, they would stop and ask:

• Does the person have time to take this on?
• Is this a quick to-do, or will it take longer? Why?
• When can they start?

That one pause is where better decisions live. It surfaces capacity, clarity, and risk early, before the rework shows up later.

Synthesis

Faster decisions are not about being more forceful. They come from a calmer system: clear purpose, clear risk rules, visible work, and clear agreements. When you stop approving every low-risk choice, your team moves, and you get your attention back for the few calls that truly need you.

If you want a next step you can do today, ask yourself:

• What decision am I holding that someone else could make, if we had clear rules about what “safe” means?