Could the next decision happen without the founder?

To examine founder dependence, choose a real responsibility and rehearse what would happen if the founder could not respond. Look for the information, authority and follow-through needed to finish it. A person assigned to receive a message may still be unable to make the next decision.

In The Company Kept Going, a director took responsibility for a serious vehicle incident while Vijay Sheth was in surgery and recovering. The story recognizes the employee’s judgment. It also asks what the company should learn from needing an exceptional person to cross a gap in its organization.

Begin with an ordinary interruption.

An unusual crisis can make everyone agree that better preparation would help. A familiar customer disruption is often easier to examine closely. Choose a reservation that needs a replacement, a delivery that will miss its agreed time, or another situation your team genuinely encounters.

Ask the person who would handle it to work from the information they normally have. Avoid supplying context from the founder’s memory as the exercise proceeds. If they need an agreement that only the founder can find, the exercise has discovered something useful.

Assess whether the colleague can reach a reasonable decision within their role and the company’s commitments.

Choose a substitute the customer can use

Before rehearsing who can approve an alternative, check what makes it suitable. A replacement can be available, affordable and described as an upgrade while failing the customer's actual requirement.

Consider a separate invented printing job. A customer has ordered sixty 4-by-6-inch maps for an event, due Friday at 3 p.m. Each must fit flat inside a 4.25-by-6.25-inch sleeve already supplied by another team. Folding or trimming the maps is outside the agreed offer. The customer has approved the artwork, and the employee has the current specification.

The original printer becomes unavailable. The employee has permission to select another supplier within the approved spending limit if the complete customer requirements stay unchanged. Two suppliers have confirmed the necessary stock and their ability to deliver all sixty maps by Friday at 3 p.m. Both quotations are within that limit and include delivery; neither order has been placed.

• Supplier A offers 5-by-7-inch laminated maps, calling them a free upgrade. The approved artwork would be enlarged.
• Supplier B offers the specified 4-by-6-inch maps using the approved artwork. Its offer meets the other agreed print requirements too.

The larger maps cannot fit flat in the existing sleeves. Turning them does not solve the mismatch. Lamination may be desirable, but it does not make those dimensions suitable for this job. Supplier B's ordinary-looking offer preserves the required use.

Ask the colleague to choose an offer and explain why it fits. Under these supplied terms, they can order from B: its offer meets the specification and stays within their authority. The other team can still use the sleeves it has prepared.

Now suppose B withdraws its offer before the employee orders. A remains available. The employee cannot treat the old B quotation as an option or assume that the customer will accept larger maps. Buying different sleeves would also require a new arrangement; no replacement sleeves, cost or packing capacity have been supplied.

The employee needs to take the unresolved requirement to someone who can decide what revised offer to make, while giving the customer an accurate update. More spending authority alone does not make A suitable. No new format has been accepted in this branch.

For whichever offer is accepted, follow the delivery through and check the maps against the requirement actually agreed. If the colleague can find the price but not the specification, put the current brief where they can use it before the next disruption.

Authority must reach the exception.

The memoir’s replacement-vehicle example gives the employee a defined allowance, then considers a solution that exceeds it. The next person needs to exist in practice, with access to the relevant information and a way to respond while the customer still has useful options.

That distinction matters whenever a procedure ends with seeking approval. From whom? For which commitment? What should happen while the answer is pending? A line on an organization chart does not resolve a situation if the named manager is also unavailable.

The book further distinguishes preserving an option from making a lasting commitment. A colleague might be able to arrange an immediate protective step while a different person must approve a settlement. Treating both as expenses of similar size can conceal the more important difference between them.

Stay with the situation after approval.

A customer can accept an alternative that never arrives. A refund can be authorized but remain unfinished. The point where a decision is made is therefore not necessarily the point where the responsibility ends.

An invented shift change

An event-equipment supplier has promised delivery by six in the evening. Its van is unavailable. The outgoing dispatcher has approval to use a courier within an agreed limit and leaves at four. A note saying the courier is approved would leave the next dispatcher guessing whether it was booked.

For this paper rehearsal, give the incoming dispatcher the following note. The company, times and circumstances are invented; they are not another incident from PCH.

Ask the colleague to point to the next action, the permission supporting it and the fact that would change the plan. If they must ask what the original dispatcher meant, improve the note. If a decision is needed but no available person can make it, improve the arrangement behind the note.

Change one condition before calling the rehearsal complete.

Now make the courier’s quote exceed the allowance, or make the duty manager unavailable. Do not have the founder quietly supply the answer. The colleague needs a real alternate route for the larger decision while continuing any preparation already within their role.

Then suppose the customer refuses a later delivery. An internal approval to spend more has not changed what the customer accepted. The person handling the issue must bring that disagreement to someone who can decide what to offer next. This is where a procedure can look complete on the page and still leave the customer waiting.

Keep a short list of the gaps the rehearsal exposed: missing information, unclear authority, an unavailable decision-maker or work with no owner. For each, name one repair and who will make it. Run the affected part again after the repair. A rehearsal is useful when the next person can do something they could not do before.

The returning founder needs a handback too.

The founder can remember the business correctly and still misunderstand today's work. Things may have changed while they were away.

Consider a separate invented equipment-rental company. Before the founder's week away, customers collected every order. During that week, a manager accepted a delivery order within her authority. The customer expects the equipment on Tuesday between 10 a.m. and noon. The van and driver are booked for it; delivery has not happened.

At nine on Tuesday, the returning founder asks the driver to take office furniture across town. He expects customers to collect as before. Nobody has entered a wrong date or lost an instruction. He has not yet learned about the new commitment.

Before redirecting the van, he needs a handback from the manager: “The van and driver are assigned to the delivery accepted for 10 to noon today. Sending them elsewhere would leave that delivery without transport. I'm still handling the order.” That tells him what his instruction would interrupt, rather than merely saying the team has been busy.

He can leave the allocation in place and seek another arrangement for the furniture. The manager continues following the delivery through. Her booking and his acknowledgment do not establish that the customer received anything.

Extend your rehearsal to include the return. Write one instruction you would give from memory. Have the person handling the job identify the current commitment it would affect and what must be resolved before that instruction could proceed. Then amend the instruction. Learning what changed should inform your next move without making you the person handling the whole job again.

Look at the role after the problem is handled.

A capable employee can make an unfinished arrangement appear successful. If the same person repeatedly absorbs every gap, the company may have moved its dependence rather than reduced it.

Chapter 10 asks the owner to consider the support and team around the person who stepped in. Recognition and pay matter; so does a role that remains possible during a difficult week. The absence exercise is useful when it changes that ordinary arrangement, rather than becoming another test in which the strongest employee proves they can endure more.