Push recommendations up, not problems
Require reports to bring a recommendation alongside any problem — it’s a delegation practice, not just a time-saver.
Key takeaways
- What it is: 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.
- Evidence: Plausible mechanism, limited direct outcome data.
- Avoid: 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.
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
- 1Establish a team norm: no problem comes up without a proposed solution, even a rough one.
- 2When someone brings you only a problem, ask "what would you do?" before offering your own answer.
- 3Resist the reflex to short-circuit their thinking with your answer — let them work through it with you asking questions.
- 4Praise the quality of reasoning in recommendations, not just whether you agree with the answer.
What the evidence says
MechanisticLearning 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.
Honest caveat: The "bring a recommendation" norm is practitioner advice; its direct effect on delegation quality or team capability has not been isolated in controlled studies.
- — Bjork (1994), Memory and Metamemory Considerations in the Training of Human Beings, in Metcalfe & Shimamura (Eds.)
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.
IX Coach coaches you on how to respond when a report brings you a problem alone, offering specific language to redirect toward their recommendation without being dismissive.
Practice this with IX Coach →