Playbook No. 03

Stop being your team’s help desk

Your day disappears into questions. Sort the questions you get, turn the repeat answers into rules, and give your team the authority to use them.

Kevin KasaeiBased on episode 04

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Playbook No. 03 / BUSINESS

Your team stops asking you everything. You get your day back.

PLAYBOOKNo. 03

Stop being the help desk

BIZPLAYBOOKSBUSINESS

At a glance

Best for: Owners whose day gets eaten by questions from the team, so the real work only happens after everyone goes home.
Time to run: One week to track. One afternoon to set rules. Four weeks to stick.
You finish with: A one-page map of who can decide what, and a team that stops asking you things they already know the answer to.

01 The problem

Your phone buzzes. Can I give this customer a discount? Which job goes first? Is this OK to order? Each question takes a minute. Fifty of them take your whole day.

Worse, it trains your team to stop thinking. Every answer you give teaches them to ask again next time. Good people get bored and leave, and you end up doing your real work at night.

02 The numbers

Don’t guess where the questions come from. Count them for one week and sort them. The pattern is usually obvious.

Measure	How to get it	Why it matters
Questions per day	Tally every question that comes to you, in person, by text or by email, for five working days.	It’s your baseline. You’ll measure again in four weeks to see if it dropped.
Repeat questions	Group the questions by topic. Mark any topic that came up more than once.	Repeats are the easy wins. Each one can become a written rule your team uses without you.
Questions they could have answered	For each question, ask yourself: did they already know enough to decide? Mark the yes ones.	These aren’t knowledge gaps. They’re permission gaps, and you fix them by saying it’s their call.

Rule of thumb
When someone asks you something, ask back: what would you do? If their answer is good, say do that, and next time don’t ask.

03 The steps

1
Log every question for a weekWho: you. Time: one week. Done when you have five days of questions written down with who asked and what about.
2
Sort them into three pilesWho: you. Time: one hour. Done when every question is labeled: they decide, they decide and tell me, or I decide.
3
Write the rules and share the mapWho: you and your team leads. Time: one afternoon. Done when the team has a one-page decision rights map and you’ve walked them through it.
4
Redirect every question for a monthWho: you. Time: four weeks. Done when you’ve counted questions for another week and compared it to your first count.

Do this this week

Keep a sticky note on your desk and make a tally mark every time someone asks you something. Write a word or two next to each mark. On Friday, circle the ones you’ve heard more than once.