The Demand

Before your next Ten-Minute Close, you run the diagnostic: which of the four override patterns — Public Override, Silent Redo, Walk-Through Adjustment, Retroactive Standard — ran this week. If any of them did, the question is not whether the hire failed the standard. It is whether the standard was documented, known, and fair before you applied it.

The Work

  1. Review your interactions with each direct report from this week. Check for the Public Override: did you reverse their call in front of the cast or a Guest, out loud, with witnesses.
  2. Check for the Silent Redo: did you re-perform their work without a conversation, without naming the missed standard.
  3. Check for the Walk-Through Adjustment: did you make a string of small, individually defensible corrections throughout a shift that collectively signal you never left their domain.
  4. Check for the Retroactive Standard: did you name a rule only after it was missed, one that existed only in your head and not in writing or training.
  5. If you find any of the four this week, go back to the hire and name it directly — acknowledge the pattern and restore the domain.
  6. For any Retroactive Standard you find, document the standard in writing this week so it cannot be applied retroactively again.

Before your next Ten-Minute Close, you name which of the four patterns ran this week and correct it with the hire involved.