Proceed until apprehended
Proceed until apprehended is a delegation philosophy: give capable people a clear brief, then let them act on their own judgement without asking permission, until something genuinely needs to stop. The boundaries are real but implicit — good people find the edges by moving, not by reading a policy. For an executive with ADHD it has a second function: it removes you as the bottleneck on the decisions you were never realistically going to get to.
The problem as you experience it
Every delegation framework you have been taught assumes a manager who enjoys sustained, detailed oversight — weekly one-to-ones with prepared notes, milestone reviews, a tidy cascade of objectives. That manager does not have your brain. So you oscillate between the two failure modes: micromanaging in bursts when a project catches your interest, and total radio silence when it does not. Your team experiences this as weather.
The answer is not to fake the oversight. It is to change the contract.
The practice
The standing order I give capable people is exactly four words: proceed until apprehended. A clear brief, an outcome, and then genuine licence — act on your own judgement, spend within sense, do not queue outside my door for permission. The boundaries are real but implicit: material money, anything touching reputation, anything you would not want to explain afterwards. Good people find those edges by moving, and they move faster than any framework allows.
Two conditions make it safe. First, hire people better than you at every function — the philosophy only works when “their judgement” is genuinely good, and mine is not the best in the building at anything except this. Second, keep a rhythm that catches problems without surveilling people: every meeting has a note-taker feeding a central sheet, and a rotating leadership system means every member of the team runs meetings on rotation. The information flows whether or not I am having an attentive week.
And one warning, paid for honestly. I once ran this philosophy on a direct report who, I now believe, had undiagnosed ADHD himself. I gave him licence when what he needed was structure; I read his silence as competence. He resigned, and I understood all of this only at the exit interview. Proceed until apprehended is a contract for people who thrive on trust — it is neglect when applied to someone who is drowning quietly. The 10-minute quick chat exists so that the people who need more of you can take it without having to ask for a meeting called “help”.