Five Easy Pieces

In this 1970 movie, Jack Nicholson’s character, Bobby Dupea, orders a plain omelet and a side order of wheat toast at a diner. The waitress tells him they don’t have toast as a side. So, he orders a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast—but asks for no mayo, butter, or lettuce and then tells her to “hold the chicken” to get the toast he wants.

The funniest part is in the middle of the exchange: the waitress says, “I’m sorry, we don’t have side orders of toast. I can give you an English muffin or a coffee roll.” Bobby says, “What do you mean, you don’t have side orders of toast? You make sandwiches, don’t you? You have bread, don’t you, and a toaster of some kind?”

This is a perfect example of a front-line person following the rules blindly even when the rules don’t serve the customer. The waitress knows what the customer wants but does not have the power (or willingness) to make it happen. As an aside, Five Easy Pieces is a haunting portrait of alienation that features one of Jack Nicholson’s greatest performances.

Former Navy captain David Marquet says that in too many organizations, the people at the top have all the authority and none of the information, while the people on the front line have all the information and none of the authority.

As leaders, we have a responsibility to push authority to where the information is rather than creating a hierarchical system that relies on a centralized command structure.

This breakdown happens because of fear. Fear of mistakes. Fear of someone making a bad call. Fear of losing control. So, we create rules and processes that theoretically protect us from error. But what we actually do is tie the hands of the people who are closest to the problem and best positioned to solve it.

Every single person in our organization has a customer. Maybe it’s someone who buys our products. Maybe it’s the person at the next workstation who needs your output. Maybe it’s the engineer counting on you to get them parts. Whoever it is, that person on the front line knows what their customer needs better than anyone sitting in a conference room.

Rules exist to serve purposes, not the other way around. When we lose sight of that, we get the toast problem. We have people robotically following procedures that actively work against what we’re trying to accomplish.

So how do we fix this? Here are five pieces to pushing authority down to where the information lives. They’re not easy, but they’re essential.

First, explain the why behind every rule and process. Don’t just tell someone what to do. Tell them why we do it that way. When people understand the purpose, they can recognize when flexibility serves that purpose better than rigid compliance. The waitress knew the purpose was feeding the customer what he wanted. She had bread and a toaster. The rule about side orders was getting in the way of the actual goal.

Second, create a genuinely safe space for judgment calls. This means celebrating good decisions even when outcomes aren’t perfect. If someone makes a thoughtful call based on serving their customer and it doesn’t work out exactly as planned, we don’t punish them for trying. We learn from it together. But if we hammer people every time something goes wrong, they’ll stop thinking and start hiding behind rules.

Third, ask the question regularly: “What would you do if I wasn’t here?” Then trust the answer. Most of the time, the person closest to the problem already knows what needs to happen. They’re just waiting for permission. Give it to them. This single question shifts the dynamic from dependence to ownership.

Fourth, define what people are responsible to, not just what they’re responsible for. There’s a difference. Responsible for is about tasks and compliance. Responsible to is about serving someone. When people know who their customer is and what that customer needs, they can make decisions that serve that relationship rather than just checking boxes.

Fifth, build trust through clarity, not control. This isn’t about blind trust or hoping for the best. It’s about being clear on expectations, clear on purpose, and then trusting people to use their judgment within that framework. When someone knows what they’re responsible to and why it matters, they don’t need someone standing over them.

I’m not saying we throw out all standards and let chaos reign. I’m saying we trust our people to use their judgment in service of the customer. The best solutions require trusting people to think.

That waitress could have made Bobby a piece of toast. She had everything she needed. What she didn’t have was the authority to apply common sense. We can do better than that. If we trust our people to serve their customers—whoever those customers are—because they have the information, they will make the right call the Bison Way.