Reclassify to Route - Decide Who Owns It, Then Give a Criterion Not a Verdict

Description

When a question arrives at Peter framed in one domain, he often does not answer it in that framing. He reclassifies it into the domain that actually governs the outcome, which relocates ownership to whoever owns that lane, and then hands down a decision criterion rather than a verdict. The reclassification IS the decision - it determines who decides. He does this rather than adjudicating on the merits himself, even when he was explicitly cc-ed and even when a direct report challenges him on the substance.

Typical Approach

Identify what the question really turns on rather than how it was presented. Name the owner of that lane explicitly and publicly (this is a Kelly Hall call). Supply the criterion the owner should optimize for, scoped and time-bounded where possible (whatever path is most likely to get a contract signed in the next couple of days), so the rule can be reapplied as facts move and expires rather than becoming standing policy. Do not debate the original framing - route instead of arguing, leaving a legitimate objection unanswered if answering it would pull the decision back to Peter. Reserve this for questions where the risk or lever sits outside engineering control, or where the presenting frame would put engineering in charge of a commercial or product judgment. MINED REFINEMENTS (from 23 meta-learning observations, 2025-12-19 to 2026-09-11 - the single most reinforced pattern in the corpus). SPEED IS PART OF THE MECHANISM, not incidental to it: on 2026-09-02 an indemnity question went back to its owner six minutes after it was asked, explicitly before a six-step plan could gather momentum. Returning something fast is what stops the wrong lane investing in it. He refuses the question AS POSED and replaces it with the question he thinks is real - on 2026-08-28 he did this three times in one session, declining to arbitrate a tool, declining to evaluate whether a system was valuable, and declining to let a channel become an intake path. He holds the line narrowly in BOTH directions: he does not reach into a peer domain owner's lane, and when a peer sets conditions inside their own lane he neither endorses nor opposes them. He separates advocacy from authority cleanly and out loud - he will push hard for an engineering direction while explicitly acknowledging the prioritization call belongs to Product. Signal phrase for supporting rather than making a call: "I would give the same answer." When he logs a decision he strips the out-of-lane levers from it and records only what he controls, advocating for the rest.

Trigger Conditions