In this episode of Under The Covers, the hosts discuss the "4D mix" framework from the Clockwork system, outlining four progressive levels of business operation that owners and leaders should move through: Doing, Deciding, Delegation, and Designing. They explain each level in detail, highlighting common traps—especially the tendency to stay in the Deciding stage where the leader answers every question, creating dependency and distraction. The conversation then moves to Delegation, emphasizing the shift from assigning tasks to assigning outcomes and empowering team members to make decisions, even if they sometimes err. Designing is presented as the highest level, where the entrepreneur focuses on vision, future‑oriented planning, and choreographing resources (people, clients, vendors) to achieve strategic outcomes efficiently. The hosts also introduce a fifth D—Distraction—credited to Adrienne Dorison, the sole licensee of Clockwork, noting that intentional breaks are essential for sustainable productivity and preventing burnout. Throughout, practical advice is offered for leaders to recognize their current level, avoid the Deciding trap, and progressively adopt delegation and design thinking while allowing for healthy distractions.
Chapters
That's all Spanish. What's the question? What are we going to dig into today?
So my question today is, in Clockwork you talk about a 4D mix. What is the 4D mix?
I love the serious eye squint at the end. What is the 4D mix? So I believe there's 4 levels that a business will migrate through, and the owners and the leaders of the business The core level of every business is called the doing level. Actually, we're doing right now. This is where you're producing something for the benefit of your client or doing work that supports the deliverable to a client. So the marketing, the administrative work, all that stuff is doing activities, the frontline of the business. The next level up is called deciding. You've been in this, can become a trap.
Mm-hmm.
Deciding is where you assign a task to someone and then when they have questions about the task, they come back to you for for your answers. And while in the beginning it's very easy just to give them quick answers and keep them moving along, you're simply giving tasks to people but you're not giving them control over the outcomes. So they become very dependent upon you and it becomes distracting. You know, all you do is answer questions all day and you can't wait till everyone leaves so you can actually get your work done. Be careful of that. You have to move through that phase, but it can become a trap if you're deciding for everybody. Next level up is called delegation. Delegating or delegation is the assignment not of tasks the assignment of outcomes. It's where you agree with your colleague, this is what we need to achieve, and you get us to that point, but you make decisions around how to get us there. And when they do come to you with a question, it's your responsibility to reflect or deflect that question back upon them and make them decide. Make sure you empower all their decision-making. Sometimes they're gonna, sometimes they're gonna make bad decisions. You need to support all the decisions. Just not like super risky decisions. Like, you know, where it puts your business at risk, then you have to coach them through that. But empower them to make decisions, and mistakes are okay. Okay.
Excellent.
And then the last and the highest level is called designing. Designing is where you have a clear vision and you're thinking futuristically. Where's the business going? How can we serve our clients? What do we need to change today to achieve the outcomes we want tomorrow? That's where the vast majority of the entrepreneur's time should develop into, this visioning, and then it's choreographing all the resources around you, your people, your clients, even your vendors to achieve that outcome as succinctly, or I should say as efficiently as possible. That's what the 4 D's are.
Perfect.
There's a 5th D. What is it? It's called distraction.
Well.
And this is, you know, Adrienne Dorison, who is the licensee, the sole licensee of Clockwork, she owns a business called Run Like Clockwork, they teach the system, found this 5th D and it's actually necessary. Distraction is where you have a break in just doing work. And the big fallacy is to think that people are gonna come into your office and work 8 hours 8 hours solid. You as the entrepreneur, you sure as heck don't. And to expect that of other people, it's, it's almost like inhuman. We need to recharge. So it's the conversations we have, it's the Facebook time or whatever. You need those breaks.
Midday wine time.
Apparently my wife does that. I didn't really realize. Um, but we get those little breaks so we can recharge and push forward. So that's what the 5th D is.
