Effective delegation strategies often break down—not from lack of effort, but from waiting for “perfect” systems before handing work over.
You didn’t hire to make life harder for your team.
You hired to lighten the load.
To reduce pressure.
To create space for everyone to breathe.
But instead…
Your team hold onto their tasks,
Delay the handover,
And stay overwhelmed—because it’s “not ready to delegate”.
Let’s name it for what it is: the perfection trap in disguise.
It’s easy to think the work needs to be perfect before it’s passed on.
But in most cases, that moment never arrives.
And the delay? It only prolongs the stress.
This episode of Systemize Your Success explores what causes teams to hold back—and how to support a smoother handover, even when things aren’t perfect.
🎙️ Inside:
- Why handing over “half-finished” systems is often better for everyone.
- How over-documentation can kill ownership.
- The simple mindset shift that unlocks delegation ease.
- Why a new hire is often the best person to build the system.
If the team’s still stretched even after hiring—this is probably why.
Let this be the moment where it starts to shift.
🎧 Listen to the full episode—and discover the small shifts that create big relief.
Because it’s not perfect processes that build freedom.
It’s shared ownership.
It’s systems that grow through doing—not waiting.
KEY TAKEAWAYS: Delegation Strategies That Build Ownership and Reduce Overwhelm
- Delegation Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect: When hiring a new team member, it’s important to recognise that the tasks being handed over may not be fully polished or documented. Therefore, accepting this reality can help reduce stress and facilitate a smoother transition.
- Support During Transition is Crucial: New hires may require hands-on support and guidance as they take on their responsibilities. For this reason, engaging in real-time conversations and providing immediate feedback can help them adjust and feel more confident in their roles.
- Encourage Ownership and Improvement: Moreover, allowing new team members to take on tasks that are still in development—something effective delegation strategies often encourage— can foster a sense of ownership. As a result, this encourages them to make improvements and feel more involved in the processes they are working on.
- Identify Opportunities for Process Improvement: When handing over tasks, it’s a chance to assess existing processes. Consequently, if a new hire struggles to complete a task on their own, it indicates that the process may need improvement for clarity and efficiency.
- Communicate Expectations Early: It’s essential to have discussions about delegation and task handover well before a new hire starts. By doing so, setting clear expectations and delegation strategies helps existing team members understand their role in the transition and ease any pressure they may feel about needing to have everything ready.
BEST MOMENTS: Insights on Delegation Strategies
00:01 – 💬 “When you make the decision to hire somebody new, it’s typically because you have too much going on in the business.”
02:14 – 💬 “I want my team to focus on areas that they feel are their zone of genius. I want people to love the work they do. So wherever I can, I try to create roles that fit their personality, their strengths, and avoid them having to do work which lies in their areas of weakness.”
05:51 – 💬 “Holding back because you feel it’s not quite polished enough is actually counterproductive.”
10:40 – 💬 “Often when we create guides or processes or documentation for our tasks, we forget how much we know. We forget all the stuff that we’ve spent years or decades on actually developing and learning.”
TIMESTAMPED OVERVIEW
00:00 “Effective Transitioning for New Hires”
06:38 “Embrace Imperfection When Delegating”
08:46 Empowering New Hires through Collaboration
Episode Transcript
Dr Steve Day: When you make the decision to hire somebody new, it\'s typically because you have too much going on in the business. You need extra capacity to do that work. Maybe you or your existing team members are feeling the pressure. You just not be able to perform at your best because you simply have too much going on. This new person should then reduce the stress and pressure on you and your existing team. But why is it that doesn\'t often happen in the beginning? What holds us back from actually just getting stuff off our plates and put onto their plate as quickly as possible, without increasing the stress of actually doing that?
Today I want to share a real life example of us going through this and some of the mistakes that we made. Some of the things that we could definitely have done better, and some things that we\'ve done well. This will be absolutely essential listening for anyone who is looking to hire somebody new into their business. To make sure that transition of being yourself as a solopreneur or existing team members and how you let go of work. How you get it off your plate onto that new person\'s plate in the quickest possible way. Without getting overwhelmed and stressed about it not being perfect. And before we get started, please remember to hit subscribe. To get more tips, tricks and cool stuff about living with more purpose, presence and freedom. Okay, so today has been inspired by real life events in our business recently.
Today was our new marketing assistant day one. And it\'s an exciting time we\'ve been waiting for for a number of weeks. My marketing manager has arguably been waiting for this for months. She\'s felt the pressure for quite some time. Eventually we decided, yes, now is the right time to bring someone else in. She can take over copywriting tasks. She can take over a lot of the repl purpose of her content. Looking more into things like SEO and getting into a bit more deeper stuff. In areas which my existing marketing person doesn\'t feel are her highest strengths. I want my team to focus into areas that they feel. There\'s their zone of genius.
I want people to love the work they do. So wherever I can, I try to create roles that fit their personality, their strengths. And avoid them having to do work which lies in their areas of weakness. Because when people work in their zone of genius, they get more done. They\'re happier and everything works well. The opposite is also true. So this was an opportunity for my existing brilliant marketing manager to offload some of the stuff she didn\'t feel was at the top of her game. Or was at the top of her ability field, so to speak. And to allow to have more time to focus on other stuff. It was meant to reduce stress. Today I had a welcome meeting with our new marketing assistant.
I jumped on to say, hey, welcome to the company. Let\'s have a look at your task board and see what you\'ve got on. It\'s really just a, like, fun. Get a feeling for how she was thinking about the work she\'s been delegated to her. And you know what her thoughts are going forward about how she\'s going to approach stuff. When I looked at her task board, there was almost nothing on it. There were a few recurring tasks. There was some stuff that was due on Friday. But today\'s Monday. There was nothing really for her to do over the next three or four days. I pinged a quick message to my marketing manager to find out what was going on. My marketing manager\'s response is why I\'m recording this episode.
Because it reminded me of exactly the feelings that I used to have when I bring someone new into the company. My feeling was that things had to be good enough to delegate that to somebody. So they can get on with it without my involvement. That\'s sort of like one of the mantras about creating systems. About creating operation manuals, about documented tasks. It\'s like, how can I eliminate the dependency on key persons within the business? That is an absolute like gold standard for systems. But the reality is that often when our staff are overwhelmed. When we just come up with new ideas too often. When we haven\'t got time to really document really efficiently and keep things up to date. Just because of the pressures of running a normal business. Things aren\'t often as polished as they could be.
Von, my marketing manager, wanted to hand over stuff in a way that made sense. It didn\'t overwhelm, that wasn\'t confusing, that it was complete, it was polished, it was nice. But that\'s not the reality. That\'s not where we\'re at. The reason we\'re not at that point with Von is because she\'s so overwhelmed with all the stuff she\'s trying to do. So why in her mind does she feel that she\'s now going to suddenly, out of nowhere, find the time to do something she\'s really struggled with? And it\'s not going to happen. It\'s not fair to assume that Vaughn would suddenly find this additional time. To finish off all this documentation that hadn\'t quite been done in the past. That wasn\'t my expectation.
My expectation, which I hadn\'t communicated well enough to Vaughn, is my responsibility. I don\'t think I did it well. It was to coach Vaughn. To say, the reason we\'re bringing this person in is to take off all of this work. Work that you haven\'t had time to document properly. It means that when you hand over this work, it\'s not going to be polished. There will be questions. You\'re going to have to support this person as they\'re starting to do it. But then once they\'ve got it, once they\'ve been through the process a couple of times, they\'re going to become the expert. They\'re going to have more time than you ever did to be able to focus on this stuff.
That\'s the reason we\'re hiring them in. Once they\'ve got it, once they know it and they\'ve made it their own, they can add value to it. Then they can document it fully, they are the one that can then record the polished videos, they can put the operation manuals together, they can build the process pipelines. Whatever else they need to do to make this into a polished systemized process. That\'s why we\'re hiring them. We\'re not expecting you to do a deep dive on the system side of stuff. You\'re never going to find that time.
Holding back because you feel it\'s not quite polished enough is counterproductive. It\'s going to make this situation more stressful. Instead of reducing the stress on your plate. It was so obvious in hindsight that I should have had that conversation before this person arrived. It should have been two or three weeks ago. When we started the hiring process. Speak to Von about how is she intending to hand stuff over. What are her thoughts about her existing work. What needs to be done so it\'s ready to be handed over. Start that process earlier. Get her mindset into delegating stuff that isn\'t perfect. Allow her to do this far more seamlessly.
Thankfully we caught it super early like literally on day one. I\'ve been able to have this conversation with Von now. We\'re going to be having a meeting tomorrow. We\'ll shift everything over and work on supporting the new person. Figuring out how to do all this stuff. Stuff that might not be perfect and polished. Rather than finishing or getting it all polished first. That is absolutely counterproductive in my eyes. The reason we\'re hiring this person is to actually get this stuff documented and finished off properly. Not for Vaughn to do it and then hand it over. That defeats the object.
The big take home really is that if it\'s you as a solopreneur or you\'ve got an existing team member. It\'s important to coach your existing team. When you are bringing somebody new in to help support you where you are feeling overwhelmed. It\'s unlikely you\'ve had the time to document that stuff really well. It\'s very unlikely it\'s polished. You\'re going to have videos and checklists all set up for it. If you did have time to do all that you probably wouldn\'t be overwhelmed. We\'ve got to accept that when we hand stuff over it\'s not going to be perfect.
It may still need some work. It may be version two. When actually in reality it\'s version five, it may involve hands-on training. That can be in the form of jumping on a zoom meeting. Talk through stuff. Maybe make some updates to checklists. Say oh actually yeah, we\'ve changed that. We don\'t do that anymore. We do this. Have a real conversation with somebody. Do that when handing stuff over. Let them figure it out and come back with questions. We can\'t find time that doesn\'t exist to polish and finish everything off. We don\'t have that time. It\'s got to come from somewhere.
So that\'s the big take home from today. You don\'t need things to be polished before you hand them over. Just make sure you\'re there to support the person as they\'re going through it. Over engineering or spending too much time on creating systems before handing them over has a secondary negative effect. If you hand something over and say this is polished and ready, people will feel uncomfortable about changing it.
They\'ll see the work you\'ve done and how much detail is in it. It may take confidence in that person to offer suggestions. Maybe after time they\'re with you. Before they start actually suggesting improvements. If you hand over something that\'s half finished or a skeleton of an idea, they\'ll feel ownership. Say, I want to work with you to create something fantastic from this. That gives them confidence. They feel part of the creation process. They\'ll make improvements as they go. Without thinking they\'re undoing someone else\'s work.
Handing stuff over that isn\'t polished allows them to improve it. They won\'t feel they have to ask for permission. They won\'t feel like they\'re breaking a tested system. Hiring someone new is one of the best opportunities to do process improvement. No matter how good you think it is documented or not. When you hand it to someone new that\'s the test. If they can do it without support and get the result, it\'s a good process.
If they can\'t, it\'s an opportunity to improve. Make it easier to hand over next time. It\'s also a chance for a fresh pair of eyes. They might add ideas or simplify. Often we forget what we know. We miss things when creating guides. A new person sees those gaps. It helps make things more concrete and easier to follow.
That\'s it. Tips and tricks for bringing someone else in. Make sure you\'re handing stuff over without overthinking it. Use this chance for process improvement. Develop your processes as you train the new person to do the work in your business.
Cool. That\'s it for today. Thank you so much for listening. Please remember to hit subscribe. Get more tips, tricks, apps and cool stuff. Learn how to live with more presence, purpose and freedom. Look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks very much.
VALUABLE RESOURCES
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ABOUT THE HOST
Steve moved to Sweden in 2015 and transformed how he ran his businesses—switching to a fully remote model. A former NHS doctor, with a background in computing and property investing, he now helps overwhelmed business owners systemise and outsource effectively. Through his courses and coaching, Steve teaches how to automate operations and work with affordable virtual assistants, freeing up time and increasing profits. He runs his UK-based businesses remotely with support from a team of UK and Filipino VAs, and is passionate about helping others build scalable, stress-free companies using smart systems and virtual support.
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