True systems management isn’t about replacing people—it’s about creating the structure that stops everything from falling back on you.
When my client, Sarah, joined my program, she was burned out from managing her “growing” team.
From the outside, her business looked like it was thriving.
But behind the scenes?
She was stuck in the same loop every week:
Chasing updates.
Clearing bottlenecks.
Double-checking tasks she’d already delegated.
“I don’t get it,” she told me. “They’re smart. They care. So why does everything still fall back on me?”
Here’s what I told her:
You don’t have a people problem.
You have a structure gap.
Once that landed, everything changed.
We mapped her team’s responsibilities.
Clarified what “done” actually meant.
Built in rhythms for feedback, reporting, and progress tracking.
Suddenly, the questions stopped landing in her inbox—because the system started answering them first.
The result?
Less reactivity.
More accountability.
And for Sarah? More energy to lead with vision—not vigilance.
If this feels close to home—know this:
You don’t have to fix your team.
You just need the system that lets them thrive.
🎧 Listen to the full episode to discover the shifts that freed Sarah from constant firefighting—and how you can lead through systems, not stress.
KEY TAKEAWAYS: Boost Your Team’s Productivity and Accountability through Systems Management
- Shift from People Management to Systems Management: Transitioning from being solely a people manager to a systems manager can significantly enhance team productivity and motivation.
- Documenting Systems is Essential: Every business has systems, whether formally documented or not. So, creating clear, standardised processes helps team members understand their roles and responsibilities, reducing confusion and increasing efficiency.
- Encourage Problem-Solving: Implementing systems allows team members to become better problem solvers. Moreover, providing guidance on how to approach challenges and escalate issues fosters independence and confidence within the team.
- Focus on Personal Development: By freeing up time from managing tasks, leaders can concentrate on coaching and also, developing their team members as individuals. Consequently, this personal attention can lead to higher job satisfaction and improved performance.
- Positive Feedback and Recognition: Establishing clear systems enables managers to provide consistent positive feedback, which, as a result, boosts morale and encourages a culture of excellence.
BEST MOMENTS: Reflection on Systems Management
01:35 – 💬 “Every business has systems, whether you like it or not, or even know it or not.”
04:00 – 💬 “Your team will benefit from more personal growth because you're actually attending to their needs as an individual rather than as a worker or a cog in the whole system.”
05:09 – 💬 “Is it a people problem or is it actually that I haven't told them what they need to do, how to do it well, what good looks like, how to know done is done, and also, give them a way of actually overcoming the challenges they're going to meet along the way.”
TIMESTAMPED OVERVIEW
00:00 Standardise Processes for Business Efficiency
05:23 Implementing Problem-Solving Systems
07:16 Identify if issues are people problems or systems problems.
Episode Transcript
Dr Steve Day: In today\\\'s episode, I want to share a typical story. It exemplifies the shift in mindset needed to change how you manage your team. To become a systems manager rather than a pure people\\\'s manager. And to see what a drastic impact it can have on your team\\\'s productivity, their motivation, and ultimately the pride they have in the work they do with you. And do remember to hit subscribe so you don\\\'t miss out on future episodes. So you can live with more presence, purpose and freedom.
Okay, so today I want to share the story of Sarah. Now, Sarah is a typical client that joins our academy and comes with a host of problems that we try to fix. One of the problems that Sarah had was that she felt that she was just too involved in the day to day management. She was sort of the glue that was holding everything together. She was the go to person to fix any problems.
Anytime there was an issue with something not working, it was always coming back onto her to come up with a solution. The problem was that she was managing people without really taking ownership of the systems those people were using. Every business has systems, whether you like it or not, or even know it or not. If you\\\'ve not documented them formally and created all fancy flowcharts and all the rest of it, it doesn\\\'t matter. The systems still exist.
If you have clients, you have onboarding systems. You have serving systems. You have customer support systems. Those systems may just be you, but and maybe your staff just winging it, but they exist. Because you are serving clients. You are making money in your business. So those systems exist in every single aspect of your business.
The challenge is if those aren\\\'t formally documented, if they aren\\\'t standardized, if you aren\\\'t actually giving people a map to follow, then people do wing it. They make stuff up because they don\\\'t have anything to go on. They don\\\'t have any guidance that you have created and that you\\\'ve agreed on that allows them to know the way that you want your business run. This leads to huge inconsistencies in the way work\\\'s done.
It leads to procrastination with people not knowing which way they should turn. And it leads to loads of questions coming back to you because you haven\\\'t clearly defined what done looks like. What is good, like how do we measure success? If you can give your staff clear guidance on these key things. On how to know when something is actually finished and a way of giving them good feedback.
So they know if they\\\'re doing well or actually need to improve an area. If these things are built into your business, it means that those questions actually can disappear. When you start creating systems to guide people through their work and actually just documenting it. Simply to allow people to know what the next step is. To allow people to know how to escalate a problem and where that should be going.
To create, for example, knowledge bases so that people can find answers to their own questions without having to come to ask you. All of these little things add up to a business that runs far more efficiently with or without your involvement. That allows you to become a true people manager. We\\\'re not managing the work people are doing, but we\\\'re managing the people and their motivations.
We\\\'re actually trying to encourage them to improve them, to give them coaching. We can spend all our time on actually making sure our staff are performing at the highest level. That their aspirations are being met. That we are encouraging them to become the best versions of themselves. If we can spend our one to one time with our staff focusing on them as people and bringing them up, rather than actually spending all of our time trying to fix task based problems.
Which should be dealt with by your systems. Your team will benefit from more personal growth because you\\\'re actually attending to their needs as an individual rather than as a worker or a, you know, a cog in the whole system. You actually helping them develop themselves in a way they want to. But that will then obviously combat a knock on effect in a positive way on your business.
Because now you\\\'re encouraging people to be the best version of themselves they can be. To improve themselves in areas which obviously will then help your business. So you can find areas of interest to them that\\\'s going to serve you as well. You can focus on coaching them, developing those in those areas, on getting them to do training, etc. And all your time can be true people management.
Not. What typical managers do is to actually focus on tasks and on work rather than on actually developing the person. I think the most valuable work you can do with your team is to actually help them become the best they can be. To help them to enjoy their work more. To find the right work for them to do. And we can only do that if we have time and we\\\'re not fixing problems and putting out fires.
And answering questions the whole time we\\\'re actually spending with them. So my big shout out for today is to really look at your people in your business and say, look, is it a people problem or is it actually that I haven\\\'t told them what they need to do? How to do it well, what good looks like. How to know done is done. You know, and give them a way of actually overcoming the challenges they\\\'re going to obviously meet along the way.
Because challenges always come up. Is there a system for dealing with challenges? Is there a clear path to escalate problems in a meaningful way? Are there other resources available for them to go and actually try to find solutions themselves? Do you have guidance on what to do if they don\\\'t know how to do something like all of these things? If you just leave it to chance, people will just guess at what they need to do.
They\\\'ll go and do their own research in whatever way they see fit. Whereas if you actually spend some time putting these key things into place. So we\\\'re not trying to dictate every single step of every single process from day one. We\\\'re actually trying to teach our staff and our team to be better problem solvers. But to do that in a way that actually gets to a solution that we as business owners are happy with.
And it\\\'s not just sort of plucked out of thin air or, you know, just made up on the spot. If we have a process around how people approach problems, how they do their work, how they know what\\\'s done, all those things that I mentioned before, that can give huge amounts of clarity. Massive amounts of increase in productivity. It can allow people to feel much more pride in their work because they know they\\\'re actually doing the right work in the right way.
And it allows you hopefully to be able to give more positive feedback to encourage this and sort of this self perpetuating greatness. When they actually get positive feedback from doing good work, rather than the negative side of things where you have to actually correct and correct and correct. Which just chips away at morale, chips away at confidence. Whereas if we can flip that round and start actually giving them more positive feedback on a regular basis.
Because they have a system to follow, so they\\\'re generally doing work well. That is just like a catalyst for actually making the team more happy, more productive, and actually to work hopefully better together as well. Because they now feel more confident in just bringing their problems up. Because you\\\'ve got a system and a process to deal with them in a constructive way.
So that\\\'s it, that is my shout out for today is to say, look, try to look at your people and say, look, is it a people problem or is it actually a systems problem? Am I spending my time with my people focusing on the people aspects of them, or am I spending most of my time when I\\\'m with my people during my one to ones or your coaching sessions or whatever you do with your staff.
Am I spending my time during those meetings? On Is it staff, is it humans or is actually tasks? If it\\\'s tasks we need better systems. If it\\\'s people, you\\\'re on the right track. That\\\'s it. Go away. Have a think. How can I improve my systems to mean I can spend more time developing my team in ways actually improve the value that they bring to me as a business owner? It\\\'s a total win win. They\\\'ll love you for it.
You\\\'ll love them for it as well and you\\\'ll hopefully feel pride in your own self for being a better manager as a result. If you do want to find out more about how we can help you to put these systems in place. To allow people to have clear guidance on how they do what they need to do or who\\\'s doing it, where it needs to be done and what good looks like.
Putting metrics in place to measure performance to be able to help you then give great feedback to them. If you want to help with all of that, head over to join.sys.academy. And on there you\\\'ll find a link to the book, a call with me to have a chat about your business, about your systems, about where you\\\'re at and to see if we can actually help you.
And information about joining your our Academy as well, where you can actually come and join all of our clients and get access to all of our systems, all of our coaching, all of our courses to be able to actually put all this stuff in place in your business. That\\\'s it. Thanks very much for today. Please remember to hit subscribe and do share this with anyone else you know who runs a small business who you may feel may benefit from listening to this episode.
Thank you very much.
VALUABLE RESOURCES
- Systemize Your Success Academy: https://join.sys.academy/
LINKS TO CONNECT WITH THE HOST
- Podcast: https://www.systemizeyoursuccess.com
- Website: https://systemsandoutsourcing.com/
- Facebook Group: https://facebook.com/groups/systemsandoutsourcing/
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/systemsandoutsourcing/
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- YouTube: https://youtube.com/@drsteveday42
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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. Also, he is passionate about helping others build scalable, stress-free companies using smart systems and virtual support.
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