The Handoff

Either you haven’t handed the work off yet, so every decision routes through you, or you handed it off on paper but never stopped touching it, so it routes back. Both end in the same place: you’re the bottleneck, and the team learned to wait. This is the whole handoff, from seeing what to give up to finally letting it go.

Most delegation fails because it’s a fumble, not a handoff. You shove work at someone and hope it sticks. No context, no coaching, no overlap. When it goes sideways you take it back, and that teaches your team ownership was never really theirs. A handoff is deliberate: the right work, to the right person, on one written page, with the overlap that makes it stick. And it isn’t finished when you assign it. It’s finished when you let go: you watch the standard, not the execution, and you stop taking it back.

1. List everything that runs through you. Mark each one KEEP (only you can do this) or HAND OFF (someone else should own it). Worksheet on page 2.
2. Circle the first one to hand off. Be honest about why you’ve held on: loyalty, control, or fear.
3. Get the process out of your head first. Put it on one page so what you transfer is a system, not a guess. That page is a Process Play. Build it on page 3.
4. Hand it off with overlap, not a fumble. Walk them through the page, let them run it while you watch, and coach with questions, not corrections.
5. Then let go. Stop checking. Stop adjusting. Let them run it for 30 days, their way, mistakes and all.
6. Watch the standard, not the execution. Judge the result in a weekly check-in. Coach it, don’t take it back. Track it on page 3.