Transitioning Team Roles

An owner I worked with finally did the smart thing — hired an operations manager specifically to take some of the business off his plate so he could step back a little.

She shadowed him for two weeks. Good two weeks, lots of nodding, lots of “got it.” Then he handed her the keys and went back to running things his way, just with someone new copied on the emails.

Six months later she quit, frustrated, telling him honestly that she'd never actually been given the business — just a front-row seat to watching him run it. Nothing had been handed off. Nothing had been documented. She was expected to absorb it by osmosis, and it didn't work.

He was right back where he started, except a year older and one more hire poorer.

If you tried to hand your role to someone tomorrow, could you actually teach it to them — or would they just be watching you do it?