# How many roles one person can hold, and which to keep apart [Home](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en) › [Study](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study) › [Articles](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study/articles) author: [Axel Jedlitschka](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/about) published: 2026-10-08 updated: 2026-10-08 language: en reading time: 5 min topic: Organization source booklet: [Your Hat](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/your-hat) You can put several roles on one person when they share a pole, but production and organising on the same head means the organising never gets done. One person can hold more than one role, and that is not necessarily a problem. The problem starts when two roles that pull in opposite directions end up on the same head, because then one of them never gets done. ## Working alone is a state, not a failure When a small-business owner handles everything personally, that is not a deviation from the norm. It is a defined state, and it has both a name and an answer. The answer is not to stop, and it is not to carry on like this forever either. You can keep working alone and, in the same period, train up your people. That also removes guilt you do not need. Doing everything is not the failure. The failure is doing everything while training nobody in the meantime. But once you start handing roles out, or holding several yourself, a different question comes up. Which roles can share one head, and which have to be kept apart? ## Two kinds of double hat A hat is the role itself, together with everything needed for someone else to hold it without you. A double hat is one person holding more than one role, and it comes in two entirely different shapes. Only one of them is safe. **A sideways double hat** is two roles at the same level. Two production positions, say, or two kinds of work running side by side. Most of the time that works fine. Suppose a shop where the same employee works the till and also restocks the shelves. Both roles are production, both sit at the same level, and there is no problem at all. **A vertical double hat** is a role plus the role above it in the chain. You are the one doing the work and also the one supervising it. According to the source, this is a sure way to live under stress. The reason is clear once you stop and think about it: you cannot supervise yourself. Either you will always find yourself an excuse, or you will wear yourself down with self-criticism that never ends. Suppose a studio owner who does the design work and then signs off on that same design with the client. Each job drags on for double the time, since he never manages to call it finished. ## The same-pole rule There is one rule in this chapter that is easy to remember: when two hats go on one person, they belong on the same pole. Production is the work itself, like the till, the shelves or building the product. Organising is work on the business: stopping, putting things in order, building the company. Two production roles together is reasonable. A production role together with an organising role is never acceptable. The reason is that the two pull against each other. Production pushes you to do more, right now. Organising asks you to stop and sort things out. One person carrying both will pick production every time, because it is urgent, and the organising simply will not happen. **This is also the exact reason you never get round to writing your hats.** Writing a hat is organising work, and it competes for the same hours as the work a customer is waiting for. Suppose a clothes shop owner who manages the cash flow and also does the selling on the floor. While she is on the floor, the paperwork piles up. Then a cheque to a main supplier bounces, because that week nobody was standing on the money pole. The opposite is the founder of a small startup who sees that one day cannot hold both product work and company building. He separates the two hats in time, and sets one fixed day a week for organising only. His team starts to know when to come to him, and for what. ## A covered role is still an open role When someone holds a role on top of their main one, that role is not really filled. It is held from above, meaning someone is covering it for now rather than holding it. The distinction shapes how you see your own business. Write down that someone is on it, and you stop searching. Write down that it is only covered for now, and you see an open slot, so you catch the moment it begins to bleed. Suppose a garage owner who noted that purchasing was handled, when in fact it was him, squeezed in between repairs. Two years went by without him searching for anyone, and parts ran short month after month. The opposite is a salon owner who wrote the bookings desk down as covered by her, not as filled. Six months later she hired someone for it, because the slot stayed visible on her list rather than quietly vanishing. The booklet gives this chapter two short exercises, called analyse and spot it. In the practice section at the end you will also find one called your own hat. So the question is not how many hats you wear. The question is which of them sit together on your head, and which one never gets its share of your time. - [Your Hat](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/your-hat): A way to turn a role into something that can be handed over, and a check that tells you whether it actually landed. --- [עברית](https://theonlyaxelj.com/he/study/articles/how-many-hats-one-person-can-wear) · [Español](https://theonlyaxelj.com/es/study/articles/how-many-hats-one-person-can-wear)