# Why handing over a job in a small business fails on day one [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) A handover fails when you confuse the person learning a role with the person responsible for it. First you assign, and only once you have watched them do it, you post. A handover fails the moment someone is given the title before they know how to do the work. A person learning a role needs to stand beside whoever is still responsible for it, and to take it over only after you have watched them do it. ## Assigned, not posted There is a distinction here that sounds technical and decides everything. A person who is still learning a role has not been posted to it. That person has been assigned to it. The difference is simple. Whoever is posted carries the responsibility, and whoever is assigned learns. That means that while they are learning, somebody else is still responsible for the role. The booklet calls a person in that position an apprentice. Suppose a new hire sits beside the bookkeeper for a few weeks. She is still responsible for the returns, and he is learning. He is never left alone with something he cannot yet do. **The posting comes only after you have watched them do it.** That has to happen in practice, not in theory. Most handovers fail right here. What usually happens is that the person gets the title on the first day, and everybody moves on. They are left facing work they cannot yet do, and nobody is standing next to them. And saying he will pick it up as he goes is not an assignment either. Because an assignment means two things: that somebody else is responsible in the meantime, and that this somebody is actually there. ## What happens when nobody stands beside them Suppose a garage owner who puts his son beside the lead mechanic for a month before the son works alone. At the same time the lead mechanic moves up to run a shift. Two months later the garage has two people who can do repairs, not one. The opposite is a travel agency owner who lets a long-serving bookkeeper go all at once, with nobody ever having stood beside her. For two whole months nobody in the agency knows how to issue a credit note, and a supplier is already threatening the account. The difference between them is that in the first case somebody stood next to the person who knew, before he was needed. ## Every role has a deputy There is also a systematic version of this idea, called the deputy system. A deputy is a second person who knows how to do someone else's role, even though they do not hold it. Under the system, every post has a deputy. Not only the senior ones, but every role that would stop something in the business if it stopped. It sounds wasteful, and it is not. The deputy is working anyway, in their own role. They simply know this one too. And that is what decides things when the holder is away, for a day, for a week or for good: somebody steps in and the business carries on. If the business has three people, it looks like this: each one is deputy to another, in a circle. Nobody adds a job. Everybody adds knowledge. Suppose a salon with three stylists, each of whom can also open and close the till. There is never a day there when the shop does not open. And any role without a deputy is a single point of failure, meaning one place where, if it falls, everything that depends on it falls with it. Most small businesses carry a few of these, and the owner knows exactly where they are. ## A chain where everyone who moves up leaves someone behind When this is done properly over time, a chain forms. The apprentice moves up into the role, and the person who held it before moves up to the next one, and straight away starts apprenticing whoever comes after. This is not just handing work over. **Everyone who moves up leaves behind someone who knows.** According to the booklet, whole industries have lasted for centuries on this alone. So in a small business, suppose the longest-serving employee is given the management. The person replacing her is trained by her, not by the owner, because she is the one who knows the work. Suppose a café where every new bartender learns from the bartender before him. The owner has not worked a training shift in two years. There is one more reason to start early. Getting a person from standing beside a role to being ready for it takes weeks, not two days. And if you are already in a crisis, you do not have those weeks. Suppose a shop owner who starts assigning a second person to the orders desk, for no pressing reason at all. Four months later the first one moves to another city, and the changeover takes a day. The opposite is a restaurant trying to hand over stock control in three days, just before a holiday. After that the stock figures come out wrong for a whole month. This chapter has two short exercises in the booklet, spot it and do it. The practice section at the end of the booklet also has an exercise called assign. A role is not handed over in one day or in one document. It is handed over when someone has stood long enough beside the person who knows, and you have watched them do it. - [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/why-job-handovers-fail) · [Español](https://theonlyaxelj.com/es/study/articles/why-job-handovers-fail)