I write at the end of a chaotic day in the UK, so I want to talk about systems.

I’m struck by how much personality traits can affect our approach to delegation, especially agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness. Might be worth running checks on ourselves.

I don’t believe in it. It revolves around prioritising what you think you have to do and practising techniques for sticking to those priorities. What it doesn’t do is challenge what you think you have to do.

For years I’ve asked people in my programmes to complete a Big 5 personality trait questionnaire, because it gets them thinking about how they tend to respond to situations. A quite distinct profile has emerged.

Steve is the boss and Jason reports to him. They’re locked in a “co-created pattern”, where Steve blames and demands, and Jason pleads and self-justifies. Here’s what that looks like.

Big results require big relationships. Are you trying to get something out of the ordinary done? If so, are your relationships big enough? I propose these four things make a relationship big.

In any delegation exercise, the two of you are going to meet with resistance because you’re stepping out of routine, out of the status quo. People won’t help, people won’t care, people will oppose. Here’s what you can do.

Executives I coach ask, “If I mastered the art of delegation, and relieved myself of the burden of doing everything, what actually would I do with my days?”

Giving advice is immensely satisfying. But it isn’t so great for people getting it, especially if it’s about a thorny, multi-faceted issue. What people need then is a high-grade conversation.

“I’d like to take a break from my life right now. Just two days. A day.” A friend said that after his central heating bit the dust, right as the cold snap struck. No heat or hot water, with teenagers, for a week.

A man on the radio talked about the breakdown he’d had five years ago. He thought his job was to increase pressure on his people, which is what his boss did to him, to such an extent that he couldn’t take it anymore.

When I talk to executives about delegation, a feeling of pessimism about the people around them usually bubbles to the surface. “You can’t get the staff these days,” and all that. I think this is an excuse for inaction.