{"id":83817,"date":"2026-09-01T14:21:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T04:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=83817"},"modified":"2026-09-01T17:14:01","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T07:14:01","slug":"do-it-delegate-it-or-dump-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2026\/09\/01\/do-it-delegate-it-or-dump-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Do It, Delegate It or Dump It"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Advisers struggling to find enough hours in the day might benefit from asking a simple question about every task they perform: Should I do it, delegate it or dump it?<\/p>\n<p>That was the message from Kiwi risk specialist adviser, <strong>Brian Burgess<\/strong>, (<a href=\"https:\/\/swainwoodham.co.nz\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SwainWoodham Group<\/a>) who shared with delegates at the <a href=\"https:\/\/globalconference.mdrt.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2026 MDRT Global Conference<\/a> in Sydney last week how he transformed the way he works by becoming more disciplined about where he spends his time.<\/p>\n<p>In a joint presentation with his business partner, <strong>Corey Williams<\/strong>, Burgess said the pressure he had been experiencing in his advice business wasn\u2019t simply the product of wanting to grow. It was because he was \u201c\u2026spending far too much time in the wrong part of the business.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His solution was to develop a filter for assessing the multitude of tasks competing for his attention, measuring each against three criteria:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Passion<\/li>\n<li>Productivity<\/li>\n<li>Profitability<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>According to Burgess, tasks scoring highly across those three measures probably required his personal attention. Those sitting somewhere in the middle could potentially be supported or delegated, while those scoring poorly prompted a more confronting question: \u201cWhy am I still carrying this?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Advisers run out of capacity<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Most advisers don&#8217;t run out of ambition. They run out of capacity&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Burgess told his peers the issue for many advisers was not a lack of ambition: \u201cMost advisers don&#8217;t run out of ambition. They run out of capacity,\u201d he said, adding:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey keep adding more. Doing more. Carrying more. But they don&#8217;t always stop and ask, should this be mine to carry?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This led Burgess to the second part of his framework \u2013 the three Ds:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Do it<\/li>\n<li>Delegate it<\/li>\n<li>Dump it<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Burgess\u2019s own experience with life insurance applications offered a particularly relevant example.<\/p>\n<p>After many years as a risk specialist adviser, Burgess told delegates he had reached the point where he simply no longer wanted to complete applications with clients.<\/p>\n<p>He rated his passion for completing applications at a tongue-in-cheek \u201cminus 8,652\u201d, despite acknowledging the task rated highly for both productivity and profitability.<\/p>\n<p>The answer was to delegate it.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_31419\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-31419\" style=\"width: 2290px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31419 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/riskinfonz.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/BB-CW-4-scaled-e1788235242826.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2290\" height=\"1242\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-31419\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Christchurch adviser, Brian Burgess, sharing his priorities with 4,500 of his peers last week at the MDRT Global Conference in Sydney when it comes to completing life insurance applications. Ultimately, a simple message: Get very clear on what deserves your time and what doesn&#8217;t.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>More time for clients<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Burgess said the change ultimately extended beyond himself, with Williamson and then other advisers in the business also ceasing to personally complete life insurance applications.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, team members were trained to undertake the process and became better at it than the advisers themselves.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe clients had a better experience. The advisers had more capacity. And we freed up time to focus on the things that we love doing \u2013 and the things that brought the best results,\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For Burgess, one of those things is seeing clients.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a passion for me. It\u2019s productive. It\u2019s profitable. And so I do it. And do lots of it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The lesson, he stressed, isn\u2019t to delegate everything. Rather, it is to protect the work where the adviser brings the most value.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDelegation is not laziness. It\u2019s not avoidance. It\u2019s structure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt means directing an adviser\u2019s best energy towards the work they do best \u2013 and building a team and systems around the rest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As Burgess put it: \u201cNot everything deserves direct access to your time.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_31418\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-31418\" style=\"width: 2500px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31418 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/riskinfonz.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/260901-BB-CW-1-e1788235484412.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2500\" height=\"980\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-31418\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Burgess (R) and his business partner Corey Williams shared separate experiences with MDRT Global Conference delegates around the development of their business and advice processes, but under one common theme that while pressure can create performance, it is systems which create sustainability&#8230;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Advisers struggling to find enough hours in the day might benefit from asking a simple question about every task they perform: Should I do it, delegate it or dump it? That was the message from Kiwi risk specialist adviser, Brian Burgess, (SwainWoodham Group) who shared with delegates at the 2026 MDRT Global Conference in Sydney [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":83819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[282,241,7734,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-associations","category-conferences-and-events","category-featured","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83817"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83829,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83817\/revisions\/83829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}