The Hand-Off Matters
What gets lost between people often becomes the problem later.
In a relay race, the baton exchange can determine everything. The runners may both be strong. The strategy may be sound. But if the handoff is sloppy, the race can be lost in a second.
Work is full of handoffs too. One shift to the next. Engineering to operations. Project team to maintenance. Office to field. Leader to leader.
And a lot of problems don’t begin because somebody did poor work. They begin because something important wasn’t carried forward. A detail wasn’t mentioned. An assumption wasn’t challenged. A change wasn’t documented. A risk wasn’t explained clearly enough.
In high-risk environments, that matters. A good handoff is not simply, “Here’s where we’re at.” It’s: What changed? What still needs attention? What are you worried about? What does the next person need to know that may not be obvious?
Good leaders create a culture where handoffs are treated as part of the work, not as the five rushed minutes at the end of it. Because when information moves well, teams move well. And when it doesn’t, the next person often spends valuable time discovering something the previous person already knew.
The work may change hands. Responsibility for clarity shouldn’t.
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