The Handoff Moment

In the conference room this morning, I watched faces tighten as we discussed a client relationship at risk. The instinct was immediate — add more processes, create more checkpoints, layer on more reviews.

But something wasn't quite right about that response.

What if the answer wasn't more complexity, but a different kind of attention? Not broader processes, but deeper presence at a specific point: the handoff.

Every time work passes from one person to another, there's a moment of vulnerability. A detail that seems obvious to the sender might be invisible to the receiver. An assumption that doesn't travel with the deliverable. A context that gets lost in translation.

These micro-moments — these handoffs — are where excellence either compounds or crumbles.

The fascinating pattern?

When we rush through transitions to save time, we often create time debt that comes due with interest. Every shortcut at a handoff point tends to generate rework that takes 3x longer to fix than if we'd simply paused for proper transmission.

It's like a pit stop in a race: briefly slowing down to ultimately go faster.

The places where we think we can't afford to slow down are precisely where we can't afford not to.

I wonder if true efficiency isn't about the speed of individual segments, but about the quality of the connections between them...