You Need Two Hands on the Baton

In a relay race, you need two hands on the baton for a successful handoff.

You might not know this about me, but in high school, I was a sprinter. The fastest white boy at my high school, in fact.

And on our relay team, we practiced our handoffs over and over. This seemingly simple task, is quite tricky in practice.

🏃‍♂️‍➡️ One runner is at full speed.
🏃‍➡️ The other has to accelerate from a standstill and match that speed at the exact right moment.
🤝 Both runners must have a firm grip on the baton before one let's go - otherwise it's dropped and the team is disqualified.

In the workplace, we often use metaphors like throwing and catching to describe teamwork. But in my experience, that only works when roles are clear and tasks are routine. When the receiver is expecting the pass and ready to for it.

In hectic or chaotic environments (quite common in scaling businesses), where the work is neither standard nor expected, if you "throw" the work, it will almost always get dropped.

That’s when two hands are required for the handoff.

Here's how that looks in practice.

1️⃣ When assigning or delegating work, let your teammate get up to your speed.
2️⃣ And most importantly, don't let go of the baton (your accountability) until you've confirmed they have a firm grip.

Be honest - have you ever tossed an assignment or project to someone just expecting them to "catch and run with it"? And were you then frustrated when they dropped the ball?

If so, maybe the real issue was letting go of the baton too soon.