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Key Takeaways
- When progress within a company slows, leaders often blame their teams and pressure them to move faster. But slow execution is rarely a matter of effort. It’s more a matter of clarity.
- The clarity usually breaks at the transfer point long before anyone even notices the impact. When the handoff fails, everything else slows down, even if the team is working hard.
- A transfer must answer three fundamental questions: Who owns the next step? What does ‘finished’ look like? When will the next step be completed?
Work within a company moves from one person to another and from one group to another. These transitions seem small, but determine the speed and confidence of everything that follows. When they go well, the job generally feels smooth. But when things go wrong, teams feel stuck, even though everyone is really trying.
I remember a time when I supported a team that cared deeply about doing good work. They have prepared well and certainly put in the time. They did everything they could to move their projects forward every day. As progress continued to slow and leaders began to wonder why simple tasks were taking so long, it caused frustration.
From the outside it looked like there was a performance problem, but within the team it felt like a trust problem. People were just tired of feeling watched or judged for delays not of their own making or making.
They wanted one simple thing, and that was for the work to proceed from start to finish without confusion or constant rework.
Related: Why Your Team Works Hard, Yet Moves Slowly (and How to Fix It)
Why leaders often solve the wrong thing
When work slows down, most leaders respond by asking for more effort or more updates. They schedule additional check-ins and strive for faster responses. It is a natural leadership response, but at the same time it focuses on the people rather than the system in which they work.
The reason for this is that slow execution is rarely a matter of effort, but rather a matter of clarity. And the clarity usually breaks at the point of transfer long before anyone even notices the impact.
This is what it looks like in practice.
A task leaves one person’s desk without a clear owner on the other side. Deadlines are then assumed instead of agreed. The definition of “done” shifts halfway through because no one has confirmed the requirements in the first place. Each step feels small on its own, but together they cause the delays that leaders blame the team for.
This is why the pressure cycle keeps repeating.
Leaders are urging the team to act faster. The team tries, but the gaps remain and the work continues to slow down.
What a clean transfer actually looks like
What does a clean transfer look like?
A transfer must answer three basic questions.
- WHO own the next step?
What does “done” look like?
When will the next step be completed?
In my experience supporting organizations from high-growth startups to Fortune 500 clients, I’ve found that most teams never make these questions explicit. They move the work forward with quick mentions, passing comments, or very vague updates. And it’s not because they are careless, but because no one has taught them how much these little moments matter.
A clean transfer does not involve more documentation. Ultimately, it is about shared agreements. Without those agreements, even the strongest teams feel disorganized.
Related: How to set expectations and get the performance you want from your team
A small change with a big impact
In the team I advised, tension had built up by the time we looked at the problem. People were working late and leaders still felt vulnerable when explaining delays to their own stakeholders. What they needed was a solution that blamed no one and yet could change the outcome.
Therefore, we reviewed one active project and paused it on each transfer. At each point we asked who owned the next step, what “done” meant, and when it would be completed.
Almost every answer revealed a missing match.
Special:
Seeing this overview was the turning point, as the team now realized that the problem was not a lack of skill or a lack of commitment. It was the invisible holes between them.
They agreed on a simple rule:
No task would progress until these three questions were answered out loud and written down. No exceptions.
The shift felt small; however, the impact was quickly felt. Here are three specific things I remember that stood out and were witnessed by everyone:
- Status meetings became significantly shorter because there was less confusion.
Backtracking was eliminated because expectations were clear.
Leaders didn’t have to hunt for updates.
The same people with the same tools suddenly had more momentum. A lot of.
One small agreement, properly implemented, changed everything.
Why does this problem continue to occur?
The question you may be thinking now is:If handoffs are so important, why do teams continue to struggle with them?“
Part of the answer is that leaders are trained to look at individual performance rather than system design. When something goes wrong, they look to the person closest to the delay, rather than the point where clarity is lost.
Another reason is that transfer problems often come to light late.
A missed agreement today will become a visible problem next week. By the time leaders notice, the moment that caused the problem has long passed, so the cause seems invisible.
The problem persists in three steps (usually):
- People get frustrated.
Leaders push harder.
The gap remains open.
And the cycle begins again.
How to fix transfers without slowing anything down
Can you fix broken transfers without adding or introducing heavy or burdensome processes and procedures? That is certainly possible, and here you can read how.
Start with one project that matters now and go through the next steps with the team. For each step, confirm who owns it, what completed means, and when it will be done.
These are simple agreements, unlike lengthy documents. Their job is to bring clarity to the moments that usually remain vague under normal circumstances.
Then bring this standard with you to your regular meetings.
When someone says he’s passing something along, pause and acknowledge the owner, the definition of “finished” and the date. It only takes a few seconds, but it saves days and sometimes even months.
This also reveals deeper patterns. One person may commit too much, or two groups may think they have taken the same step. You may also discover missing capacity or missing structure. All these insights are valuable because they help you fix the system, instead of reacting to the symptoms.
Related: Why Clear Leadership Beats the Latest Tools Every Time
Where AI fits and where it does not
Let’s add AI to the mix.
Many leaders want to use AI to accelerate execution, and there’s no doubt that AI can help, but it can’t solve unclear handoffs. If ownership isn’t clear, no tool can tell your team who is responsible. If the definition of “done” is vague, AI will help you produce more versions of the wrong thing. If data shifts without consensus, automation will only add to the confusion.
AI is very powerful; however, it only works well in systems that already have clarity built in. Therefore, correcting transfers today sets the stage for effective use of AI tomorrow.
Understand that your team is not the problem.
Your people care, and they want to act quickly. When you focus on the small handoffs that define the workflow, you remove the friction they didn’t create and give them what they need to deliver the results you expect and need.