Handoffs Don’t Require a Title

In many organizations, an enormous amount of time and energy is wasted by sloppy handoffs. Effective requests and delegation require the confidence to hand off tasks to the people best equipped for the task, regardless of their role or title. Ralph and Bill discuss the importance of getting past hierarchy and making the task the boss.

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Bill Berthel: Welcome to the Get Emergent Podcast, where we discuss leadership, team and organizational topics and best practices. We like to provide ideas, concepts, and pragmatic experiments to help you develop your potential in your work and leadership. I’m Bill Berthel.

Ralph Simone: And I’m Ralph Simone.

Bill Berthel: Ralph. Today’s episode has us talking about making really clean handoffs.

Ralph Simone: Yeah, a big opportunity. I have a lot of energy on this because I think a lot of time and energy is wasted because many of our handoffs and organizations are sloppy. Think about in terms of a football quarterback. You know, sometimes the quarterback hangs on to the ball too long. I think a lot of leaders, a lot of people in organizations hang on to the task way too long.

They’re not willing to offload it or delegate it, or we give it to the wrong person. Or when we give it to ’em, we do it in such a sloppy way that the ball gets dropped. And I think that we also have to keep in mind that sometimes hierarchy and titles get in the way of handing the ball off to the right person.

And so we’re all, we’re gonna talk about all of that in today’s podcast.

Bill Berthel: You know, I, I don’t follow football, but there is something really beautiful about a clean pass, a really tight, clean, accurate paths that, has to feel good to the whole team.

Ralph Simone: We’re talking about executing. Yeah, we’re talking about identifying what’s most important and handing it off to the person or persons best able to execute it.

And that requires, I think, a couple things. Purpose, right, and, and clarity of what you’re handing off. Yeah. I read an interesting quote in a book, I’m just finishing up called Attitude Written by Jay Wright, the former Villanova University basketball coach, and I think he was quoting the priest who was, like the team’s spiritual advisor.

And the quote was, everyone’s role is different. Their status is the same. And that really resonated with me for making better handoffs. And that handoffs don’t require a title. Right? So everybody in an organization, right, their their role is different. But their status is the same. They have this unique gift, this unique ability to contribute to the organization.

And And people value it. People value it. You know, sometimes I think that hierarchy, and informal caste systems get in the way of asking for what’s needed and asking the person that you need it, of it, it gets in the way.

Bill Berthel: I bet that gets in the way in all directions that you know that, that hierarchy of, can I hand something off to my boss?

Can I trust someone, quote unquote, under me to hand this off to I, I bet that structure gets in the way in all directions.

Ralph Simone: Absolutely. And so, you know, everybody has a responsibility. Reminds me of a, of a story which a former employer place I worked. This is where hierarchy gets in the way. I was invited to participate in a.

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