In the early 2000s, Great Ormond Street Hospital in London — one of the world's leading centres for children's heart surgery — had a problem that had nothing to do with surgery. It was in the handover that followed, when a child was moved from the operating theatre to intensive care. A human-factors researcher observing those transfers counted an average of about five technical errors and two missing pieces of information per child. Everyone involved was an expert at their own part. The handover between them belonged to no one — the same gap that quietly undermines cross-functional teams in every industry.

The fix started on a Sunday, when surgeon Martin Elliott and intensive care consultant Allan Goldman, exhausted after a night of operating, watched a Formula One pit stop on television and recognized their own handover, done far better.

Ferrari stepped in — hosting the team at Silverstone and Maranello, and helping the hospital win the grant that restarted the work.

What came out of it was a seven-page protocol. A transfer form goes to intensive care thirty minutes before the child arrives. The handover then runs in three phases that never overlap: equipment first, then information delivered without interruption, then a discussion led by the receiving doctor. And it ends with a formal moment when ownership passes from the anaesthetist to the intensivist. Technical errors fell by 42 percent and missing information by about half, with no added time.

This video unpacks why that gap existed in the first place, what the protocol actually changed, and three ways to redesign the handoffs on your own team.

// CHAPTERS

0:00 Great Ormond Street Hospital

2:10 The most dangerous ten minutes in the hospital

4:08 The trouble with handoffs

5:54 The seven page protocol

9:05 The project that almost stalled

14:30 Making Better Handoffs Happen// LEADERSHIP LESSONS

- Every part performed by an expert doesn't add up to a handoff performed well — the seam between teams needs an owner of its own

- Watch the small slips, not just the big failures — nobody recovers from an error they never saw

- Sequence beats speed: move the assets, then transfer the context, then plan, instead of collapsing all three into one meeting

- Good design doesn't make your stars better, it makes the outcome less dependent on them having a good day// NEWSLETTER

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// SPEAKING

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// ABOUT DAVID

One of the world's leading business thinkers, David's forward-thinking ideas and bestselling books are changing how companies approach leadership, teamwork, and collaboration.

An organizational psychologist who serves on the faculty at Columbia University, Dr. David Burkus is the best-selling author of five books about business and leadership. His books have won multiple awards and have been translated into dozens of languages. Since 2017, David has been ranked multiple times as one of the world's top business thought leaders. His insights on leadership and teamwork have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, CNN, the BBC, NPR, and CBS This Morning.

David works with leaders from organizations across all industries, including PepsiCo, Fidelity, Adobe, and NASA. David's keynotes aren't just entertaining and enlightening, they're evidence based and immensely practical—offering leaders at all levels a set of actionable takeaways they can implement immediately.

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