Winning with the baton exchange

In relay races, victory is often determined not by the fastest runner but by the quality of the baton exchange. Teams lose momentum not because they lack talent, but because transitions fail. The same is true in organisations. Organisational success is not a sprint; it is a lifelong marathon consisting of several baton exchanges. Over time, leaders retire, experts leave, managers transition, and younger employees step into bigger responsibilities. The organisations that endure are not necessarily those with the smartest individuals, but those that intentionally transfer knowledge, capability, culture, and wisdom from one generation to another.

One of the most overlooked realities in organisations is that people do not develop simply because they attend training or just because they have many years of experience. They develop through deliberate conversations, guidance, feedback, observation, and relationships. This is why coaching and mentoring have become increasingly important – not as “soft” HR initiatives, but as strategic mechanisms for sustaining organisational capability.

“Coaching conversations create space for reflection, challenge assumptions, and encourage accountability. More importantly, they shift managers from being problem-solvers for employees to becoming developers of employees.”

I have seen this play out across several organisations over the years. In the years following the exit of the owner-manager CEO of Stanbic IBTC, we worked with them to provide coaching skills training for senior leaders with the aim of facilitating the baton exchange between the old and the new. The goal was not simply to improve supervision but to help managers strategically develop the ability to grow people intentionally through questioning, listening, developmental feedback, and structured conversations. Similarly, at the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), we supported the implementation of a mentoring programme designed to bridge generational gaps in an organisation with highly specialised and scarce technical expertise in deposit insurance. At Consolidated Breweries, mentoring became a mechanism for supporting the growth of high-potential junior managers and strengthening the leadership pipeline. Though these organisations operated in different sectors, they were all trying to solve the same problem: how to ensure that capability, culture, and institutional wisdom do not disappear during transitions.

This challenge is becoming more important in today’s workplace. Organisations operate in environments where knowledge changes rapidly, employee mobility is high, and multiple generations now work side by side. Technical systems alone are insufficient. Organisations must also build human systems that support learning, development, and continuity. Research strongly supports this thinking. Studies on developmental leadership consistently show that managers who coach effectively improve employee engagement, learning, adaptability, and performance. Yet many managers still see their role primarily as supervising work rather than developing people. Increasingly, coaching is emerging as a core leadership capability that all managers should possess. Harvard Business Review authors such as Herminia Ibarra have argued that leadership development is driven less by formal instruction and more by developmental experiences, reflection, and guided support.

This explains why coaching is so powerful. Effective coaching improves self-awareness, sharpens thinking, and helps employees navigate increasingly complex work environments. Coaching conversations create space for reflection, challenge assumptions, and encourage accountability. More importantly, they shift managers from being problem-solvers for employees to becoming developers of employees.

This becomes even more important at senior leadership levels. Executive coaching has grown significantly because organisations increasingly recognise that senior leaders also need support, reflection, and challenge. Leadership can be isolating, and the higher individuals rise, the less honest feedback they often receive. Executive coaching provides structured opportunities for leaders to reflect on behaviour, improve emotional intelligence, sharpen decision-making, and align leadership style with organisational goals. Increasingly, organisations are integrating coaching with tools such as 360-degree feedback to create more evidence-based leadership development processes.

Mentoring serves a related but distinct role. While coaching is often performance-focused and developmental, mentoring is deeply connected to guidance, exposure, and the transfer of institutional knowledge. This is particularly important in organisations with specialised expertise or strong institutional cultures. Research by Elizabeth Xu on mentoring and tacit knowledge transfer, as well as studies from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management led by Brian Uzzi, show that mentoring enables organisations to pass on the unwritten judgement, instincts, relationships, and practical wisdom that formal manuals often fail to capture. Organisations that neglect mentoring, therefore, experience invisible capability erosion over time. They may retain systems and documentation but lose judgement, context, culture, and organisational memory. The baton was dropped not because there were no runners, but because the exchange itself was weak.

The implication for practice is clear – organisations must move beyond informal and accidental development processes. Managers should be trained in coaching fundamentals such as listening, questioning, and developmental feedback. Executive coaching programmes should be tied to clear leadership and strategic goals. Mentoring programmes should involve intentional mentor matching, defined objectives, periodic reviews, and opportunities for reverse mentoring across generations. Most importantly, these practices must be embedded into the culture of the organisation rather than treated as isolated HR activities.

Organisations that fail to intentionally transfer knowledge, wisdom, and leadership capability eventually weaken from within. Those that create cultures of coaching and mentoring build not just better employees, but stronger institutions. In the end, sustainable organisations are built not merely through strategy and systems, but through people intentionally developing other people. The organisations that win are the ones that master the baton exchange.

Omagbitse Barrow is the chief executive of Efiko Management Consulting, and he supports organisations and leaders to translate their strategy to results.