Knowledge that lives in one person's head isn't a company asset

Ask around the office who can’t take leave at the same time as the bookkeeper, then watch where everyone looks. It is usually the one person who can close the month in the software, remembers which customers are still on the old price list, and knows why one product code has been locked since last year. While they are around, nobody notices how much work runs through them.

That knowledge is valuable and was hard to come by. The problem isn’t the person. It is where the knowledge is kept.

Why it is a risk even when things are going well

• Holidays and sick leave. While they are away, decisions wait, or the phone follows them wherever they are.
• A bottleneck. When everything goes through one person, the business can only move as fast as they can answer. Growth stalls at their phone.
• Burnout. People who get called on holiday leave sooner or later. When they do, the knowledge leaves with them, just when it is needed most.
• The value of the business. Anyone buying the company or investing in it will ask how much depends on individuals. How you answer shapes what the business is worth to them.
• The owner. In smaller firms, that person is very often the owner. Which is exactly why the problem is so hard to see from the inside.

A manual nobody opens is not a solution

The first reaction is usually: “Write down everything you know.” A thick document appears, gets saved to a shared folder and is never opened again. Within a few months it is out of date, and nobody knows which parts still apply.

Knowledge that gets used is needed at the moment of the decision, on the screen where the work is done. Not in a binder.

Where the knowledge should end up

Not all knowledge is the same kind, and different kinds belong in different places.

Rules go into the system

“We don’t ship to that customer until the debt over their limit is paid” is not advice; it is a rule. In a system it becomes a credit limit field and a hold that asks for approval. “That supplier is late before the holidays” becomes a lead time recorded per supplier and per period. Once a rule is in the system, nobody has to remember it.

Procedures go into the flow of work

The sequence of steps for a job — what gets checked, who gets told, what gets attached — becomes the sequence in the system. The next step offers itself, and anything mandatory cannot be skipped.

Judgement stays with the person, backed by data

Negotiations, exceptions, decisions that need experience: those still belong to the person who knows. The difference is that they now decide with the data in front of them, and the decision is recorded with its reason. Next time, someone else can see how a similar case was handled.

How to find out what they actually know

A meeting-room interview yields little. People don’t remember the things they do on autopilot. This works better:

1. For two weeks, log every question that reaches that person: who asked, what they asked, and where the answer could have lived instead of in their head.
2. Then sort the questions into three piles: those that repeat with the same answer, those that required looking something up, and those that genuinely required judgement.
3. The first pile is rules for the system. The second is information kept in the wrong place. The third stays with them.
4. Then watch them at work and ask “why that way?” on the spot, while the job is in front of you.

If most questions turn out to belong to the first two piles, that is good news, because those are the easiest to hand over.

The rules are written by whoever knows them

This work must never look like taking away the thing that makes someone important. If it does, the most knowledgeable person becomes the quietest opponent of the change — and they will have a point.

So they get the role nobody else can fill: they decide how a rule is worded before it goes into the system, and they change it when the business changes. Knowledge stops leaving their head one question at a time and stays written down in a form they stand behind. The business gains certainty; they gain standing that doesn’t depend on whether they are in the office today.

Working out how much the business depends on individuals, and which knowledge should be turned into rules first, is part of the assessment we do under IT consulting and a digitalisation plan. If this sounds familiar, get in touch.