A key person is thinking about leaving. Nobody else knows what they know.

Every organisation has people who are organised, great administrators, and have a bit more of an understanding around systems and processes. These people are often instrumental in keeping things moving, plugging the gaps and who are able to pull together information that just feels overwhelming to everyone else.

It is human behaviour to rely on those people because they are so good at what they do.

People are not systems though and the irony is that it's this exact superpower that leaves the organisation vulnerable when they are not there.

Do you have someone who sends you information or reports before you need to ask for it? Maybe it's the person you go to ahead of an Ofsted inspection because they can produce case studies, evidence and reports as if by magic. Nobody else seems to know where to find all that data - or if they do, it takes such a long time to pull it all together.

The risk is not that they leave. People leave. It is that on the day they do, the organisation loses the ability to answer questions it believed was in hand, and nobody finds out until the gaps start to show.

Their replacement inherits the job title, not the working knowledge, and spends a year rebuilding it by trial and error while the same reports come out slower and thinner than they used to.

It is also the one problem that gets more expensive the longer it is left. Written down while that person is still here, it is a fortnight of their time. Reconstructed after they have gone, it is a lot longer for everyone else.