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Interesting thing happened in our office today. Our entire communications system went down, and the CAMPUSPEAK world ground to a screeching halt. No email, no voice mail, questionable phone service.
This during one of our busiest sales times. Small crisis, indeed. My staff and I are pretty paralyzed when the Internet goes down.
Everything is back up now – the crisis lasted about two hours. But, what's annoying in hindsight is that we were completely paralyzed because the employee who set up the communication system is no longer here. And, when the crap hit the fan, no one knew what to do.
It's the Mack Truck theory. When only one person has the knowledge, what do you do when that person is suddenly no longer around?
The employee in question left suddenly, and information about the communication system he set up wasn't adequately passed along from outgoing employee to the new one. Everything has worked fine for months, so no one made it a priority to gather the information.
This is such a typical story. It annoys me that I let it happen to my company. I got comfortable with him always knowing the answers, and then he was gone. My bad.
You have to be careful. You might have a very talented officer who sets up a glorious website, or signs a complicated service contract, or creates some database with all of your vital information. When and if that person vanishes, what are you going to do?
Here's the basic advice today: it's not good when all the knowledge about how something works lies in the mind of just one person. Have him or her write down instructions for everything. Have them clue someone else in to how things work. Make this an expectation. When the person complains about it, remind them of the Mack Truck that will hit him this afternoon when he leaves the building.
Today, as we moved a dozen ceiling tiles looking for a hidden router, we were reminded that it's a dangerous thing to simply let one talented person be the sole keeper of knowledge.
