I know I’ve talked about this before, but there was a recent change at work that make this really hit home again.
Most workplaces have that one person who, over time, has ended up in a place where they are connected to everything in the business. They are the one who does everything and keeps things moving. You’ve probably heard a version of an adage that “10% of people do 90% of the work”. In this case, it felt like one person was doing all of it when it come crashing.
To be clear, I’m so excited for them and can’t wait to see all the amazing things that come next, but it still hurt.
With their exit, it wasn’t one big thing. It was everything at once. Stuff that just worked stopped happening, and nobody was sure who had been doing it, or how. That’s what stuck with me this time more than ever. We didn’t just lose a person. We lost a bunch of things we didn’t know we depended on.
And honestly, that’s on us. When a person makes hard things look easy, we are quick to stop seeing the work. It becomes background noise. Even I took it for granted too, until it was gone.
What that moment reminded me of is that we can’t take the people around us for granted. And I don’t mean that as a “say thank you more” post, though that wouldn’t hurt. I mean it practically. If one person leaving, getting sick, or burning out can break things, that’s not a people problem. In the end, it’s a planning problem, and one that you MUST figure out before you’re in a crisis.
So the question here is how we plan for things to “hit the fan” before they do. It’s not fun to think about. Nobody gets excited about a backup plan. But I’d rather have an awkward conversation now than a scramble later.