The Binder That Retired With Him

This is happening with a cousin of mine right now... he is the key employee about to retire.

The story: A plant manager kept a black three-ring binder for twenty-two years. Maintenance schedules, which supplier to call at 2am when a machine went down, which customers needed a heads-up call before any late shipment.

Everyone knew the binder existed. Nobody had ever actually read it cover to cover.

He retired on a Friday. By the following Wednesday, a machine went down and nobody knew which of three vendors actually served that model anymore, because the binder went home with him — not out of spite, just because nobody had asked for a copy.

This is Leak #3 in its most old-school form. Doesn't matter if the knowledge lives in a binder or a spreadsheet or someone's head — if it only exists in one place, it isn't actually documented. It's just stored.

Is there a 'binder' in your business right now — something everyone trusts exists, but almost nobody has actually opened?