Our knowledge must not retire with us

“The boss just has a feel for it.” At first, a sentence like that sounds like a compliment. Like experience, confidence, someone who knows their craft. For a business, however, it also raises a rather uncomfortable question: What happens when the boss is not there?

A recipe can be written down. It gets harder with the knowledge in between. How do I recognise that a raw material is behaving differently today? When do I need to adjust a process? What do I see, smell or feel before a number on the display confirms that something is wrong?

It is precisely this knowledge that makes experience valuable. But it does not get passed on automatically just because someone has stood alongside for long enough.

When someone demonstrates a step in the process, they initially show what they do. Whether the other person also understands why they do it is another question. “Until it’s right” may help an experienced colleague. It explains very little to an apprentice. They first have to learn what to look for to recognise when it is “right” at all.

For me, this is an important task in training and business management. We need to examine our own skills more closely if we want to pass them on. Which characteristics do I check? What decision do I make based on them? And what would have to be different for me to make a different decision?

That takes time. Especially when you could do it yourself in just a few minutes. Still, it is worth asking why the same question has been landing with the boss again and again for months. Perhaps the employee does not lack motivation, but rather part of the explanation. Perhaps they have never had the opportunity to make the decision themselves and discuss it afterwards.

A sensible start would be to go through one such process together every week. Demonstrate it, voice the thinking behind it, and then let the other person do the work themselves. A brief note or a video can help. What remains crucial is the conversation about what went well and how to recognise it.

This is also about how experienced professionals see themselves. Those who share their knowledge do not lose their value by doing so. They create the conditions for being able to delegate responsibility.

When handing over a business, we talk about premises, machinery and customers. We should speak just as concretely about who will take on the expertise that defines that business.

The last day at work is a rather poor place to start.