Episode 74
[Solocast] What Survives When People Leave?
Right now, public sector organisations across New Zealand are losing people in numbers we haven't seen before. The redundancy figures get reported. The org chart gets updated. But what happens to the knowledge that walks out the door with them, the way someone could read a tricky stakeholder in three seconds, the history of why a system was built the way it was, the relationships that kept the wheels turning?
In this solocast, Digby argues most leaders are treating workforce reduction as a numbers exercise when it's actually a capability exercise. Systems and technology can pick up some of the slack. They cannot replace the relational, tacit knowledge that lives in people's heads and in how a team works together. Digby sets out a practical way to prepare for these transitions: map where critical capability actually sits before it leaves, invest deliberately in the people who stay, and build systems strong enough to survive the next departure. As he puts it, you can be the fire or the fire tender.
You'll learn:
- How to identify the institutional knowledge that exists only in people's heads, before it walks out the door
- Why systems and technology can't replace the relational work that holds a team together
- The difference between leading as the fire and leading as the fire tender
- A practical way to map critical capability before a restructure hits
- How to invest in the people who stay so they can carry things forward
- What it actually takes to build a team that survives transition without falling apart
Other References
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