Show Notes
Erin asks: "My operations manager just gave notice after three years. She knows everything. I thought I had systems, but most of our system was just her knowing what to do. I don't even know where half the passwords are. How do you build a business that doesn't collapse when one key person walks out?"
In this episode, Scott diagnoses the linchpin problem, shares his core rule ("if it's not documented, it doesn't exist"), and reveals the "vacation as pressure test" framework. You'll learn how to name every process, why vacations should be true vacations, and how cross-training reveals documentation gaps. Plus: what happens if something happens to YOU?
The bottom line: If it's not documented, it doesn't exist. Treat every vacation as a pressure test. Build a business that operates without any single person—including you.
Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask
📜 Full Transcript (Click to expand)
Scott Todd (00:00)
Welcome to Fix My Business, the show that helps you fix your business. And we do that by answering questions so that you can learn where other people get stuck and you can, well, get yourself unstuck or you can maybe avoid where they are stuck. I'm your host, Scott Todd. And on this episode, we have a question from Erin. And Erin writes, my operation manager just gave notice after three years. She knows everything. Relationships.
contacts, how we actually run things versus what's written down. I thought I had systems, but I'm realizing most of our system was just her knowing what to do. I don't even know where half the passwords are. How do you build a business that doesn't collapse when one key person walks out? So Aaron, the issue here is
and you've kind of nailed it here. The issue is that your ops manager became the linchpin of the business. And so many times people think that the linchpin is just maybe you as the business owner or, you they don't ever think that it could be somebody else. And in fact, any one of your employees or heck, all of your employees can actually become linchpins of the business, meaning that if they're not there, the place falls apart.
their little world falls apart. And in a small business, that is such a ⁓ big piece, is that we put a lot of emphasis on people being there to do their jobs and run their little part of your company.
And what I think about here is I think about the rule that I have within my own organization, the rule that I preach, which is, look, if it's not documented, it doesn't exist. If something is not documented, it's made up. It's in someone's head. And that's what you're finding out right now. You're finding that out is that if it's not documented, then well, your ops manager is taking it out the door with her and you're never going to get it back. So it never existed in the first place. Now,
How do you solve for this? Number one, it comes back down to culture. You have to build a culture in which you're documenting things. And in my company, I give every kind of play, if you will, I give every part of a process a name. I've named everything. Platinum blast email sequence. Okay, that's a name of a play. It's the name of something that we run.
And it can be, when I think about processes, I'm not thinking about a process that's the entire piece. We have multiple plays that make up one entire workflow. So we have multiple plays. And they're all documented. And when I find them that they're not documented, I go back and I encourage the team like, hey, we need to document this. Document what you're doing. Now, you need to go deeper. When your employees take a vacation, well,
then you have to treat it like a vacation. And that means that you have to put rules around vacations. And again, this applies to you and it applies to your team. Number one, when someone takes a vacation, it should be a vacation, not a working vacation, not a, I've got to go check my email vacation. Every single employee should get a true vacation. And that's something that we've lost. We've lost that in at least our culture is that
We take a vacation and we take our laptop with us. We take a vacation and we're on standby. We're taking phone calls during our vacation. We're checking email during our vacation. Part of it is habit. But the same thing applies to your employees. They are probably still on while they're supposed to be on vacation. And what you need to do is you need to establish that rule that says, look, when you're on vacation, there's no work. And you have to take this concept that you're treating that as a pressure test. If someone's out,
Even if it's not a vacation, they're out for a day, that is a pressure test moment. The thing that it applies to you and it applies to your team. On a vacation, on a day off, it's a pressure test. You come back and you do a debrief. What worked, what didn't work. Where did the system break down? And if it broke down, the play is no good. You got to go back and you got to redo it. You got to recreate it again.
And that's the process of self-improving organizations. We want a company that's going to get better and better and better so that when we're on vacation, we're not looking at email, we're not taking meetings. Like I want to tell my team, like, look, if there's an emergency, don't call me. Don't call me. Call 911. Don't call me about a business emergency when I'm on vacation. I'm not the right person for that. And if I am, then I am a lynchpin in the business. The business should have people who can take care of these things for me. And if not,
That's telling you everything that you need to know. Now, here's another thing that you need to do. And every business needs to do this. I've already said, if it's not documented, then it doesn't exist. And that is so true. If it's not documented, it doesn't exist. It exists in someone's brain. And if something happens to them, well, then you're out. So I want everybody documenting what they're doing. And then what I want to happen is when someone goes on vacation, when they go away for a week,
and they're truly away for a week, I want somebody else to run their place. I want somebody else to run the work that they're supposed to do. Look, the work's got to get done, right? So somebody has to do it, whether it's you or someone on your team, somebody has to go do this. And what I want to happen is I want that other person who's running this, I want them testing the documentation. Where is it weak? Where did they not understand it? ⁓
My friend Ryan Dice, for example, in his book and what he teaches with his companies is he teaches everybody that, when something's documented, we give it to somebody else on the team who has no clue as what they're doing to see where they struggle with it. And then we go back and we strengthen it. Such great advice. Such great advice, right? Because if somebody on your team can't do it,
then there's probably something wrong with the documentation. And again, that applies to your job too. It applies to the work that you do as well. And the reason that we're doing this even deeper beyond just somebody leaving is what if something happens to somebody, including yourself?
I've seen many situations with business owners to where they thought, I'm good. My business is running solidly. All is good. And then guess what? Then they have a health issue. And what happens to their business? It fades away. Why? Because they didn't document the systems. There's always something that happens to you. There's always going to be this gap that needs to be filled.
But at end of the day, what you want is you want that business being able to operate on its own. And that's the true definition of a business is you want it to be continuing to growing without you. You want it to operate without you. Cause that's truly where the freedom comes in. It's not just about you knowing everything or someone else on your team, knowing everything. It comes back to freedom and the freedom comes from documentation.
not just for you, but for everyone. Aaron, thanks for your question. And if you have a question, go over to scottodd.net forward slash ask, submit your questionnaire and I will see you in our next episode.
Welcome to Fix My Business, the show that helps you fix your business. And we do that by answering questions so that you can learn where other people get stuck and you can, well, get yourself unstuck or you can maybe avoid where they are stuck. I'm your host, Scott Todd. And on this episode, we have a question from Erin. And Erin writes, my operation manager just gave notice after three years. She knows everything. Relationships.
contacts, how we actually run things versus what's written down. I thought I had systems, but I'm realizing most of our system was just her knowing what to do. I don't even know where half the passwords are. How do you build a business that doesn't collapse when one key person walks out? So Aaron, the issue here is
and you've kind of nailed it here. The issue is that your ops manager became the linchpin of the business. And so many times people think that the linchpin is just maybe you as the business owner or, you they don't ever think that it could be somebody else. And in fact, any one of your employees or heck, all of your employees can actually become linchpins of the business, meaning that if they're not there, the place falls apart.
their little world falls apart. And in a small business, that is such a ⁓ big piece, is that we put a lot of emphasis on people being there to do their jobs and run their little part of your company.
And what I think about here is I think about the rule that I have within my own organization, the rule that I preach, which is, look, if it's not documented, it doesn't exist. If something is not documented, it's made up. It's in someone's head. And that's what you're finding out right now. You're finding that out is that if it's not documented, then well, your ops manager is taking it out the door with her and you're never going to get it back. So it never existed in the first place. Now,
How do you solve for this? Number one, it comes back down to culture. You have to build a culture in which you're documenting things. And in my company, I give every kind of play, if you will, I give every part of a process a name. I've named everything. Platinum blast email sequence. Okay, that's a name of a play. It's the name of something that we run.
And it can be, when I think about processes, I'm not thinking about a process that's the entire piece. We have multiple plays that make up one entire workflow. So we have multiple plays. And they're all documented. And when I find them that they're not documented, I go back and I encourage the team like, hey, we need to document this. Document what you're doing. Now, you need to go deeper. When your employees take a vacation, well,
then you have to treat it like a vacation. And that means that you have to put rules around vacations. And again, this applies to you and it applies to your team. Number one, when someone takes a vacation, it should be a vacation, not a working vacation, not a, I've got to go check my email vacation. Every single employee should get a true vacation. And that's something that we've lost. We've lost that in at least our culture is that
We take a vacation and we take our laptop with us. We take a vacation and we're on standby. We're taking phone calls during our vacation. We're checking email during our vacation. Part of it is habit. But the same thing applies to your employees. They are probably still on while they're supposed to be on vacation. And what you need to do is you need to establish that rule that says, look, when you're on vacation, there's no work. And you have to take this concept that you're treating that as a pressure test. If someone's out,
Even if it's not a vacation, they're out for a day, that is a pressure test moment. The thing that it applies to you and it applies to your team. On a vacation, on a day off, it's a pressure test. You come back and you do a debrief. What worked, what didn't work. Where did the system break down? And if it broke down, the play is no good. You got to go back and you got to redo it. You got to recreate it again.
And that's the process of self-improving organizations. We want a company that's going to get better and better and better so that when we're on vacation, we're not looking at email, we're not taking meetings. Like I want to tell my team, like, look, if there's an emergency, don't call me. Don't call me. Call 911. Don't call me about a business emergency when I'm on vacation. I'm not the right person for that. And if I am, then I am a lynchpin in the business. The business should have people who can take care of these things for me. And if not,
That's telling you everything that you need to know. Now, here's another thing that you need to do. And every business needs to do this. I've already said, if it's not documented, then it doesn't exist. And that is so true. If it's not documented, it doesn't exist. It exists in someone's brain. And if something happens to them, well, then you're out. So I want everybody documenting what they're doing. And then what I want to happen is when someone goes on vacation, when they go away for a week,
and they're truly away for a week, I want somebody else to run their place. I want somebody else to run the work that they're supposed to do. Look, the work's got to get done, right? So somebody has to do it, whether it's you or someone on your team, somebody has to go do this. And what I want to happen is I want that other person who's running this, I want them testing the documentation. Where is it weak? Where did they not understand it? ⁓
My friend Ryan Dice, for example, in his book and what he teaches with his companies is he teaches everybody that, when something's documented, we give it to somebody else on the team who has no clue as what they're doing to see where they struggle with it. And then we go back and we strengthen it. Such great advice. Such great advice, right? Because if somebody on your team can't do it,
then there's probably something wrong with the documentation. And again, that applies to your job too. It applies to the work that you do as well. And the reason that we're doing this even deeper beyond just somebody leaving is what if something happens to somebody, including yourself?
I've seen many situations with business owners to where they thought, I'm good. My business is running solidly. All is good. And then guess what? Then they have a health issue. And what happens to their business? It fades away. Why? Because they didn't document the systems. There's always something that happens to you. There's always going to be this gap that needs to be filled.
But at end of the day, what you want is you want that business being able to operate on its own. And that's the true definition of a business is you want it to be continuing to growing without you. You want it to operate without you. Cause that's truly where the freedom comes in. It's not just about you knowing everything or someone else on your team, knowing everything. It comes back to freedom and the freedom comes from documentation.
not just for you, but for everyone. Aaron, thanks for your question. And if you have a question, go over to scottodd.net forward slash ask, submit your questionnaire and I will see you in our next episode.