Irreplaceable? Yeah Nah.
For the sake of your business, no matter how small, do the work to document your most important processes.
‘Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.’ – Will Rodgers
Tiago Forte asked 242 business leaders about their biggest challenges.1
The #1 answer wasn’t competition, or funding, or finding new customers. Even though these business leaders were from different industries, countries, and company sizes.
It was that critical information is trapped.
Critical information like workflows and standard operating procedures (SOPs)are not documented. And what exists is scattered across multiple respositories (dropbox, onedrive, google drive, etc).
For the sake of your business, no matter how small, do the work to document your most important processes.
When Colin from accounts leaves, he takes all that knowledge with him. Whoever takes Colin’s place has nothing but a messed-up Xero or Quickbooks to work with.
When Sally from purchasing leaves, her black book of contacts goes with her. Sally’s replacement has to reestablish all those supplier relationships and relearn the foibles of each one.
And so it goes, all the way up and down the line.
I get that it’s slow, tedious work to document every key process into an SOP. But your business (and remaining employees) will thank you when the inevitable departures come to pass.
Remember, no one is irreplaceable. There are graveyards full of irreplaceable people, and the world is still turning.
📌 PS - If this post is helpful, please consider restacking it and sharing it with your crew? It helps spread the word, and keeps me writing content that keeps your business running like it should.
Please leave a comment, too. Your opinions and suggestions are very welcome.
Thanks for reading The Banana Stand! I truly appreciate the gift of your attention.
This information came from one of Tiago’s emails dated 29/9/25. If you’ve not come across Tiago before, he’s the ‘Second Brain’ guy. His website is https://fortelabs.com.
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Mark, it's comforting to hear that my lifelong incessant habit of creating a "puzzle playbook" of where what is and how everything fits together is smart. Yes, it is time consuming writing it, but it has proven effective when handing over responsibilities.
Phew! It took forever to write that paragraph that made sense. Doing less is more fun than doing more.
I'm reminded of our Pre-Employment Manual we developed over time for our real estate brokerage that was a US government contractor. The SOPs were crazy!
Thank you for mentioning the Second Brain guy. At this point on my life, I'm focused on simplifying.