You know what’s worse than losing a top performer? Losing the undocumented know-how they carried in their head.
Every organization has its tribal knowledge—the tips, hacks, workarounds, rituals, and stuff that never made it into a document but keeps everything humming.
The issue? It’s fragile. One resignation, one re-org, one vacation… and suddenly, your operations stall because “only Jess knows how to fix that thing.”
That’s not resilience. That’s risk.
Here’s the pivot: Stop treating tribal knowledge as folklore. Treat it like IP.
Start by capturing it raw: looms, chats, call transcripts, screen shares. Don’t aim for polished at first—just get it out of your head and into shared space.
Then, layer the structure on top. Use version control tools, such as Notion, GitBook, and even Google Docs, with smart permissions to track updates and show who changed what and why. No more guessing what’s current.
This isn’t bureaucracy. It’s operational clarity.
When knowledge lives in people, it dies with turnover. When it lives in a system, it scales.
Ask yourself:
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If your ops lead left today, what knowledge would vanish?
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What % of key workflows are documented and versioned?
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Who owns the upkeep of those documents?
TL;DR? Tribal knowledge is a liability until it’s productized.
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