He has been with the organization for thirty years. He knows why the current system works the way it does, which vendors to call when things break, and three shortcuts nobody else knows exist. In six months he retires. If no one captures this now, it leaves with him. The Knowledge Hoarding pattern makes this worse. Start early.
Practical Techniques
Pair Him with a Successor Now
The best knowledge transfer is not a document. It is six months of working alongside someone. Identify who will take over his responsibilities. Arrange regular paired sessions. He explains while the other person does. Knowledge that is hard to write down gets transferred by watching. Start this at least a year before he leaves.
Record the Explanations
Ask him to walk through a process on video, or record a conversation where someone asks him questions. Transcribe it afterward. A ten-minute recording captures things a three-hour documentation session misses. He talks differently than he writes. The informal version is more useful. Say: “Just walk me through it like I have never seen it. I will record so I don’t have to take notes.”
Ask for the Judgment Calls
Standard procedures are the easy part. The hard part is the knowledge that lives in his head: when to break the rules, which client needs careful handling, what the manual says versus what actually works. Ask directly: “What would you do that is not in the written procedure?” Write those answers down.
Why This Works
Most institutional knowledge is not documented because the expert is still there to ask. The moment he leaves, the gap becomes visible. Starting early means the knowledge transfer happens through real work, not emergency sessions in his last two weeks.
Culture Determines What Gets Shared
If the organization has always rewarded individual expertise over team knowledge, documentation efforts face resistance. The system taught him to keep knowledge close. That was rational self-protection. Acknowledge it before asking him to change.