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Somebody approached me the other day asking for some assistance with creating documentation for internal procedures and processes. I asked why they wanted to start documenting, and the answer was very interesting. "I've already been burned twice - I don't want to get burned again." After some explanation, I learned that on two occasions, key employees had left somewhat hastily - along with them went all of the operational knowledge for doing their job. Hiring a replacement was almost impossible because nobody knew what the replacement would do - so before anybody could be hired, the individual I was speaking with had to figure it out from scratch... twice.

Spring is in the air! The weather is warm, the flowers are in bloom, and my allergies are driving me nuts! Despite my allergies, I love this time of year because it's full of hours by the pool, food off the grill, and one or two vacations. Although... you know what I've been noticing the last few years? More often than not, I end up having to do work during my time away from work! And that's no good. A vacation is no vacation if I'm accompanied by office tasks and responsibilities everywhere I go! So even though the trend seems to be leaning more and more to making vacations workactions, I'm not accepting that fate. And frankly, neither should you! To help you take a real vacation this Spring or Summer, I've outlined 7 steps that will prepare you to make it happen.

Thousands of organizations and teams use SharePoint as a knowledge base to manage their documentation — but that's a mistake. I'm not saying SharePoint is a bad tool; on the contrary, it can practically do everything. However, not everybody knows what they want it to do, or how they want to use it — so it ends up being a shared drive where PDFs, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations dwell. The contents of this drive sit there, gathering cyber dust, without helping anyone accomplish anything. Using SharePoint as your knowledge base just won't cut. You need an actionable knowledge base.

For the past month I've been writing about how to create a turnkey business, emphasizing the benefits of being able to grow your business and expand your team. But I haven't really highlighted how a turnkey business prepares your team for one of the biggest risks that your organization faces - employee turnover. Many folks misunderstand the risk their teams and organizations face when it comes to employee turnover. I've spoken to some business owners who have the idea that they can "get by without so and so" and that "everybody is replaceable." While it's true that your employees are replaceable, your team will still incur a cost as a result of somebody's departure. Even when organizations understand the negative consequences of employee turnover, they tend to focus more of their attention on preventing employees from leaving instead of preparing for their departure.