THE WAY WE WORK

Why the transition plan didn’t capture what you lost

Audrey Boyle · Brief · November 2026 · 3-minute read

Most organizations manage work as a to-do list: the calls to make, the meetings to run, the people to see. Training covers what to do, and good leaders explain why. What gets lost is the way a person does the work, and who they are while doing it. Two people can hold the same task list and approach it completely differently. Even knowledge, the part that’s easiest to write down, rarely gets captured: in a 2025 APQC survey of 1,000 organizations, only 8% said they consistently capture knowledge from departing retirees, and 16% don’t try at all.[1] When someone leaves, the task list stays. The way leaves with them.

Why can’t successful people tell you how they did it?

I call it panel talk. We ask people who’ve walked a path how they did it, and they list the steps: they called this person, ran that meeting. But the way was in the doing, so they can’t fully name it. Someone else can take every one of those steps, make completely different judgment calls, and end up somewhere else entirely.

What does training miss?

Scenario training, if A happens do this and if B happens do that, is simulation, and simulation is useful. Experience is the real situations a person has lived through and what their own judgment learned from each one. Apprenticeships and internships teach the way because you’re inside the work, watching the day. Few companies build that in.

Why does the way matter as much as the why?

Start with why, as Simon Sinek argued. Nothing is wrong with the why, or with training the what. But whoever you pick for the work will do it differently from anyone else. We talk about the who, what, when, where and why. We’ve lost track of the way.

Why do we skip the montage?

In the movies, the hard part is a montage: running, getting up early, studying, set to music, and then the story picks up at the success. The stories we tell each other work the same way: the before, the after, the result. The minutia in between is where our days actually are, and it’s the part AI can’t do. The to-do list is useful. Look at the in-between too.

What leaves when someone leaves?

The task list stays; the judgment calls go. What leaves isn’t “five meetings and seven calls.” It’s what the person was actually doing in them.

Can the way change?

Yes, but first you have to see it. Most of us fall back on the way we’ve always worked until we notice the pattern. Once you see it, habits and practice can shift it.

What’s still open: Can the way be taught, or only watched?

SOURCES

1. APQC, “Navigating the Great Retirement with KM and AI”, white paper, September 30, 2025; survey of 1,000 organizations conducted with eGain.

Named Work, my leadership continuity firm, is built on this idea.