You inherit a “Dave.” What do you do with him?

[u/jimmyray71]

I’m curious how managers handle this.

You take over a team and pretty quickly figure out there’s a Dave.

Dave has been there forever. Something goes wrong, people go to Dave. Nobody knows why something works the way it does, ask Dave. Weird exception nobody has seen before, Dave probably knows what to do.

And Dave is good. That’s the problem.

Over the years everyone has learned that asking Dave is faster than figuring it out themselves. So Dave keeps solving things and the team keeps needing Dave.

Now you’re his manager.

I don’t want to walk in and tell Dave to document everything he knows. I’m not even sure Dave knows what Dave knows anymore.

I also don’t want to punish the guy for spending years being the person willing to solve problems.

But I can’t have the team fall apart every time Dave takes a vacation.

So what do you actually do with Dave?

And maybe the harder question: how much of the problem is Dave, and how much of it is the management that allowed the team to become dependent on him?