Good people can make bad systems look functional.

Some businesses work because the system is good.

Others work because a handful of people refuse to let it fail.

They remember what the software doesn't.

They know who to call.

They catch the mistake before anyone else sees it.

They answer the question that should never have reached them.

From the outside, everything appears to work. Customers are looked after. Problems are solved. The business feels dependable.

But reliability doesn't always belong to the system.

Sometimes it belongs to the people compensating for it.

The danger is that success hides the need to improve. As long as the right people keep holding everything together, the business has little reason to notice where it is becoming fragile.

Until one day, they are unavailable.

Or overloaded.

Or they leave.

That is often when a business discovers that what looked like a process was actually a person.

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