An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). Gary reads out Narelle’s job title. Then keeps going.
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Transcript:
Narelle’s official job title?
Membership Manager.
Although she also does the finance reconciliation. And the event registrations. And she set up the website contact form.
And the SQL thing. She learned SQL.
Her title is Membership Manager.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). New staff join the membership team. Narelle trains them. The retention rate is not great.
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Transcript:
What happens when new staff join the membership team?
Narelle trains them.
It takes about six months before they’re useful.
Two of them left before they finished training.
Narelle trained them again. The next ones.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). Gary is asked to estimate how many things Narelle does. They mapped it once. It was confronting.
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Transcript:
How many things would be on that list? If we listed everything Narelle does?
I… don’t know.
More than her job description.
We mapped it once. As part of a process review.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). Gary is asked whether they’ve ever counted their manual processes. The series finale.
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Transcript:
Have we ever actually counted how many manual processes the team runs?
No.
Should we?
I feel like we should.
I feel like the number would be upsetting.
I also feel like not knowing is worse.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). Gary is asked whether anyone has talked to Narelle about the fact that she’s carrying the organisation. The answer leads somewhere unexpected.
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Transcript:
Have we talked to Narelle about this?
About what specifically.
About the fact that she’s carrying the organisation.
…No.
She’d probably agree.
She’d probably also say she doesn’t mind.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). Gary is asked what the membership system costs annually. The licence fee is just the beginning.
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Transcript:
What does the membership system actually cost us annually?
The licence is about $40,000 a year.
Plus implementation. Which was $180,000.
Plus Narelle’s salary, which is… relevant.
Because without Narelle the system doesn’t really work.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). Everyone loves Narelle. That’s part of the problem.
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Transcript:
How does the rest of the team feel about Narelle?
They love her. Everyone loves Narelle.
They also rely on her for things they should be able to do themselves.
Which isn’t really fair on Narelle.
Or on the organisation.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). Every two years they evaluate new systems. Every two years they table it. Four times and counting.
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Transcript:
Have we considered upgrading the membership system?
Every two years we look at it. We get the demos. We do the shortlist.
Then someone asks what happens to Narelle’s workarounds in the new system.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). Gary tries to describe Narelle’s role. It starts with “Membership Manager” and keeps going.
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Transcript:
Narelle’s role. Can I describe Narelle’s role.
Narelle is our Membership Manager.
She also does the renewals when the system plays up. And the event registrations. And she knows which members are actually financial because the system’s a bit… it’s fine, it’s just a bit…
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). Gary does the maths on Narelle’s value. The answer is uncomfortable. The tone shifts.
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Transcript:
Is Narelle good value?
Narelle is extraordinary value. She does the work of three people.
That’s actually the problem.
She does the work of three people. Which means three people’s worth of institutional knowledge lives in one person.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). Gary imagines what Narelle could do if she wasn’t buried in processing. It’s a better version of the organisation.
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Transcript:
If Narelle wasn’t doing all of this processing — what would she do instead?
That’s actually a really good question.
She’d probably build the kind of member relationships that make people renew without being asked. She’d know which members are at risk of dropping off before they do. She’d design the kind of onboarding experience that makes someone feel like joining was the right decision.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). Gary describes what Narelle was hired to do. Then describes what she actually does. They’re not the same thing.
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Transcript:
What should Narelle actually be spending her time on?
Member relationships. Retention strategy. Understanding why people leave and what would make them stay. That’s what we hired her for.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). Gary lists everything that would have to change to not need a Narelle. Apparently, it’s possible.
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Transcript:
What would have to be true for us to not need a Narelle?
The system would have to actually do what it’s supposed to do.
The data would have to be clean without someone manually cleaning it.