The org chart survives.The instincts don't.
A manager's real job rarely shows up on their calendar. It's the sense they've built up for the team: who needs a deadline held firm, who needs room to breathe. It's the reasoning behind decisions that looked obvious only after they'd been made. None of it can be handed off in an afternoon.
What walks out the door
Judgment built over years, not a task list.
OakHive interviews them before they go. This is what comes back.
Who needs a deadline held firm
And who needs room to breathe. The new manager learns it the slow way, one misjudged conversation at a time.
From the handover guide, written to whoever takes the role next.
The decision that looked obvious afterwards
It wasn't obvious at the time. There were constraints, someone dissented, and the call was made for reasons that were good then. None of that is in the deck.
From the guided session that walks the role chapter by chapter.
The difficult vendor or client relationship
What to watch for, what was promised, what was refused and why. The relationship carries a history the next manager doesn't have.
From the chat, answering after they have gone.
The most expensive person to replace
Replacing an employee runs between half and twice their annual salary, and the studies that single out senior roles put the top of that range at over twice. What walks out the door is judgment built over years.
From the manager's summary, ready before the last day.
Who to interview
Any manager leaving a team they built. The head of a function whose decisions nobody else was in the room for. A retiring leader, where the most years walk out at once.
The instincts survive the org chart this time.
Questions about departing managers
It asks about the role: what each person needs from the manager to do their work, which decisions were made and why, what to watch for with vendors and clients. Opinions about colleagues, frustrations and anything personal are not asked and don't appear in any document.
A summary in four sections, including Risks and gaps and What wasn't covered, plus an offboarding checklist. Both are ready when the interview ends, so there's still time to chase what's missing while the person is still in the building.
No. It's for any time a role changes hands: a resignation, a retirement, an internal move, a long leave. Retirement is the case where the most years walk out at once, and the one most companies see coming and still don't prepare for.
Bring us the questionyour company keepsanswering twice.
Thirty minutes, no deck. You describe something your team has explained more than once, and we show you what OakHive does with it.
We are taking on a small number of companies at a time, so this is a conversation rather than a signup.