The Lynchpin Problem: When One Person Controls Everything

You know this person. Every club has one.

They're the one who gets copied on every email. They know the council contact's direct line. They remember why the constitution was changed in 2017. They have the insurance broker's number in their phone. They know which sponsors are happy and which are about to walk. They can tell you the Wi-Fi password for the clubrooms, the code for the equipment shed, and the name of the plumber who fixed the hot water last time.

They are indispensable. And that is the problem.

The anatomy of a lynchpin

The lynchpin is almost never someone who set out to hoard information. They're usually the most dedicated volunteer at the club — the one who stepped up when nobody else would, and kept stepping up, and kept going, until they were doing the work of four people.

They're typically the secretary. Sometimes the president. Occasionally a long-serving registrar or treasurer. They've been on the committee for 5-15 years while everyone around them has turned over every 2-3. They are the institutional memory. They are the continuity.

And they are a single point of failure.

How it happens

It starts innocently. A new committee member asks a question. The lynchpin knows the answer, so they answer it. That's faster than finding the document, or writing up a process, or explaining where things are stored.

Next time, the new committee member goes straight to the lynchpin instead of looking it up. The lynchpin answers again. A pattern forms.

Within six months, the committee's operating model is: ask Margaret. Need to know the insurance renewal date? Ask Margaret. Want to book the ground for a special event? Ask Margaret — she knows the council's process. Not sure how to submit the annual return? Margaret did it last year.

Margaret is now the router. Every piece of information flows through her. She receives it, processes it, and distributes it to whoever she thinks needs it. She makes dozens of small decisions every week about what gets escalated and what gets handled. The committee doesn't see most of these decisions. They just see that things get done.

This works. Until Margaret goes on holiday. Or gets sick. Or burns out. Or has a falling out with the president. Or simply decides she's done.

The governance risk

Here's what's actually at stake. This isn't about convenience. It's about governance.

When one person controls the information flow, the committee is not governing the club. They're governing whatever Margaret chooses to show them. That's not a criticism of Margaret — she's doing her best. But a committee that relies on one person's judgement about what they need to know is not meeting its governance obligations.

I spoke to a state sporting body a few years ago that couldn't answer a basic question: how many affiliated clubs do you have? The person who tracked affiliations had left six months earlier. The spreadsheet was on her personal computer. Her email was a personal Gmail, and the password was gone with her. The affiliation records, sponsor contacts, and grant reporting data — all gone.

They eventually reconstructed the list by calling around. It took three months. Three months of a state body not knowing the composition of its own membership.

That's not a technology problem. It's a structural failure that technology could have prevented.

The signs

You have a lynchpin problem if:

• One person is CC'd on more than 50% of the club's email
• Committee meetings can't proceed effectively when one particular person is absent
• New committee members are told "just ask [name]" instead of "here's where to find it"
• One person has access to accounts that no one else can access
• The club's response to any question is to check with one specific person
• That person regularly works 15+ hours a week on club business while other committee members do 2-3

If three or more of these are true, you don't have a dedicated volunteer. You have a governance dependency.

Why it's hard to fix

The lynchpin knows it's unsustainable. They'll tell you they want to step back. They've been saying it for two years. But they can't, because nobody else knows what they know, and the thought of handing over is overwhelming — there's so much in their head that hasn't been written down.

There's also an identity dimension that nobody talks about. When you've been the person who holds it all together for a decade, stepping back means losing a role that gives you purpose, status, and community connection. That's not vanity. It's human. But it means the lynchpin has mixed feelings about distributing their knowledge, even when they say they want to.

And the rest of the committee has mixed feelings about taking it on. It's easier to let Margaret handle it. Everyone's busy. The current arrangement works. Why rock the boat?

This is how clubs get stuck. Not through malice. Through the perfectly rational behaviour of busy people who've found a system that works right now, even though it's fragile.

The fix

The fix is not replacing Margaret. It's replacing the system that makes Margaret necessary.

Move information out of people and into systems. Every document, contact, password, deadline, and process should live somewhere that the whole committee can access. Not in someone's head. Not in their personal email. In a shared system with role-based access.

Create processes, not dependencies. "Margaret handles insurance" is a dependency. "Insurance renewal happens in November. The certificate is in the Governance folder. The broker's contact is in the shared contacts. The process is documented here." That's a process. It survives Margaret.

Make the work visible. If Margaret is doing 15 hours a week and the rest of the committee doesn't know what she does, the first step is making the work visible. List every task. Estimate the time. Show the committee. This usually produces shock — they genuinely didn't know. Then distribute the tasks so no single person holds more than they can sustainably carry.

Have the conversation with respect. The lynchpin has given years to the club. They deserve recognition, not a takeover. Frame it as sustainability: "We want to make sure the club doesn't lose everything you've built when you eventually decide to step back." Most lynchpins are relieved. They've been carrying this weight alone and they're tired.

Set a timeline. "Over the next three months, we're going to document everything and distribute responsibilities so that no single committee role takes more than 5 hours a week." Three months is enough. Twelve months is too long — urgency fades and the old patterns return.

The test

You've solved the lynchpin problem when any single committee member could be unavailable for a month and the club would continue to operate. Not perfectly — but operate.

That's the standard. Not because people are interchangeable. They're not. But because a volunteer organisation that collapses when one person goes on holiday is not an organisation. It's a person with helpers.

Your club deserves better than that. And so does Margaret.