Hand in the baton of knowledge

The bad news is coming. An internal company investigation has revealed a harrowing secret: The company actually had a solution to the problem 15 years ago. It is only because of staffing adjustments and employee retirements that relevant information is buried and forgotten.

Outgoing employees often take critical knowledge with them. Without a proper procedure to preserve this knowledge and pass it on to successors, it will be lost forever. Those who succeeded took longer to get into shape, important discoveries and insights were lost, and the company's ability to act quickly and rationally was compromised.

"Without sufficient knowledge transfer from employees to generations, 'organizational forgetting' will seriously deplete the intellectual capital of the company, which is also a great waste of the company's intellectual wealth." Chairman of the Strategic Leadership Group (Strategic Leadership Group) , said Hamilton Beazley, a former professor of organizational science at George Washington University. Companies should establish an effective system to pass on the professional knowledge of employees, and that is where the concept of knowledge continuity management comes in.

If this idea sounds familiar, it's not surprising at all. "Knowledge Continuity Management" is a branch of the field of knowledge management. Knowledge management focuses on the preservation and sharing of expertise, while knowledge continuity management focuses on transferring critical knowledge from current employees to their successors.

Fundamentally, knowledge continuity management is about communication - it's about employees getting the right idea of what they know, what others need to know, and what needs to be shared, and then systematically pass on that knowledge to colleagues. Although the idea itself is simple, establishing an effective knowledge continuity management program is a rather complex task involving a combination of technical, organizational, and managerial measures, as well as input from the top of the company. main commitment.

Building Systems

In order for businesses to succeed in the information age, Beazley, co-author of Continuity Management: Preserving Business Knowledge and Productivity When Employees Leave, argues that businesses must have a comprehensive A system that preserves key knowledge in the enterprise to ensure that outgoing employees pass the complete baton to their successors - ensuring that these new employees can do their best from the start. And, management must make these efforts an integral part of business operations.

Beazley said, "Knowledge is the new capital, but unless it is easy to understand, communicate and share, and add value, it is worthless." Ensuring that knowledge is passed on is the most critical issue facing businesses today. one of the problems.

The more critical work is to a company, the more important it is to be part of a knowledge continuity management system. You also need to consider issues such as how badly low productivity in this job harms other employees or the company; and the complexity of the knowledge required to do the job successfully. The more sophisticated and complex a technology an employee has, the harder it is to pass on—and the more important it is to pass it on.

Here are some steps you can take to ensure that critical expertise is not lost from the company when employees leave. First you need to create a knowledge profile. Knowledge profiles make up the company's knowledge DNA. Each file contains a detailed description of the key operational knowledge necessary for a job. You can create a knowledge profile by designing a questionnaire for all key employees on the job to give answers and asking them to update their answers on a regular basis.

Beazley recommends that companies or departments start by selecting a group of employees who are familiar with each relevant job classification to develop a complete set of questions that identify what knowledge needs to be kept on file. Each profile consists of four parts, including current operational data (market share, sales or other key criteria; key figures and data sources); operational knowledge (including top issues employees should know from the start, undecided plans and key clients); basic operational knowledge (core job activities, purpose, and function); and background operational knowledge (including completed projects, undeveloped programs, and members of active knowledge networks).

After this step is complete, Beazley recommends that a relatively small number of peers be selected from a particular job category to form a group—say, four out of a thirty-person department Or five accountants -- and then have them fine-tune the questions to make them more relevant to the actual work. They can also give alternative answers to basic questions, such as job goals or key statistics, to save employees time answering questionnaires.

Facilitate Communication

Another strategy is to establish formal mentoring relationships. Consider what Deloitte Consulting did. Three years ago, the consulting firm established a senior partner program that matches successful executives with younger partners before leaving office. The purpose is to delay the departure of older, more experienced consultants, and to ensure that they transfer critical skills and knowledge to others before they retire.

"We want to avoid brain drain," says Steve Baldwin, a senior partner at Deloitte & Touche who works closely with young consultants. His mentees sign technology transfer agreements that specify their goals, areas to be developed, and specific activities to be undertaken. In other cases, "we just had an open conversation at the dinner table," he said. About 70% of his time is spent in "mentor" relationships. "I myself am the product of every partner I have worked with over the years," he says.

Another strategic encouragement is the creation of communities of practice. Recently, Northrop Grumman has introduced an initiative to create communities of practice throughout the company. For example, if a structural engineer needs more information on stress analysis, he can join the appropriate societies to get the required information.

"We see it as one of many ways to help people share information," said Gerry Garcia, who oversees the company's knowledge management program. "Some of the meetings are face-to-face; Some other way of meeting."