Trust and rich knowledge transfer

Relationships are important. You can communicate a lot of info but if trust is not there, you get only factual info.

Taking credit

We share our experience on organizing events. Individuals and divisions are interested in what we know. We have no issues, but our SOPs have been abused. We put a lot of time and expertise into our SOPs. Those divisions borrow our SOPs and change them and claim credit. We are not acknowledged. Sometimes, they leave for another agency, also heading events, with our SOPs. They need to let us know what their intentions are. Now, we are careful about what we share. If we don’t know what it’s used for, we just give general answers. We share freely but in other agencies, knowledge is competitive advantage or even IP. Where do we value-add? Do we give the lot, lock stock and barrel? Before we give, we have to find out what’s the value-add. There are lots of free riders here. You don’t need to work so hard, you just need to know someone to ask. There was an exodus of people who left us for other agencies. They asked for manuals, SOPs from us before they left.

Knowledge handover

We get a replacement only after staff have left, so the knowledge is lost. Timely replacement is important especially for heads of department. Once you know someone’s going to be transferred, you have to find a replacement. You can’t ask someone to share after she has moved to another department and learning to do a new job. The incumbent staff struggle to do two persons’ job until the replacement is in. Sometimes they leave. When the new head comes in, it’s tough to find out what has happened in the past.

Flowery language or street smarts?

Some of the Executive Assistants are quite senior. The majority of them know more than us. They have the network. Better than us clicking a button. I ask my EA and he can get the info, just one phone call away. It’s easier that way than to go directly. We can use flowery language etc but no offence, it may not help. We have to use a different array of tools to get the job done.

Conversation, not documents

Field documents can only capture decision points, but the knowledge resides in people involved in projects. We get so much data we are overwhelmed. Sometimes the most important info resides in the person. It’s hard to document implicit knowledge, but it’s their competitive advantage. They don’t mind sharing but they don’t want to document in a 1000 page document eg. State of the industry - it’s the conversation rather than the document.

Share or Meet KPIs?

I certainly agree that going to colleagues is faster than going into the KM system but only if colleagues are willing to share. I have come across colleagues who are not willing to share. So I go to someone else for a second or third search. I don’t see a sharing culture yet especially with colleagues from other branches. Even for friends, if you approach them once or twice, it’s ok. But after that, they get frustrated. Everyone has KPI. He may have to put in extra time to meet his KPI if he spends time helping you.

Self-Sacrifice

We get info from experienced staff. There was this case where the customer said we did not assess the situation correctly. We didn’t know what to do. We went to a colleague and she taught us how to do the assessment. She was willing to help even though it hindered her own output. She was willing to put her work aside.

Can't remember

We were trying to ask an experienced person about handling this particular case. This person had been transferred to another department, and he couldn’t remember how he handled the case. There was either no documentation, or he didn’t know how to locate it.

Matching competencies to jobs

Here, the knowledge lies with people. Who are the people doing the different jobs? It’s hard to help people know the strengths and weaknesses of staff, and match them to the right job. We have a performance appraisal but it’s still hard to pick out the right info and then put into the hands of the right people to make decisions.

Parasite

I went to this guy for some info and he said “I’m sorry I have no time.” I was shocked. Then, another time he asked me how to grant access to a particular folder. I guided him through the process, step by step. I even helped him fill up the Excel template. After that, another time, I needed some info again from him. I thought maybe he would be nicer since I helped him before. He said “I have no time.”

Leaning through mistakes

Knowledge captured in documents is for new people, but they still have to learn through mistakes to gain experience.

Inexperienced boss, experienced staff

New people and new bosses bring in new perspectives, but they still have to learn from older staff. We shouldn’t differentiate by rank. We are all in it together. It’s hard to answer who comes in. We are experienced and when the new manager comes in, we teach them everything they need to know. But we don’t get recognized.

Leaking knowledge

Our challenge is that technology is always changing. Also, others try to poach our staff – it’s not easy to get training overseas. When we go into the field we don’t know which system we will face. When people leave, all the knowledge people have gained over the years is lost. We try to keep databases, but it’s hard to keep tacit knowledge. We try to address this through sharing. We try to keep staff by providing them with training since we can’t compete on salary.

Who knows?

It’s not so much about knowledge sharing but access. If info resides in humans, I wouldn’t know who to look for. For example, Task A and B. Who do I ask? I can’t email the whole department to ask. It would be weird. So knowing who has the info, that intimidates me. I sent emails to different individuals but I still haven’t got the info.

Get it first time, dummy

Not everybody is willing to share knowledge. I have this colleague who is very experienced. She will explain in one breath and you have to try to understand her. If you ask her again, she’ll raise her voice. These tend to be old-timers.

Helping could be a full time job

I only help my friend. If I help one after another then it becomes my full time job to help. If somebody is helpful, everybody goes to that person. For example, I helped the XYZ department once to prepare a site plan. Then another email from that branch came “I understand that you can prepare site plans”. My core duty is to serve my internal customers.

Contribute a Story

Please contribute your own examples in the contribution form below, using the suggested topic areas in the illustration as a guide. You can also browse other people’s examples, and make comments or discuss particular issues that you see in these situations.

All contributions will be moderated before being posted on our site. We need you to identify yourself in the contribution, but you can opt to be anonymous when your story is posted. We will only use your email address to notify you of project-related activities, or to clarify specific points in your story. We will NOT publish your email address with the story.

About this Project

We (Matt and Patrick) have been working in knowledge management for (too?) many years, and one of the areas we see growing in importance is how organisations try, succeed or sometimes fail to get the best out of the experience and expertise of the people that work for them. This is an issue that cuts across many disciplines, not just knowledge management: talent management, learning and development, succession planning, business continuity, quality management, risk management, operational managers, leaders - all have a stake in this issue.

But there is very little known about common ways that experience and expertise are actually treated and used across different geographies and organisation types. So we thought we would conduct an open research project designed to examine the ways that experience and expertise are valued and used within organisations (or not).

By "open" we mean public and collaborative, where the products of the research are available to all the contributors. We want to involve the different communities with a stake in this area: knowledge management, education & learning, organisation development, professional associations, and not least those with expertise and deep experience in a particular field themselves. The focus is not limited to any one geography. The results of this study will be made openly available via this blog.

The project will be in three overlapping phases:

Phase 1: Story Collection (December 2008-March 2010)

Gathering examples of how expertise and experience are leveraged – or not – in a diverse range of organisations, to prime the rest of the project.

Phase 2: Sensemaking (February 2009-March 2010)

Working with KM practitioners and others in different countries to identify patterns, issues and themes in how experience and expertise are leveraged across diverse contexts. We are also running a survey to check out some of the emerging findings from the early sensemaking workshops.

Phase 3: Intervention Design (March 2010-December 2010)

Working with relevant stakeholder groups to identify possible strategies and ways of encourage better use of experience and expertise in different contexts.

We are now in Phase 2 in the midst of the sensemaking activities, but are still collecting stories:

Please contribute your own examples in the contribution form here, using the suggested topic areas as a guide. You can also browse other people’s examples, and make comments or discuss particular issues that you see in these situations.

Phase 2 Outputs: visit our project wiki to see the outputs from our sensemaking workshops.

A Note on Methodology: the methods we use in this project are largely inspired by the work and techniques developed by Dave Snowden of the Cognitive Edge network.

Supporters: this project is supported by Anecdote.