“Showing work [provides]increased efficiencies, the possibility of innovation, and increased ability toimprovise, and it promises correction of long-standing deficits inorganizational communication.” That’s the opening quote from Jane Bozarth’s September Learning Solutions Magazine column on the value of working out loud fororganizations, and I couldn’t agree more (LSMagsolidarity)!
Not only have I witnessed thepower of workplace knowledge sharing as part of L&D, I have been living thecause for my entire professional life. I’m not 100 percent sure about where mysharing tendencies originated. Maybe it was my stint as the editor of my highschool newspaper or my talk radio days in college? Regardless, since I wrote myfirst memo as a new AMC Theatres manager at the age of 19, I have been on amission to make the knowledge I use on the job—every decision, idea, andoutcome—accessible to anyone who may need it. But I’m not your typical employee(humble brag)…
The long, long road
Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/gray-concrete-road-with-mountain-ahead-119730/
In an ideal world, the best ofall workplace information and experience would flow together continuously toform a powerful collection of shared knowledge. Employees would know what toshare and how best to share it. Support departments would focus on tools andenablement rather than content and control. Teams would support one anothercontinuously and thereby reduce the need for formal interventions. Sorry todisappoint, but we don’t live (or work) in that world. While pretty mucheveryone (safe assumption) agrees with the potential value of shared knowledge,we remain burdened by the weight of the modern enterprise. Hierarchy. Silos.Compliance. Ownership. Lackluster technology. Failures in trust. The list goeson and on. The concept of shared workplace knowledge is AMAZING! In real life,we have mountains to climb.
Starting the revolution
Now that I’ve doomed and gloomedyou enough, let’s talk about a glimmer of hope that already exists within yourorganization when it comes to shared knowledge. Remember 19-year-old AMCmanager JD? The guy who really liked to write memos and tell everyone about hisideas and experiences? Well, he may not be the typical employee, but he also isn’tthe only one who does stuff like that. Even if your organization has yet toevolve and recognize the value of shared knowledge, you already have peoplewithin the company who exhibit similar behaviors. And they often aren’t thesubject matter experts you typically lean on for information. I’m looking atyou, the guy who makes the really ugly, unapproved-but-useful PowerPointpresentations and emails them to his team all the time!
To start a knowledge revolutionwithin our organizations, we have to find and enable the people who alreadyrecognize the value of sharing.
Find
Even organizations that aremaking strides toward improved knowledge sharing still tend to rely on alimited set of subject matter experts. After all, they are the standard go-to peoplewho have the recognized authority and automatic approvability. It’s the simple,safe play. However, there are only so many formal SMEs in your company, andthey’re usually pretty busy people. They go on vacation sometimes, too. Theonly way to truly scale knowledge is to leverage the strength of your crowd,and that starts with finding your existing—albeit unofficial—advocates.
These people aren’t hiding.Quite the opposite. They’re the ones always having their hands slapped forsharing “unapproved materials.” They’re also the ones who point out issues withapproved content and constantly forward you emails from unconventional sources.These employees were quite easy to find during my time at Kaplan. All I had todo was walk around the office and look at cubicle walls. Rarely did I findformal training and marketing materials, but not for lack of supply. Instead,homegrown job aids and ugly PowerPoint slides were the decor of choice. Thisled me to the people who took the time and made the effort to share theirknowledge in the best ways they knew how. These were the people I needed—plus afew standard SMEs—to kick-start a knowledge revolution.
Advocacy is not just aboutwillingness and output. After all, plenty of employees are sharing inaccurateand/or useless information. Credibility is a huge factor. You are looking forthe people who play the go-to role that often fills the void when formalresources aren’t available.
How many advocates should youlook for? That depends entirely on what you’re trying to accomplish when itcomes to shared knowledge. Start small and leverage the most dedicated,credible advocates on specific content topics to provide value to youraudience. Then, you can identify new advocates along the way as your effortsgrow organically across the organization.
Organize
You have people with desire andcredibility, but they lack purpose. They understand only the needs of theirindividual teams and cannot align their sharing with the greater organizationalcontext. To strengthen your learning ecosystem, you must enable these advocatesand align them with the larger vision for shared knowledge. Build a strategicframework that can drive overall usability but also flex and grow with theneeds of your people.
Start by establishing simple,transparent guidelines. For example:
- How will shared knowledge improve the employee and/orcustomer experience?
- Which topics require formal approval, and why?
- What are your basic content-quality standards orformatting requirements?
- Who has the final say with regard to content approval?
Don’t go rule crazy, but makesure everyone understands how their work can support the needs of theorganization. Publish these guidelines for all employees to set the tone foryour ongoing knowledge-sharing efforts.
Technology is a requiredingredient of a knowledge-sharing recipe for any scalable enterprise. Youradvocates have likely been doing their best with what they have because no onegave them an official organizational “save” button. Combining their willingnesswith the right tools will not only improve the usability of their content butalso act as an initial motivator for engagement. No, not every advocate shouldbe an admin with full control of your sharing platforms. However, they shouldbe activated as super-users so they can play key roles in building and curatingknowledge as quickly as possible.
Motivate
You’ve identified your advocatesand established a basic knowledge framework. Now how do you get them to share?
Model behavior. You must take the lead and demonstrate what qualityknowledge sharing looks like. Seed your employee knowledge platform withexample content that your advocates can follow and contribute toward. Findsimple ways to integrate curation into your daily work routine and socializeyour best practices.
Recognize early and often. Knowledge sharing is about value, notoutput. Recognize contributors who share great content. Establish acredibility-based rewards system using simple game elements to connectcontribution to future opportunities. Socialize the impact their sharing has ontheir peers’ ability to do their jobs.
Upskill. To date, your advocates may have been limited to emailsand PowerPoints. Show how much you value their insight by providing basictraining on your knowledge platform as well as content creation and curation.Help your early adopters up their game, and your users will ultimately benefit.
Make it about people. I had a hard time finding credible volunteersto share their knowledge for a series of short videos a few years ago. However,when I changed the messaging to reinforce how much these videos would helptheir fellow employees, people were much quicker to step up. Shared knowledgedoesn’t just help the company reach its goals. It improves the employee and customerexperiences.
Scale
Your early advocates will becritical to get you started and establish a knowledge base. However, if you aregoing to recognize the potential of shared knowledge across your organization,you’ll have to find ways to scale your efforts. After all, if you’re effective,people are going to want to play. Gathering too much demand for knowledge-sharingstrategy is a GREAT problem to have!
Scalability should be on yourmind from day one when it comes to shared knowledge. While with Kaplan, Iestablished my “10,000-user principle.” I made every decision based on theapplicability to 10,000 people. If I could handle 10,000, I knew I could alsohandle any number the organization could throw my way. For this reason, Irejected several ideas during our first few years that made sense for smalleraudiences but would ultimately have set us back later once our strategy wententerprise-wide.
Never stop looking for andenabling advocates. In an organization with 75,000 employees, you will probablynever get to a point where all 75,000 are sharing their work. You also likelydon’t want to. What are the odds that everyone has something unique andvaluable to share? Rather, you should continuously evolve your advocatecriteria to meet the current needs of your audience. Limit centralized controlin favor of delegation. Let your super-users find your future advocates andmake workplace knowledge sharing a viral effort.
Unleash the knowledge advocates!
Evolving your organization’sapproach to knowledge sharing is a HUGE task. You can’t do it alone, and youcan’t sustain it with a single initiative or a short list of SMEs. There is a tremendousamount of desire, talent, and experience at play within your organization. It’sjust waiting for the opportunity to break out of the silos and make an impact.It’s time we brought together the ugly-PowerPoint creators, unapproved-job-aidbuilders, and 19-year-old memo writers within our companies. As L&D, we canenable these knowledge advocates and help them leverage their natural knowledge-sharingbehaviors for the greater benefit of our workplaces.
