Leadership Presentation

I had the priviledge of speaking to a friend's MBA class recently. Here's the presentation I gave.

Capturing Tribal Knowledge

Ancient civilizations passed along tribal knowledge in a variety of ways - through storytelling, apprenticeships, rites of passage.

Some documented their history and beliefs in hieroglyphs or cave drawings or in sculpture.

Rituals were extremely important.

In ancient times, sharing knowledge was essential for survival.

In modern times, it seems we've lost the habit of sharing. Perhaps we don't see it as essential to our survival anymore.

After all, if we want food, we go to the grocery store. Want it prepared? Go to the Drive Thru at McDonalds. If we need shelter, we rent an apartment or buy a house. Need transportation? There are a dozen car dealerships within 10 miles.

The price we pay for convenience, is that we've lost our skills at capturing tribal knowledge. Skills learned within business tend to stay in our heads. We aren't taught on the job anymore, we learn on the job. The wisdom of the skilled craftsman isn't shared like it once was.

And we're all the worse for it. As our population ages, many businesses are facing the growing threat of losing their "tribal knowledge". The most experienced employees, who have long contributed to the company's success through their individual contributions, have never bothered to share their knowledge with others. In some companies, sharing meant losing power, leverage or stature and so it was actually discouraged.

So how do we go about capturing our tribal knowledge?

Start by starting. Recognize the need. Conceptualize the business benefits. Make it a priority. Implement a sharing tool and develop a sharing culture. Position sharing as a win/win strategy rather than a zero sum game.

Corporate intranets have tried to serve this purpose, but many fall short. Intranets are used like the Yellow Pages. They're there if you need them. But many times they're like a one way street - a reference tool. True collaboration requires that everyone contribute to communal knowledge. Effective intranets facilitate a two way dialogue. Ideas are gleaned from every corner of the company and are surfaced for discussion and evaluation by all.

For some, this is a painful endeavor. Documenting ideas, participating in discussion boards, blogging are all time consuming efforts. It is so much easier to pick up the phone and tell someone your opinion. But the problem with this is the fact that you're telling someONE. This process is inefficient and in larger organizations, one to one communication is never captured in the collective conscience.

Here are a few suggestions to try to engage your team in capturing tribal knowledge.

Provide an intranet where everyone can contribute. Co-locate access to business applications, reporting tools, news and discussion.

Position your intranet as the "Town Square" - the intersection of all your company's activities - work, play, recognition (parades), initiatives and news.

Encourage people to visit. Where you used to communicate via mass email, instead, write a blog post and email the link. Instead of printing and distributing reports. Create a framework where project participants update tasks and projects in real time. Then make it easy for anyone in the company to be easily informed (custom email alerts, RSS feeds etc).

Develop rich, plentiful, interesting and essential content.

Avoid, where possible, content approval management routines. This places publishing burden on some individuals and discourages the capturing of spontaneous ideas.

Nurture, coax, encourage. You're trying to create a new corporate habit. It will take some time.

But the journey will be worth it!

Starters vs. Closers

Are you a Starter or a Closer?

Starters

1. Arrive at work with no set goals for the day. You would like to get something done, but don't have a plan.
2. Spend most days adjusting to the time demands of others. Your agenda is set for you, not by you.
3. Typically have many tasks in progress at any one time. And they're ALL important.
4. Prefer to do things yourself, rather than delegate them, because others wouldn't do as good a job as you would (if you had the time).
5. Intentions are noble, but deadlines are frequently missed.
6. Always find the time to begin a new task, but can't find the time to complete an existing one.
7. Have difficulty saying "No" to others' demands.
8. Are more of a "go with the flow" person than someone who "makes waves".
9. Hold the belief that if you're putting in 40 (or more) hours of work, you're doing your job.
10. Tend to do more "gathering of information and reporting" than "doing".
11. Count meetings as "work" - even if they don't accomplish anything.
12. Spend a portion of every day explaining to others why something isn't done yet.
13. Tend to be an individual problem solver and tend to "reinvent the wheel".
14. Starters try to eat the whole elephant in one sitting. You see large projects as daunting, difficult and have difficulty breaking a project into smaller manageable tasks.


Closers

1. Arrive at work knowing exactly what needs to get done.
2. Are in control of their daily schedule - will refuse (or counter-propose) meetings if they jeopardize a deadline.
3. Are focused on a few important tasks and have the discipline to defer less important tasks.
4. Can effectively delegate tasks and get things accomplished with their team. They understand that even if the task might not be (initially) done to their standards, that providing a learning opportunity to a junior member of the team will both advance the completion of the task and better prepare your team for the next one.
5. Deadlines are personal. Making and meeting a commitment is very important to you. Your reputation is on the line.
6. Are comfortable with prioritizing and helping others understand the difference between important projects and urgent projects.
7. Can gracefully say No to a request (or Yes, but not until Task A,B and C are completed).
8. You measure your job performance in terms of tasks and projects completed, rather than time spent.
9. You understand that by focusing on completing Project tasks on time, that the overall Project deadlines (milestones) manage themselves.
10. You are selfish with your time. If you're invited to a meeting that doesn't have a specific objective you ask the organizer for the meeting objective or don't attend. Not all meetings are bad. Just the ones that don't accomplish anything.
11. You're focused on the future but working in the present. (How do I get this task finished to get on with the next one?)
12. You want to get to the answer quickly. Don't have a problem in asking for expert advice if it moves the project forward. It's the answer that's important, not who provides it.
13. You view projects as the sum of their tasks.