Does Gray Matter Really Matter? How knowledge Sharing Can Boost Your Career
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This presentation highlights some of the challenges faced in maintaining a knowledgeable work force, and gives examples of how (and how not) to meet those challenges. Come and learn the strategies that employees at every stage of their career can implement to increase their knowledge, promote a culture where knowledge is valued, and boost their careers in the process.
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Does Gray Matter Really Matter? How knowledge Sharing Can Boost Your Career
- 1. Does Gray Matter Really Matter? How Knowledge Sharing Can Boost Your Career
- 4. What is Knowledge Management? Tacit Explicit 4
- 5. Four Common KM Challenges 1. People Come and Go… 2. Getting a Grip on our Knowledge… 3. Knowing Why… 4. Finding What We Need… 5
- 6. Where Do We Go Wrong? • Meet Joe Supervisor … Guess Who’s Leaving! 6
- 7. The Numbers Game Why we must value knowledge… • 60% of our workers were hired in the past 6 years… • Plan to hire 15 - 20K employees in next 12 years… • Very specialized, unique knowledge • Mobile workforce 7
- 8. Cost of Replacing Employees • Harvard Business Review – • 21% of annual pay - average • Other Industry Sources – • 150% of annual pay for mid-level professional • 400% of annual pay for high level/specialized 8
- 9. Onboarding Statistics • 90% of employees make the decision to stay (or not) within the first six months (Bersin & Associates) • 66% report a higher rate of successful assimilation through effective onboarding (Aberdeen Group) • 54% report higher employee engagement through effective onboarding (Aberdeen Group) • 58% more likely to retain employees for more than three years through effective onboarding (Wynhurst Group) 9
- 10. Where Do We Go Wrong? • Meet Joe Supervisor … Guess Who’s Here! 10
- 11. Getting a Grip on Knowledge Vulnerabilities - Where Knowledge is King! 11
- 12. Lessons from Brain Rules Memory Problems • Students typically forget 90 percent of what they learn in a class within 30 days. • The majority of what we forget occurs in the first few hours after class. 12
- 13. Lessons from Brain Rules Creating Memory • Encoding is best when it uses all our senses (stimulating more senses improves memory) • Elaborate encoding creates stronger memories • Meaningful context aids retention • Real-world examples are more powerful • Remembering works better if the environment in which it was learned is recreated • Repetition (review) improves retention 13
- 14. Lessons from Brain Rules Prerequisites to learning (and teaching!) • Exercise boosts brain power (get up and go meet people!) • We need something exciting (emotional hook) to get our attention • Attention fades after 10 minutes • We are better at seeing patterns and abstracting meaning than recording details 14
- 15. Getting a Grip on Knowledge Knowledge Capture and Transfer Strategies • Knowledge Books, wikis and more… • Concept Maps (graphical depiction) • Lectures and Stories • Mentoring • Others 15 Knowledge Guru
- 16. Why Did We Do That? Imagine… HOW MANY years to design a nuclear sub? HOW MANY years to build one? HOW MANY built? HOW MANY per year? 30 to 40 year+ life span (each one!) Total project span of 5 to 8 decades! 16
- 17. Where Do We Go Wrong? • Back to Joe Supervisor … A Long Time Ago 17
- 18. Design History & Rationale • We’re better at capturing the “what” than the “why” • It is critical to capture both, especially for long- term projects • Capturing history and rationale must be part of the day-to-day effort 18
- 19. Finding What We Need Finding a small needle in a large haystack requires… • Taxonomy – A structured, common language • Metadata – A structured means of tagging content 19 and expensive >
- 20. Where Do We Go Wrong? • Back to Joe Supervisor … Where Did That Go? 20
- 21. Stop Doing That! 21 • How We Can Change Behavior? • What Needs to Change? • Look at the flow of knowledge in your company • How is it accomplished? • How is knowledge documented? • What would you do if it was your company?
- 22. Be a Knowledge Leader! What you can do to create a knowledge sharing culture • Mentor others/ Don’t Hoard Knowledge! • Document what you know and learn… • Leave a marked trail that others can follow…. 22 Knowledge Guru
- 23. Propelling Your Career Share knowledge • Ask questions • Build a personal network • Accept new challenges and learn (deep, then wide) • Be replaceable… so you can move up! 23
Editor's Notes
- Introductions by Dorothy Goettler and Bob Rossier Can anybody here tell me what knowledge is? When it comes to knowledge, we typically have two separate yet connected issues: Personal knowledge (what an individual knows and can do); Corporate knowledge (corporate capabilities)
- Knowledge is the collective of information, values, experience, intuition and insights that allow us to make the best timely and informed decisions.
- One way to define KM (Bob): Knowledge management involves the people, process and technology needed to ensure individuals have access to the right information when they need it in order to make the best decisions. From KM site: Knowledge Management (KM) is a structured process to help information and knowledge flow to the right people at the right time so they can act more efficiently and effectively to find, understand, share, and use knowledge. The top hemisphere is the tacit knowledge – that which has not been captured (documented), but resides in someone’s head and is often passed on from one person to another. The lower hemisphere is explicit knowledge – that which has been documented in some way that can be passed on to others.
- Today we’re going to look at four common challenges we face in KM First is the fact that within our workplace, people come and go, so we have the potential for knowledge to be lost, which diminishes the corporation’s capabilities. Next is assessing our knowledge, and ensuring that we have the knowledge needed to meet current and future business needs. We also need to understand and retain the rationale behind design decisions – Why we designed something the way we did. Finally, we need to be able to readily find information when it is needed – e.g., to support customer requests, respond to manufacturing, make changes…
- So let’s start with the first challenge. We’ll listen in on Joe Supervisor to get a sense of the types of problems that can arise in the workplace… (ring….ring….ring….) Yes. Good morning. This is Joe Supervisor over in Engineering. Yea, I’ve got a little problem here. Just found out that one of my key employees, a guy named Fred who’s been here for nearly 40 years, is planning to retire. The problem is, he’s the only guy who has the experience to run some of our most complicated shipboard tests. So I just don’t know what I should do… Well sure, I’ve got some newer employees, but they don’t have the kind of experience that… Well of course they could learn, but then I would need someone to take over the work they’ve been doing… Somebody who’s been looking for that kind of challenge? Hmmm. I see what you’re getting at. That’s a good point. I do have one guy, Charlie, who’s been here three years, and he’s even been mentoring some of the newer people… Uh huh…right… I see… Yes, you’re right. Charlie’s been really good about documenting the processes he’s been using, capturing design history on the project he’s been working, and recording the justification for the design changes. But I don’t know… we’re really under a lot of pressure here to get those tests done. I guess that does make sense. Someone else could pick up what Charlie’s been doing, and then Charlie could work with Fred… Yes, that’s perfect, and then Charlie could document what he learns from Fred, so the next person coming along would have a leg up on learning how to handle those problems. But what’s the best way for Charlie to learn this? I agree, I think a meeting to discuss this would be perfect, let’s say Thursday morning at 10? Great, see you then…
- You can see from Joe Supervisor’s conversation that retiring or exiting employees can be a challenge, and one that isn’t always dealt with successfully. And it can be a challenge for those remaining in a group, department or company, as well. But it can also be a great opportunity for those who are willing to learn, and dedicated to sharing what they know. What you might not realize is just how big a problem it can be for a company’s management and leadership.
- And it is expensive as well! Think of just what it costs to bring prospective employees in for an interview, and then there’s the training, moving expenses, etc.
- What this tells us is that having an effective onboarding program is critical. You might say, a “no brainer.” So how many of you had a favorable onboarding experience? How many of you are engaged in some way with onboarding new employees, or with mentoring new employees?
- But the onboarding process isn’t always regarded as important. Let’s listen in again as Joe Supervisor struggles with the arrival of some new employees… (ring….ring….ring….) Engineering, Joe Supervisor speaking, can I help you? Oh, good morning, and how are things over there in HR? … You’re kidding, right? …Three new employees? All in my group? … And they’re all starting today… Nope I had no idea. Nobody told me… On their way over right now you say? Be here in ten minutes…? Well I’ve got no idea where we’re going to put them, we don’t have any desks ready or anything, but I’ll have somebody meet them…. Ya, okay, thanks… NARRATOR: You can imagine how that went, and their first days at work did little to foster engagement of those new employees. Two months later… things aren’t going too well for old Joe Supervisor Good morning, Joe Supervisor here. Listen, I’ve got a situation. These new guys who just started, we’re just not getting the productivity we need out of… Well, no, we don’t actually have meetings to talk to them about how they’re doing, you know we’re kind of busy here… Well, I supposed if they asked, we could sit down and discuss their progress… New Employee Onboarding program? Never heard of… Well, we do what we’ve always done. I mean we’ve got tons for them to do here when they start. Heck the first month we drown them in policies, procedures, technical manuals… We’ve got so much for them to read, they don’t even have a second to come up for air… What’s that you say? …Networking? …With people you’re talking, not computers… I mean, they’ve got email and IM, so why would they actually want to meet anyone face to face? That sounds kind of like a waste of time, now doesn’t it…? Well, I suppose…Really, a 30 percent higher success rate for those who network? Faster advancement, too, huh? …Well, if you say so… So what else can we do to get them more productive? Real work? Really? Well, or course they don’t ask, and besides, they’re not ready for any real work, that takes time… Okay, well can we get together to talk about this some more? I think we need some new strategies… Tomorrow at 9? That will be great. You too, bye now!
- So the next challenge we face is assessment of knowledge (do we have what we need? What knowledge is vulnerable?) And this is also where the opportunity exists. As engaged employees, we want to be in a position to soak up that vulnerable knowledge so the corporate capabilities are retained. We want to be this guy, doing whatever is necessary to preserve and retain knowledge. So now we come the day-to-day capture and transfer of knowledge. I’d like to start out by taking a look at some of the neuroscience related to learning since it has a direct bearing on our efforts to capture and transfer knowledge. One of the leading authorities on the neuroscience of learning is John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist and research consultant at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He is also the founding director of two brain research institutes. In his New York Times best seller Brain Rules, Medina gives us some great clues on how to improve the process of learning. I highly recommend this book for all of you, and unfortunately can only give you a few of the many insights he provides.
- Learning actually changes the physical structure of the brain. Unfortunately, the memory-making process can have some issues, and we need to find ways to overcome them.
- To create memories, our brain must break down the content, and encode the information for storage All of these points have implications for what we do as employees in terms of developing and sharing knowledge. They can help inform the strategies we choose to capture and transfer knowledge.
- So here are a few lessons we can take away when we start looking for ways to capture and transfer knowledge to others.
- In fact there are numerous strategies we can apply to knowledge capture and transfer. But one key ingredient, and one that’s often overlooked, is the skill set and abilities of the individual who has knowledge to share. Someone who has good communication skills, presentation skills, and organization and writing skills is much better equipped to share and communicate knowledge to others. These are skills you should strive to improve. We can also employ the abilities of others to help with the knowledge capture process. It doesn’t have to be the Guru writing everything down. Again, those skills we just mentioned are key to the process.
- The next big challenge we face is capturing the rationale behind design decisions. How long does it take to design and build a product in your industry? How long is that product in service? How much could we forget in the process?
- So let’s go back to joe Supervisor, and listen in again to learn about a problem he’s facing… (ring…ring….ring….ring….) Engineering. Joe Supervisor… You want to know what? Boy, I don’t quite remember. That was a long time ago. So what you’re saying is we need to make a design change, right? I don’t see why you couldn’t just go ahead and do that… It’s all right there in the vendor drawings, and in the specs… Well, no, I can’t tell you exactly why it was designed that way, but I’m sure there was a good reason at the time. I hear you… I guess you really don’t want to make a change unless you know why it was designed that way to begin with… Well the guy who worked on it isn’t here anymore. He took a new job a couple years ago, but maybe we’ve got a box somewhere with some of his old files. I’ll have one of my guys see if he can find them, and I’ll get back to you. You need the answer when? Really, you can’t wait a week or two? … oh, I see… sounds urgent. Well we’ll see what we can do… Okay, bye!
- You can see what Joe was up against. Sound familiar? Does this ever happen in your industry? In fact, this can be a significant problem, especially for products with a long design and life cycle. Think about other products, such as commercial aircraft. How long has the Boeing 737 and its variants been around? And the designs are constantly updated and improved….
- Our last major challenge is a simple one – finding what we need. Estimated cost is over 100 hours per year per employee Data storage requirements increase roughly 40 percent per year Making information more “findable” requires two elements…
- Here again, we often run amok. Let’s listen in one last time as Supervisor Joe struggles with a problem… (ring….ring….ring….) Good morning, Joe Supervisor here. Oh sure, I remember that… Yes, yes, I think what we found was… Oh let me see here, I should be able to put my fingers on that….. just one minute while I… Huh… not here I guess…. Listen, give me a few minutes and I’ll get back to you, okay… You bet… thanks! Hi, Bernie, it’s Joe. I just got a call from Ed over in Department 393, and they need some results from that failure analysis we did on that Kensington Project, I think it just a few years ago. Do you have any idea where that is? … Well can you look into it? … I know, I just can’t remember. I know, I know… it would take a hundred hours to redo that analysis. … Uh huh… Well maybe it ended up in a different file. Can you think of anyone else who might have a copy, or who might know where to find it? Okay, thanks, but try to make it quick, okay? Ed is really getting anxious over this one…
- Once again, you may have just heard some things that sound familiar…. In fact, in all our examples with Joe supervisor we can see there is room for improvement. So the question becomes, how can we do things better?
- So let’s reflect a bit on what we’ve talked about here, and the implications for us and our careers – no matter where we are in our career!
- Sharing knowledge really is a key element in propelling our careers forward, and that’s from a personal perspective as well as from one of corporate needs. There isn’t any “They,” so “They” aren’t going to fix it