The Key to the Future: Share Knowledge!
The first day at my first “grown up” job was a reality check. Eager to enter the world of digital marketing, I was prepared to do what I had to in order to show that I was “worthy” of the position. I was greeted at the door at 8 A.M., given a tour of the facilities, shown my general work area and provided with the agenda for the day.
- Setup email and other required accounts (accounts were verbally provided, not written)
- Watch a 2 hour “training” video — more inspirational than training
- Learn about daily tasks and company rules with manager
- Lunch
- Get settled in (What does that mean? To this day I’m still not sure)
- Learn how to enter in contracts
- Start entering in contracts
Most of the tasks were fairly self-explanatory and were generally lead by a manager or some other facilitator. The trouble came when I was finally left on my own…
Contracts Aren’t the Devil…But they Sure Felt Like It
My first attempt at creating a contract seemed simple on the surface. I was given a contract from the previous month, logged into an internal program (that I’d never used before), copied the information exactly, printed off the contract and finally provided it to the manager for approval with a smile on my face.
I couldn’t believe how easy this was and furthermore that they were going to pay me for it! My smile quickly faded though as I saw the utter confusion on the manager’s face.
I had done it wrong! Being a bit of a perfectionist, I didn’t handle it well…at least internally.
How Could This Be?!?
I had followed every instruction exactly. I had copied the contract the way I was told. Where did I go wrong? Looking back, it wasn’t the execution that failed but the instruction or more aptly, lack of instruction.
One issue was that each contract had their own specific instructions and special cases, a piece of knowledge that I was not made privy to, that required details to be included. Since each contract was essentially a “special case,” they needed to be treated as such. The next three days were a learning curve from hell.
I lost sleep thinking about contracts, not kidding. I quickly developed impostor syndrome. I constantly battled with thoughts of if I was good enough for the position and if I would be fired for not meeting the grade. In hindsight, this was unfounded. Spoiler alert, I was never fired.
Cool Story. Why Do I Care?
The point of my story is to illustrate a common problem. When new hires come into your organization, they commonly have at least a little sense of uneasiness. They’re in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people and operating in a setting that’s, for the most part, unfamiliar to them. This has the potential to cause stress even for the most seasoned of professionals. In this initial phase, it’s crucial to mitigate stress as much as possible, not facilitate it.
The Problem?
The training manager was amazing…at pretty much everything within the company. She was a literal walking reference for most, if not all, operations at the company. This was also her flaw. Because she knew so much about operations, tasks like this were simple for her. Since they made sense to her, she assumed that it must be simple for others too.
It wasn’t.
How Do I Avoid This?
Provide instruction! Let’s face it, I was doing contracts because others didn’t want to do them. Not a problem, except I didn’t know how to do so properly.
Handing off tasks that can be completed by others so you can focus on more pressing issues is fantastic, unless they’re unable to complete the tasks. Makes sense right? Then why do we spend so little time planning, training and providing reference information for success?
The problem usually manifests itself in three ways.
Don’t know where to start. There are so many different processes in an organization. Many of these processes require details. Compiling all of these details is difficult and time consuming.
Don’t think it will be worth it or that we need it. Providing team members with reference material sounds good but they still ask questions in regards to information that we’ve already provided.
Previous efforts haven’t been fruitful. Similar to the previous point, we’ve attempted efforts in the past but no improvements occurred as a result.
You’re Not Alone
If any of the reasons above resonated with you, you’re not alone. We’ve personally worked with numerous clients who ran into the same struggles of justifying the costs (perceived or real) of facilitating a knowledge culture within their organization. Let my example be your inspiration for pushing forward.
Properly documenting, managing and distributing knowledge within your organization doesn’t have to be a pain point. In fact it should be rejoiced. It should be the goal of every member of your team to share what they know for the benefit of the organization as a whole. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s put the best foot forward and plan.
Planning: Where to Start
Before jumping head first into any endeavor, you will need to plan. Start by gathering data about the current struggles your organization faces. You can enlist the help of HR if you have a “complaint box” available to get started or simply speak with representatives of teams.
Next build a rough architecture of the teams you currently have at your organization. Match the struggles with the respective teams and decide on the value that will be increased by providing better instructions for the problems. By doing this you will be accomplishing three things.
First, you should be able to get a better idea of what issues to tackle first. Trust me, it’s easier if you plan for one team at a time, at least from the start, versus trying to tackle everything at once.
Second, by looking at all of the respective teams you may uncover issues that you didn’t even know were occurring but were equally valuable. I see this happen all the time where a sales focused instructor only sees value in improving the sales team’s performance and overlooks the fact that due to improper information input, orders are not able to be fulfilled. Improving sales isn’t the issue, improving communication between the sales and fulfillment team is.
Third, if you get a better understanding of the team layouts you should also get better insight into how they interact. Perhaps the real issue doesn’t lie with the production team but rather how they interact with sales or shipping. Understanding these intricacies allows for better construction of knowledge.
Improvement: Utilizing Team Experts and Providing Clarity
Creating generic information for users to review is fine, but we’re not shooting for fine…our goal is great. But how? All of the experts you need currently reside within your teams. Identify key thought leaders within each and ask them for their input on commonly asked questions, struggles, points of interest and other value added knowledge.
By utilizing these members, you’re allowing them to have input and influence on their current and future team members. This will resonate well with them.
Tapping in to critical insight isn’t strictly for making thought leaders “feel good.” The real task behind getting expert info is relaying that in your instructions. Think about my personal example described earlier. I was more than willing to do the job, I simply didn’t know how…properly. When creating any type of instruction remember that the details matter. Provide clarity, avoid uncertainty.
Relaying the Message: Info Housing and Distribution
One of the biggest struggles we’ve seen when it comes to creating, providing and managing information within an organization is finding a proper medium for housing and distribution. Spending all the time in the world creating high value information means nothing if no one is able to reference it.
Traditionally information distribution has taken form in reference manuals, binders, bulletin board posts, etc. The very nature of these materials cause distribution and updates to be costly and inefficient. Not to mention, carrying around a ten pound stack of papers isn’t anyone’s idea of optimal.
More recently organizations have attempted to ditch the print option for a digital substitute. Despite the update, large inefficiencies still exist. Organizations desperate for a solution often turn to programs not designed to solve the problem at hand but promise to help streamline one section of learning (usually on-boarding). Conversely others turn to free or pre-installed programs (think Google Drive, Word, PowerPoint, etc.) to try and cobble together a system where documents become buried in a sea of folders. In this instance the ability to reference materials and access knowledge when it is needed the most suffers.
Enter the knowledge management system (KMS). The purpose of building a knowledge system is to continuously educate your teams on the best practices of the job. When properly managed productivity flourishes, errors diminish and safety improves.A good KMS allows you to do this easily.
A KMS simply refers to a platform that allows you to document your critical knowledge in a clear and descriptive manner, distribute to those who need it the most, manage and edit as needed and measure usage. All of this comes together in an easy to use, easy to reference and constantly accessible platform (Good platforms need to be mobile friendly. Ideally as an application vs mobile site for access in areas with poor internet connectivity).
One of the biggest benefits of a solid KMS is its ability to allow for team collaboration of some kind. Look for a platform that includes a comment feature or message board that allows users of the information to provide feedback for areas where knowledge can be improved. By allowing this activity within your organization you’re facilitating a learning culture that will better the team as a whole, not one individual at a time.
Informed Team Members Thrive
Speaking from experience, not knowing what to do is disheartening. Instances like the example I provided lead to feelings of uncertainty and a drop in perceived value. Too many instances and you may be losing out on valuable team members. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Take the time to document the proper steps to completing your required tasks. A little time invested will help you improve on-boarding, help create a learning culture, keep your teams on the front lines of industry updates and keep them feeling valued.
The question is…are you ready to get started?
Intrigued? Check out these other posts (below) about improving learning in your organization, follow the HowFactory Edition, give us a clap or two or start a conversation with us here!
Improving Training Effectiveness
Andrew Vick — HowFactory
