3 Ways To Increase Knowledge Sharing Within Your Team
Boost morale, reward curiosity and increase productivity
As teams grow, it’s impossible to keep up with all the diverse projects everyone in the company is working on. Team members are spread out in different offices, buildings, cities or countries. Some of them may never meet in person.
This is a reality growing companies and established corporations have to deal with particularly with regard to talented upwardly mobile employees.
A lot of what we know, we learn through the experiences of the people around us. This kind of vicarious learning prevents us from making the same mistakes and wasting valuable resources doing the same thing over and over again.
Our capacity to learn from others increases productivity, decreases time wastage, and ultimately, grants us a competitive edge. To further hone that edge, we have to create a culture where knowledge is freely shared within our company.
So, what steps can you take today to increase knowledge sharing within your team?
1. Host all your content in a centralized location
An IDC study found that the average knowledge worker spends 36% of their time searching for information spread across various media. That’s over a third of their time spent just looking for the tools to do their job. The kicker is that 44% of the time, they don’t even find the information they were looking for.
Instead of simplifying knowledge flow, using multiple tools and databases is shifting valuable time away from working on new projects. This effect multiplies every quarter and negatively affects your overall productivity.
To increase knowledge sharing within your team, host all of your content in a centralized location. It needs to be somewhere where it can be accessed easily, searched through efficiently and available at any time, day or night.
The ideal solution will:
- Support various formats such as video, png files, audio, pdf, and plain text files.
- Support integration with the other tools you use on a daily basis
- Have an easy search function
- Allow you to structure, collate and divide files in different sub-sections
- Let you easily label and access files
- Allow you to gate certain privileged information such as client details and make them accessible on an “as needed” basis.
2. Keep it simple
Any knowledge sharing software you use should be simple, intuitive and easy to learn.
Our minds have a finite capacity for instant recall. That’s why we turn to and rely on external sources to store extra data. By simplifying the delivery method, we ensure that brain power is focused where it matters — on retaining and sharing valuable knowledge.
The last thing you want to do is create artificial barriers by using difficult to handle software with a steep learning curve.
But, even the best new tools take some getting used to. To decrease resistance, make the creation of great learning habits a company wide initiative.
3. Create a culture of ownership
When it comes down to it, we are pretty simple creatures.
We prioritize the things we care about, the things that matter to us. The myriad of other tasks that need doing but aren’t urgent or important get pushed further and further down our priorities list. If that goes on long enough, they get lost completely.
Every single person on your team is balancing a full work schedule of their own tasks and obligations. Adding yet another vague assignment like “share more knowledge” will just increase their stress levels and get bumped down the urgency scale.
That’s why it’s not enough to make knowledge sharing simple. We have to make it important. And to do that, we need to create a sense of ownership and make this a part of our company culture.
This needs to start at the top. It’s up to us to lay the groundwork, optimize knowledge flow and start prioritizing content curation and learning.
Your team is a reflection of your leadership. When they see that you are sharing your own knowledge, that you are putting in the effort and that it’s for a higher cause, they’ll stand by you.
To create that sense of ownership, encourage interactions and create an environment where they can happen freely.
Trello does this really well. Every Friday afternoon, they run Coffee Talks where team members get together and share specialized knowledge through short presentations. Everyone at Trello is encouraged to contribute and attend.
To create enthusiasm for the event, the team promotes it throughout the week and integrates the tech to make remote attendance easy. All the talks are recorded and shared with everyone in the company. Coffee talks is a brilliant example of creating ownership and capturing that knowledge for posterity.
These collaborative get togethers boost morale, create a sense of belonging and remind us that we are all in this together.
It’s up to us to start the conversation. To lay the foundations on which we can build a transparent, collaborative culture that encourages sharing and interaction.
Foster your team’s sense of community
In A Theory of Human Motivation, psychologist Abraham Maslow proposed that there were five chief driving forces that influence our behavior.
The esteem needs and desire for self-actualization are incredibly important when it comes to encouraging and building a robust, engaged team.
We produce higher quality work when we feel valued. And, as automation software takes over menial tasks, producing high quality knowledge work will become increasingly important.
That’s why we have to start laying the foundation for comprehensive knowledge sharing immediately.
Our decisions today determine how our company will be remembered in the future. Which side do you want to be on?
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