Why Knowledge Transfer Is A Key Part Of Building Business Leadership Mar 22nd
Too many businesses think that knowledge transfer – the spread of critical business information from one person to another – is only important when someone is leaving. This is why we speak of grooming the next CEO or next communications specialist; we groom them by making sure they have all of the information, skills, and contacts they need to get their job done. But why wait until someone is leaving?
By emphasizing knowledge transfer at all times, your business can develop leadership in remarkable ways. Not everyone needs to be ready to be CEO, but everyone can work to grow their role in the company. This disperses risk when you do face outgoing leadership, a major concern when it comes to current knowledge transfer practices. Your company’s leadership might have to come up with new methods to pass on the information. If your CEO is not able to cater to such challenges individually, you might need to hire a third party who could help you with a group of specialists to assist your CEO in tackling such situations. Such groups can serve as a trusted advisor to CEOs and help manage the training and leadership development programs of the company.
Training As An Ongoing Process
Training is important for all professionals, but too often it stops after the first few weeks or is restricted to the occasional seminar. Instead of limited when your staff is learning, consider broadening your view of training to include observation, mentoring relationships, and co-leadership opportunities.
Training should be a high spending area – the few hours of productivity lost by inviting a less advanced staff member to an important meeting to learn the ropes, for example, will ultimately be made up later when that individual applies new leadership skills to company problems.
The Role Of Records
One way that companies often diminish the force of knowledge transfer is through poor record keeping. When too much minutia is buried inside executives’ brains instead of in appropriate files and forms, it becomes a lot hard to transition those leaders into new roles or ask others to step up. See where your business can bolster record keeping so that you can spread out leadership responsibilities.
Company Confidence
When we talk about confidence in relationship to knowledge transfer, there are several things at stake. First, knowledge transfer practices can help build employee confidence by showing that you trust them with greater leadership roles. Second, ongoing knowledge transfer helps an incoming leader gain the confidence of their team. The team knows they have the skills to get the job done, and that allows everyone to go forward without worrying that a change of leadership could destabilize the whole company.
Limitless Leadership
Now is the time to start imagining a new kind of knowledge transfer. Do you ask your interns to blog about their experience? Even those blogs can provide a greater sense of understanding and confidence among the next group of new workers. What about old meeting minutes? Is there important information buried in there? Consider digitizing these to make them more accessible to new employees. By understanding the different media that act as knowledge containers, you can revolutionize how workers learn to lead.
Mar 22nd
Too many businesses think that knowledge transfer – the spread of critical business information from one person to another – is only important when someone is leaving. This is why we speak of grooming the next CEO or next communications specialist; we groom them by making sure they have all of the information, skills, and contacts they need to get their job done. But why wait until someone is leaving?
By emphasizing knowledge transfer at all times, your business can develop leadership in remarkable ways. Not everyone needs to be ready to be CEO, but everyone can work to grow their role in the company. This disperses risk when you do face outgoing leadership, a major concern when it comes to current knowledge transfer practices. Your company’s leadership might have to come up with new methods to pass on the information. If your CEO is not able to cater to such challenges individually, you might need to hire a third party who could help you with a group of specialists to assist your CEO in tackling such situations. Such groups can serve as a trusted advisor to CEOs and help manage the training and leadership development programs of the company.
Training As An Ongoing Process
Training is important for all professionals, but too often it stops after the first few weeks or is restricted to the occasional seminar. Instead of limited when your staff is learning, consider broadening your view of training to include observation, mentoring relationships, and co-leadership opportunities.
Training should be a high spending area – the few hours of productivity lost by inviting a less advanced staff member to an important meeting to learn the ropes, for example, will ultimately be made up later when that individual applies new leadership skills to company problems.
The Role Of Records
One way that companies often diminish the force of knowledge transfer is through poor record keeping. When too much minutia is buried inside executives’ brains instead of in appropriate files and forms, it becomes a lot hard to transition those leaders into new roles or ask others to step up. See where your business can bolster record keeping so that you can spread out leadership responsibilities.
Company Confidence
When we talk about confidence in relationship to knowledge transfer, there are several things at stake. First, knowledge transfer practices can help build employee confidence by showing that you trust them with greater leadership roles. Second, ongoing knowledge transfer helps an incoming leader gain the confidence of their team. The team knows they have the skills to get the job done, and that allows everyone to go forward without worrying that a change of leadership could destabilize the whole company.
Limitless Leadership
Now is the time to start imagining a new kind of knowledge transfer. Do you ask your interns to blog about their experience? Even those blogs can provide a greater sense of understanding and confidence among the next group of new workers. What about old meeting minutes? Is there important information buried in there? Consider digitizing these to make them more accessible to new employees. By understanding the different media that act as knowledge containers, you can revolutionize how workers learn to lead.
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