Results tagged “mentoring” from KM Edge: Where the best in Knowledge Management come together

Most of you are familiar with Jim Lee as APQC's KM senior adviser and a frequent (and often entertaining) contributor to this blog. At our January knowledge management community call, Jim will be highlighting some mentoring insights from APQC's best practices research, answering questions about the areas that benefit from mentoring and the issues surrounding mentoring programs.

To hear Jim's take on mentoring and to share your own experiences and questions, please join us this Thursday, January 28, at 10:30 a.m. Central time. You can register for the call at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/591993305.

It is no secret that, for many organizations, training is one of the first and easiest cuts to make when money is tight.  The need for training doesn't go away, just the budget.  Tough economic times cause companies to reduce headcount, reorganize, merge, outsource, retool, add products, chase new markets, and act in many other creative ways.  Each of these actions creates a transition such as an employee taking on a new role, a team introducing a new process or a new technology, or a partnership requiring a reset on "how we do things around here."

In each of these transitions, there are people who "know" and people who "need to know."  With formal training dollars slashed, the only way this training will happen is on the job.  Experienced people will be called on to teach what they know to their less experienced colleagues.  They'll have to break their knowledge down into manageable chunks, teach with deference to learning styles, test to ensure that they have been heard, and then give feedback on the resulting work--all while carrying a regular workload.

If you have long-time, successful employees, at some point along the way you will need them to train coworkers on the job.  Experienced workers transfer knowledge to ramp up new employees, to cross-train existing employees who are changing roles, and to prepare for their own departures when they retire.  This training must include more than the steps involved in doing the work.  It has to incorporate the "secret sauce" that makes the trains run on time. Wisdom.

Managers often lament that it's too hard for their veteran employees to share with others the wisdom they've accumulated. This type of tacit knowledge is too amorphous and too dependent on years of experience to be teachable.  After all, how can a veteran project manager say what he's looking for as he "takes care" of his team or a long-serving nurse explain how she just "knows" when a patient is in trouble?  How can the research scientist describe 35 years of testing methodology or the maintenance technician describe how he can "hear" a problem deep in the bowels of the plant?  How can anyone impart all those years of trial-and-error experience to someone else?  The answer is that it might not be easy--but we need to do better than simply wringing our hands and admitting defeat.

A few months ago, I posted about Creating an Effective Mentorship Program. Now I'd like to share a PowerPoint presentation about mentoring that was created by one of the officers I mentor.

The presentation is very well done and deals with mentoring from all perspectives, including that of the mentor, the individual being mentored, and the organizational leadership. The material in the presentation is based on two very good sources: "Follow My Lead" by Evan H. Offstein and Jason M. Morwick of the American Society for Quality (September 2004), and The Elements of Mentoring by W. Brad Johnson and Charles R. Ridley (2004).

What I hope the junior officers get out of the internship week is:  a better understanding of the high level issues affecting the organization that junior officers rarely experience first hand (they typically just feel the after-effects), personal observation of the forums and interactions I use to help "steer" the organization, exposure to leadership styles and issues different from their own, and mentoring from a senior Navy officer. What I usually get out of the week is: exposure to a different point of view, some insight into what junior officers are thinking, and 360-degree feedback on my leadership style and effectiveness.