Tacit Knowledge – Get it out of their heads

Mel managed a team of stars. Her small but perfectly formed HR Team of three had worked together for five years. They knew each other and their respective roles inside out. They all worked on autopilot. Managing them was the easiest job Mel had ever had. That was until one fateful wet and windy November morning…

Mel was always first into the office, so she thought it unusual to find all of her team members sat waiting for her. The expression on their faces didn’t look good. They didn’t waste any time in thrusting their one months’ notice letters in front of her. Mel looked aghast as they each apologised feebly and went on to explain that they had been offered more money by one of their competitors and that their minds were well and truly made up.

Four weeks passed quickly and before Mel knew it they were all gone. Not only did they take their belongings, they also took a staggering combined total of 15 years’ experience with them. All that was left was a mouldy pack of fig rolls, an out of date procedures manual and some complicated flow charts. Sadly for Mel, a high percentage of their knowledge had been in their heads. In other words, they had legged it with a multitude of tacit knowledge – knowledge that was now lost forever.

Mel sat back, ate three of the mouldy fig rolls and began to deeply regret never surfacing some of their tacit knowledge during the five years they had all worked together.

How much tacit knowledge is swirling around in your team or business?
Are you in danger of falling into Mel’s trap?
Who would leave a massive gap if they left your team tomorrow?
What can you proactively do to surface some of their tacit knowledge?

After a few bottles of Pino Grigio, Mel dusted herself down, recruited three replacements and put a plan in place to ensure this could never happen again in the future. Amongst other things, she introduced regular knowledge sharing sessions so that knowledge and best practice could be shared amongst the team and introduced a mentoring, coaching and job shadowing scheme.

At least if any of Mel’s new team members ever decided to jump ship, all would not be lost again.

Do you need a hand helping to surface the tacit knowledge of your employees? Why not get in touch now to see how our ‘Sharing Best Practice’ training course can help.