Each One, Teach One: How to Use Knowledge Transfer to Keep Making Money

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the way businesses are run is changing. The most successful businesses are moving away from the depressing, fluorescent-light, rat-race cubicle maze and into more conducive work spaces. Google’s offices even have slides, free healthy food, and encourage collaboration. Sure, there is a structure and a hierarchy, and everyone’s got a boss, but the focus is on team effort, not secluding workers in a cage by themselves to get their reports done.

How To: Introduce Knowledge Transfer

You’re only as strong as your weakest link, right? People in top positions have an edge – experience on their side, knowledge of how it’s done, ways to work smarter, not harder. These are the core units of the company that are going to keep it running, and you have to flip that knowledge to the newcomers. But the newcomers also have unique skills : different approaches and worldviews, ideas for how to use technology, ways to work smarter, not harder. Those techniques have to be taught to the more senior members of the company so everyone can gel.

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How To: Make Knowledge Transfer Really Work

The companies with the most longevity value organizational learning and organizational knowledge. This is because it is very, very rare that anything in a company is completed solely by an individual. All the parts of the machine have to work together, and if you’ve got an aging workforce or you’re introducing new technologies to your business, this can cause some stumbling blocks. But utilizing a system of knowledge transfer from employee to employee can help prevent these mishaps.

This isn’t exactly a revolutionary idea, is it? I mean, most kids learn to cook in the kitchen, from their parents. Teachers regularly pair students up or put them in groups so that the students can all help each other learn. We even see this in other animals who teach their young to breathe, eat, and hunt. But actually structuring the system of knowledge transfer within your company can be a little tricky.

It depends a lot on what you’re trying to transfer. Are you implementing a new ordering system? Or are you changing the culture and structure of your company to operate under this kind of idea? There areoutside companies that can help you get started and help you reap the benefits of knowledge transfer within your business. As a company, you have to find a way to utilize the skills and knowledge of your long-time employees with the different, but still important, skills of your new hires. This will keep your company current and prevent “loss of knowledge” as people retire from the company.