{"id":4110,"date":"2020-01-30T10:00:14","date_gmt":"2020-01-30T18:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/?p=4110"},"modified":"2020-01-25T15:13:44","modified_gmt":"2020-01-25T23:13:44","slug":"why-document-your-companys-tribal-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/?p=4110","title":{"rendered":"Why document your company\u2019s tribal knowledge?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The processes you and your subordinates follow<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is not common for the CEO of a rapidly growing company to think of slowing down the furious pace enough to have each manager (including the CEO) document the job process managed, as well as see to the documentation for each process managed below.<\/p>\n

Examples of documentation by key employees<\/strong><\/p>\n

And it is even more of a challenge to consider documenting the tribal knowledge of a\"\" company\u2019s key employees.\u00a0 Examples include forcing the entire sales and customer support team to use a single database such as Salesforce or Sugar or Act to document the interactions with prospects and customers or using \u201cREM\u201d statements liberally inside software code to notify future coders of critical information contained and reasons for making code branches, assigning variables with unusual names or more.<\/p>\n

We leaders are not invincible<\/strong><\/p>\n

Have you made a list of your critical chain of advisors, including bankers, accountants, industry advisors, and more?\u00a0 Do you have a \u201csecret spot\u201d for critical information someone might need if you were incapacitated or worse?\u00a0 Especially when we are young, we feel invincible, and documenting tribal knowledge seems a chore with no reward.<\/p>\n

The inevitable \u201cwalk out the door\u201d of one may be too late for all<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then inevitably a key employee gives notice and we begin to worry over what knowledge we will watch walk out that door, wonder how we will recover in the short term and grow out of the problem in the long term.\u00a0 We worry that asking our subordinates to document their processes will look like the first step in removing them from their job. And we worry over lost productivity during this effort.<\/p>\n

Start at the top<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Email readers, continue here…]\u00a0<\/em><\/span> \u00a0But if we make this a part of the culture of the corporation starting at the top and from an early point in the life of the organization, this \"\"process becomes an accepted way in which managers learn and leave behind, able to move up the chain with minor disruption both in the job left behind and the job assumed.\u00a0 It makes for a smoother process for seeking outside hires by providing a model for the job specification to be written.<\/p>\n

Other important gains from doing this<\/strong><\/p>\n

And it allows everyone to better appreciate the organization, understanding the limits of each position and the duties performed, avoiding conflicts between managers when in the future changes are made in the organization and in personnel during periods of growth or even downsizing.<\/p>\n

Tribal knowledge is an asset of the corporation, to be protected as much as cash in the bank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The processes you and your subordinates follow It is not common for the CEO of a rapidly growing company to think of slowing down the furious pace enough to have each manager (including the CEO) document the job process managed, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}