Chief Learning Officer - August 2008 - (Page 53)

DISCUSSION continued from page 32 that work together and know each other and have got good relationships, that that can’t be a good mechanism. [But] body language has a lot to do with how we receive information and interpret it, so I think that when we go to more efﬁcient forms of communication and using online [tools], we lose a component of communication that I think is important.” Leadership Buy-in As with any learning initiative, senior management must actively support knowledge sharing for it to be fully embraced by the rest of the organization. “A leader’s going to create that kind of culture,” Jones said. For example, Kimpton’s internal networking site includes an instructional video with interviewing tips from its chief operating ofﬁcer and senior director of people and culture. “We really want to show everybody the genuineness of the people from the top of the organization through every level,” Baer said. Ball said TAI is working with senior-level management to create a short instructional video that will be shown to every student at the beginning of training. It’s also important periodically to include senior management in discussion groups to show employees the organization is serious about knowledge sharing. Just keep in mind that top-level executives bring with them a certain intimidation factor, so you want to make sure employees have plenty of their peers in the room, as well. Rotational Assignments and Coaches Allowing employees to participate in rotational assignments can help them learn from each other, while assigning coaches and mentors can foster informal communication. TAI has implemented a rotational program called the Career Ladder Employee Program, in which full development plans are laid out with the competencies needed for each assignment. Personal coaches help employees along the way. Ball said it’s this hands-on experience in working together that best leverages employees’ real-world knowledge and perspectives. “That’s really what helps a person have what I call the ‘aha!’ experience,” she said. “I can read a book, but give me a real-world experience, [and] I can have this ‘aha!’ and say, ‘OK, now that makes sense to me.’” In addition, having a trusted mentor also might encourage otherwise timid or hesitant workers to speak up, since they would ﬁrst be able to run their ideas past a secure, safe source. The Bottom Line The last component of creating a successful discussion-group program in your organization is to be able to demonstrate the business case. You’d expect effective knowledge sharing to increase employee loyalty, which in turn would boost engagement and ultimately retention — but how do you prove it? “That’s always a tough one,” Jones said. Ball said she couldn’t point to any speciﬁc metrics related to the bottom-line impact of successful knowledge-sharing programs, but added that she has anecdotally witnessed increased productivity and retention with employees who have gone through “It’s absolutely imperative that knowledge sharing take place for a business to be competitive.” – Allen Jones, President, Edge Learning Institute TAI’s rotational Career Ladder program. She also explained the link between retention and succession planning and highlighted the importance of knowledge sharing in the face of demographic shifts. “Succession planning is critical. The number of people who are going to be retiring over the next couple of years — what are we going to do about that?” she said. “We have got to ﬁnd ways to share knowledge.” While proving the beneﬁcial bottom-line impact of effective knowledge sharing might be difﬁcult, there’s no doubt about the connection, Jones said. “When you hire someone, you get the whole person,” he said. “It’s kind of like marriage: When you get married, you get the in-laws. Sometimes that’s good, sometimes maybe not so good, but now you’ve got them, so what are you going to do? Ignore they are there? It’s in the employer’s best interest, and I mean ﬁnancially, to recognize that people don’t know what they don’t know. And a little help in this area will make a signiﬁcant difference in their business.” CLO Chief Learning Ofﬁcer • August 2008 • www.clomedia.com 53 http://www.clomedia.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Chief Learning Officer - August 2008

Chief Learning Officer - August 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Connections Business Impact Trends Best Practices Effectiveness High-Octane Leadership Development Leadership and Personality CLO Profile Discussion Groups: Harvesting Value from Real-World Experiences Kimpton 2.0: Discussion on the Web Learning Olympics: Development Through Competition Bypassing the Obstacles to Change Listen Up: A How-To-Guide for Podcasting University of Toyota: A Success Story in Podcast Implementation What Stinks About Webinars? Webinars for Learning Professionals Case Study Business Intelligence Advertisers' Index Editorial Resources In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - August 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.