The GroupSwim Diving Board

This is also posted on ReadWriteWeb, where I occasionally write.

The scale of layoffs the past few weeks is unprecedented.  The impact on the people who are shown the door and companies that let them go will linger for years to come.  Besides the emotional damage associated with people leaving, there is a tangible cost to companies when collective knowledge and experience walk out the door.  Once it’s gone, no amount of TARP money will get it back.  The problem is it is too late for this round, but starting soon will lessen the blow in the future.  One of the few ways to address the problem is to adopt collaborative tools and processes that capture the information companies need to thrive in the future.

Every company in the world relies on bits of information that live inside employee’s heads.  The accounts payable clerk may know a small nugget on how to negotiate the best price from an important vendor.  A salesperson may use the same pitch when selling a certain kind of customer, and it works every time.  An engineer may be the only person who knows why the software was originally built using cold fusion.  Or, the branch manager may know the precise place to kick the box compactor when it acts up.  All these bits of knowledge add up and account for a vast amount of information a healthy business requires.  When people leave either by choice or not, the vast majority of companies do a poor job of gathering this information in a consistent way.  What inevitably happens is the company and future employees are forced to relearn it again through trial and error.  The same cycle repeats over and over again.  The scale of this problem is huge in the current environment.

So, what does a company do to address the problem?

1. Use tools and process. Companies must have infrastructure in place to encourage/force employees to share information.  It doesn’t matter what as long as it is at least marginally effective.  Anything is better than nothing.  How many managers around the world are at this minute digging through someone’s email folder trying to figure what they were working on and what they knew.

2. Measure collaboration. Again, it doesn’t matter how, just do something that you think has good chance for success.  I’ve seen people measure the number of contributions to a knowledge base, frequency of mentoring sessions, writing up white papers, etc..  What you measure is less important than doing it consistently over time and measuring improvement.  I’m not saying the metrics are irrelevant.  What I’m saying is don’t wait to pick or track the perfect ones.  Start small and simple and go from there.

3. Reward employees for sharing. If you don’t measure it and reward behavior, it isn’t going to happen.  Collaboration is a bit squishy and can’t be measured like the number of phone calls answered per hour, but there are ways.

4. Focus on informal information. This is often where the best information resides.  People send emails back and forth answering questions or trading best practices for example.  You need a way to harvest and capture these nuggets of information.

None of this stuff is rocket science, but I’m willing to bet few companies have this process nailed.  I recently talked with David Coleman of Collaborative Strategies.  He said only 10% of his clients focus on “back-end” collaboration.  The majority have invested in front-end collaboration technology like web conferencing, etc. to save money and reduce travel.  This is also important but won’t help companies retain information when people leave.  The present economic conditions put even more pressure on wringing out the best productivity possible from the remaining and future employees.  The important thing to do now if you are a business owner or manager is to do something before it is too late again.