Helping Leadership “See” The Tribal Knowledge Problem
Why leaders struggle to recognize the impact of tribal knowledge, and tips for helping them see more clearly.
A few months ago I was speaking with the CTO of a business. He had called about modernizing their knowledge base, but as we discussed the issues he was dealing with it became clear that the organization was struggling with tribal knowledge.
We were discussing the Knowledge Ops Maturity Model when he stopped me and quickly called his CEO into the room. She thought the concept of measuring how efficiently they transferred knowledge looked interesting and we decided to schedule a follow-up.
In the meantime, I sent her a few videos on the impact of tribal knowledge. The CTO later told me that she walked into his office and said, “Paul, I think we are running on tribal knowledge.”
From that point on she started an initiative that is transforming the way the business trains, supports, and empowers employees.
This CEO was able to clearly, “see” the problem. Over the last few weeks, I have been speaking with people in L&D, Operations, and HR who keep asking me, “How do I help my leadership ‘see’ that the reliance on tribal knowledge is a problem that needs to be solved?”
Real change can’t happen until there is strong executive support. So in this edition, I’m going to share what I have learned about the following:
Why leaders struggle to “see” the tribal knowledge problem
Tips for helping them “see” more clearly
Why Leaders Struggle to See the Tribal Knowledge Problem
The Day-to-Day Work of Executives vs. Frontline Workers
The daily life of an executive is extremely different from that of someone working in a customer-facing role or back-office operations.
The leader has to solve complex problems that often have no defined right or wrong answer. They need to gather data and make the best decision possible.
The front-line worker has to follow complex procedures that may change quite rapidly.
The leader has to weigh many factors in their mind, view trends over time, and do their best to predict the future.
The frontline worker has to keep thousands of facts in their mind, keep up with changes to those facts, and understand all of the variables that may impact a given procedure.
Their jobs are completely different in regards to the amount of procedural information that must be learned, remembered, and applied.
Since their work experiences are so different, it can be difficult for an executive to empathize with the complexity the front-line worker experiences.
Responsibilities Are Divided
The second challenge is that there is no single person in the organization responsible for ensuring the business doesn’t rely on tribal knowledge. The responsibility of making a new employee knowledgeable, consistent, and efficient is spread across HR, L&D, and frontline managers and supervisors.
We have worked with many organizations that are seeing all the symptoms of tribal knowledge (high attrition rates, high stress, supervisor overload, low consistency, and poor performance metrics), but who blame other departments for the challenges the business is seeing.
L&D says that HR is hiring the wrong people.
Supervisors and managers say that L&D isn’t preparing new hires to do the job.
HR says L&D and supervisors are creating a training and working environment that reduces employee engagement, making it harder to hire and retain talent.
And the CEO isn’t quite sure who to hold accountable. The tribal knowledge problem can’t be fixed by L&D, HR, or Operations alone. They have to work together.
And in order to work together they have to agree on what the root cause of the problem really is.
Tips For Helping Them “See”
Now that we know why it is so difficult for leaders to see the tribal knowledge problem, let’s look at some tips for clarifying the root cause of these issues.
The Find & Follow Workshop Report
One of the most successful tools we have seen is the Find & Follow Workshop Report. This report details all of the information a frontline employee would need to know to perform their job independently, efficiently, and without supervisor assistance.
The report lists all of the tasks they need to perform, the questions they need to answer, and the problems they need to solve. It also includes all of the variables that can impact those tasks, questions, and problems.
Every time we have run a workshop with a client, the workshop report has provided a level of clarity that the business has never had before. The report gives them a full appreciation of the complexity of the job of a frontline worker.
For example, we have recently run Find & Follow Workshops for several credit unions. A member services rep has to know how to independently complete over 500 different activities.
When executives see these reports they realize that no amount of training can help someone memorize such complexity in 3 months or less.
This clarity creates empathy and once the leader can feel empathy they can begin to understand that relying on tribal knowledge will never get the organization to where it needs to be.
Watch the video below for more information on the Find & Follow Workshop. ⬇️
Help Them Experience It
Many executives will say, “But we have documented procedures,” and they may be right. The assumption by the executive (whether spoken or not) is that frontline employees are too lazy to use written procedures.
A good exercise is to help the leader experience what the frontline employee experiences. Ask them to handle a procedure for a customer, while the customer is standing in front of them, waiting for a resolution. How will the CEO feel when they have to tell the customer to wait a few minutes while they read that 20-page PDF or Word file?
Few situations are more stressful. You have someone staring at you as you try to read and understand a massive document in as little time as possible.
When a leader experiences this situation they begin to understand why frontline employees turn to co-workers or supervisors so quickly - because they want to provide an answer to the person waiting on them as quickly as possible. Relying on tribal knowledge is the path of least resistance unless you have digital guides that are findable, followable, and scannable.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCE: Overcoming the false summit of documentation with digital guides that are finable, followable, and scannable.
Quantify the Financial Impact
The final suggestion is to provide a cost analysis of the impact tribal knowledge has on the organization.
There are several ways to go about this depending on your situation. Here are a few ideas you can explore.
Cost of Proficiency
This is how much it costs to get an employee to a level of competence that they can perform their job without needing supervisor assistance on a daily basis. I suggest using this metric instead of the cost of training.
I speak with many organizations who say that employees spend 2 weeks in training but take 18 months before they can work independently. In that case, the training department could claim their costs are reasonable.
By focusing on the Cost of Proficiency you combine the responsibilities of Training and Operations.
Organizations that are operating at the Train Stage of the Knowledge Ops Maturity Model will see employees reach proficiency within 30-60 days because they are no longer relying on tribal knowledge.
Cost of Attrition
Organizations that rely on tribal knowledge see higher attrition rates. Businesses that stop relying on tribal knowledge always report to us that attrition rates have stopped.
Cost of Errors
Some errors don’t matter much. Some make a big difference.
Dig into the actual cost of errors in the organization. You could calculate the time it takes to solve problems that were misdiagnosed, the regulatory risk created by the errors, or some other metric.
Cost of Supervisor Overload
This is one that many teams overlook but which can have a huge impact on the organization. When supervisors are overloaded with questions and problems and are constantly putting out fires:
They can’t supervise
They can’t think strategically
They can’t work on your higher-value initiatives
Our clients who have escaped their reliance on tribal knowledge have told us that it’s like adding 33% more FTEs without any additional payroll costs.
Conclusion
Once senior leaders “see” the impact tribal knowledge is having on your organization, it will be hard for them to unsee it. The trick is to:
Clarify the problem
Help them experience the struggle personally
Highlight the financial impact
Two ways we can help:
Running a Find & Follow Workshop for your team
Helping you quantify the financial impact of relying on tribal knowledge
Don’t hesitate to reach out if you want help.