In-House Training
Is your company IP in the heads of a few people?
Do you do personal development plans for your team?
Do you use your team to train your team?
If you were ever to sell your business, one of the core areas prospective buyers would look at is how well you have captured your systems and processes. If you, as the business owner, were no longer in the business, would it have any real value? Is your business reliant on one or two key people? Is your intellectual property (IP) in your head and in your team's heads or is it actually captured in a way that can be learnt, replicated and improved?
The value of capturing knowledge to share extends beyond the resale value of your business. It can impact your immediate return on investment (ROI) when you employ new staff. Good systems help people onboard quicker and more effectively allowing them to contribute sooner.
A great way to capture information and spread learning is to have team members give regular training sessions to the rest of your team. These can look like lunchtime learnings (sometimes called “brown paper bag” sessions) and what they do is encourage those people with knowledge to share it with the rest of the team. This not only helps to spread and share knowledge, it also gives people an appreciation for what other departments and roles do and how much is involved at the various stages inside the organisation.
These sessions can create a spirit of collaboration and can help team members work together to see how they can better serve clients, how they can win contracts and what improvements they can make. When a team knows that they can work together for a common outcome, they are more inclined to look beyond their own department or silo. This creates opportunities for people to explore where else they might like to grow within the company and helps to keep interest levels up.
When the sharing of information becomes part of the company culture and is linked to the personal development of individuals, you are far more likely to create a learning culture. Organisations with learning cultures more freely share information and are often more willing to challenge the status quo and to learn and experiment and grow.
How do you get your team to be generous with their knowledge?
Here’s to your success!
