Anecdote: Social network perspective of knowledge-retention strategies

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30/10/06 |

Social network perspective of knowledge-retention strategies

By Shawn. Follow me on Twitter. Filed in Knowledge, Social networks.

Salvatore Parise, Rob Cross and Tom Davenport have teamed up to write an article for Sloan Management Review titled: Strategies for Preventing a Knowledge-Loss Crisis. It’s a description of how Organisational Network Analysis can be used to identify people who would be sorely missed if they left the organisation. They focus on three social network roles: central connectors, brokers and peripheral players. Here’s a summary, from the paper, describing the knowledge-loss risks and possible actions for each of the three network roles.

Central Connector

Knowledge-Loss Risks

Technical expertise and organizational memory as well as a set of relationships that help many others get information or other resources to do their work.

Experiential knowledge and reputation that enable rapid onboarding of new employees

Actions

Use personal network profiles in career development and onboarding practices to create network redundancies systematically where departures might dramatically fragment a network.

Reallocate information access and decision rights to ensure that one point does not become too vulnerable in the network.

Have central connectors lead communities of practice as a means of creating connections around them.

Require central connectors to help newcomers get acclimated through strategic introductions, “shadowing,” mentoring and joint projects.

Broker

Knowledge-Loss Risks

Broad knowledge of how the organization operates and ability to reconize opportunities that require integration or disparate expertise.

Ability to mobilize and coordinate efforts of disparate groups to pursue those opportunities.

Actions

Identify and develop brokers through staffing and rotation across division, geographic and expertise groups.

Assign brokers strategically where information gaps exist or where ideas can move from concept to action.

Give brokers preauthorized decision limits to tap into network resources. Allow them to experiment to obtain real-time information.

Peripheral Player

Knowledge-Loss Risks

Niche (and often marginalized) expertise or early-adopter ideas that have the potential to reshape offerings or operations.

Set of external relationships built on trust and familiarity.

Actions

Ensure relevant peripheral people agree visible and engaged, for example, by encouraging their hosting of “lunch-and-learns” and webcasts.

Invite external partners to conduct workshops and attend meetings to broaden the network.

Reward employees for bringing external ideas and connections into the organization.

Parise, Salvatore, Rob Cross, and Thomas H. Davenport. 2006. Strategies for Preventing a Knowledge-Loss Crisis. MIT Sloan Management Review 47 (4):31-38.

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