It’s one thing if your valuable employees leave you for another job or for retirement. That one thing is that you really had no control over the event. The decision and probably the date was the employee’s decision and your company had little control over the timing or the circumstances.

It is quite another thing when you plan your employees’ departure through downsizing, mergers and acquisitions, buyouts, cost-cutting, or some other self-imposed staff reduction. That other thing puts you in a position that gives you some control over timing and circumstances. When it is your decision, you can give yourself time to ensure an orderly off-boarding or separation that includes preserving your valuable knowledge assets.

If you are in a position to control your employees’ separation, take the opportunity to put organization-wide knowledge transfer plans in place. The day of the exit interview is not the time to find out what you need to know from them for business continuity.

When you are organizing a mass layoff or initiating any other planned employee departure:

1. Create a list of mission-critical employees and dates of separation.
2. Determine what they know as far in advance as possible – at least 3 to 6 months before their departure – so you aren’t blindsided by having them take two months of accrued vacation before their official departure date.
3. Have a standardized plan and best practice for working with departing employees that includes collection methods, who is responsible for working with them, what assets you need based on their role, how and where the knowledge will be stored, and how it will be transferred and used by others.
4. Ask departing employees to review and sign off on the knowledge.

Just because your organization is in a position to put a knowledge transfer plan into place does not necessarily mean that it will. Often, it is an individual employee who feels a sense of obligation to the company and sees the need for knowledge collection and transfer that may institute their own knowledge management plan.

Two Stories

Here are two stories that came to me recently of employees who took personal responsibility for knowledge management in their divisions.

Story One

One woman who read my book Finding Your SMEs: Capturing Knowledge from Retiring Workers Before They Leave several months ago said she told her brother about it who had just retired from a division of a global food manufacturer and distributor. He told her that he had seen the problem first hand. Before he retired last year, he took it upon himself to survey the knowledge within his division, collect and preserve it. He came up with his own plan to make sure he left his employer with the critical knowledge they would need to find after he was gone.

Story Two

I just spoke with another woman last week who said she oversees the knowledge management plan for a division of the federal government. She’s been traversing the country working her multi-year plan to capture what the unit will need long-term. Her plan and practices are confined to her division and we talked about the potential of standardizing her methods to other divisions.

“I started out in reactive mode,” she said. Now she describes her knowledge management plan as “an ecosystem. I’m always tweaking it.”

Her plan is all the more important now as the federal government is looking to reduce the workforce by 15 to 18 percent in the next year through attrition and buyouts. She said her 25 years with the department makes her eligible for a buyout, but she wants to stick around and finish the job she has started. She expects to stay with the division about five more years to put something solid in place.

“I am trying to leave a legacy to help the agency after I’m 10 feet under,”  she said.

Wow.

Good as Gold

When you have employees who are looking out for your business continuity, those people can be the lifeblood of your business tomorrow.

If you don’t have a standard approach to knowledge management, support the efforts of those people who are looking out for you and doing the hard work of putting your knowledge management plan in place. Consider adopting and adapting their best practices to the rest of your organization.

These people are good as gold. Mine them.

The writer in me loves to read everything, and especially books. Last weekend, I read Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money by Nathaniel Popper about the origin and history of cryptocurrencies and the blockchain. It is a well-written and fascinating read by the New York Times reporter, and is full of tales about Internet legends like Reid Hoffman and the Winklevoss twins.

Here’s the interesting part for people like us who are worried about capturing current internal expertise for future business growth. One of the major concerns of workers is that they will be replaced by robots, and it is a legitimate concern because it happens every day. Business owners are always looking for ways to do things more consistently, efficiently and cheaply, and robotics solves that problem. However, when you replace humans, you also introduce the problem of displaced workers. The social implications are astounding so we won’t go there. But we will look at two things to think about as the uptake of robots and artificial intelligence (AI) affects capturing internal expertise:

1. If you plan to “hire” robots to do the jobs of humans, you may conclude you don’t need to capture human knowledge. Human skills are so “Encyclopedia Britannica”. Those companies looking toward the future are living in the gap, waiting for the next wave of industrialization that antiquates their current business model and their need for training humans.
2. If you eliminate human workers, how do you pay robots? I figured robots are a capital expense like buildings and machinery but believe it or not, economists are now working out how to pay for the “labor” of robots which puts them in the category of “worker”. AI robots may be your experts of the future.  This is where cryptocurrency comes in. You can “pay” robots in cryptocurrency. It’s right there in the book Digital Gold on page 294.

“Like many [Silicon] Valley firms, Andreesen’s was thinking about intelligent robots, and Bitcoin seemed like a perfect medium of exchange for two machines that needed to pay each other for services.”

Breathe.

This caught my attention because it is clear a lot of the forward-thinkers who are instituting new systems of work, the economy, the social structure, and so on are pondering these questions. If they succeed, theoretically it frees the rest of us to be creative and pursue our passions while being supported by a basic income supplied – I assume – by the robots’ productivity.

Seriously, people are having these discussions right now. You may have heard Mark Zuckerberg called for Universal Basic Income (UBI) in his Harvard Commencement address last week. It’s a real thing. The robots work, get paid in cryptocurrency, are potentially taxed on their labor and we get paid from the labor of robots to take macramé classes. I don’t know about you, but I’m bored just thinking about it.

I Don’t Digress

You may think I digress from our regularly scheduled topic of capturing and retaining your corporate subject matter expertise. This actually is not a digression at all. This discussion is essential to our topic of whether human knowledge is important, essential, needs to be captured and carried on – or really has any value at all – in light of the rapid progress in robots and artificial intelligence. For those of us who follow developments in the training world, you know that we are learning how to train robots. I think they have made the leap that robots can now acquire learning that builds on prior knowledge – you know, the same way we silly old humans learn.

If you believe the future is here, you are right. If you believe you still have to operate in the present, you are also right.

For those of us still living in the pre-AI world before we all receive a Universal Basic Income, we need to continue to contend with the issues of knowledge capture, retention and transfer between generations of workers for the ongoing success of your enterprise.

Retaining Human Knowledge Until the Robots Take Over

If your experts flee to retirement or leave your organization for any other reason, you are still vulnerable to losing valuable knowledge, skills and attitudes to fulfill your mission effectively, efficiently and in a cost-responsible way today.

What are you doing right now to make sure you keep your expertise under your roof even if your experts leave?

Here’s what I can do to help you raise awareness about these issues in your organization:

• Speak to your organization’s decision makers to help them analyze their risk of losing valuable expertise
• Explore which workshops can help you dissect your organization for areas where you are vulnerable to losing your critical experts
• Help you identify and work with individual experts in your organization

Think about it.

Until the robots take over, you still need a plan!

Are you vulnerable to losing valuable human expertise? Is your company living in the present, the past or the future? Please comment below.

Last week, I tapped into the Wisdom of the Working with SMEs Crowd for advice on how to work with experts who are non-US natives and non-English native speakers. Several of you stepped up to serve! In our first-ever guest blog post, Mr. Martin E. Gilligan Jr. generously shares a wealth of international experience with us. Should you care to contact Mr. Gilligan directly, his contact information is below his blog.

Thanks to all of you for your readership and engagement.

Guest Blogger: Martin E. Gilligan, Jr.

Since I got my first foreign sales assignment purely by unfortunate circumstances (for me, the company, and the CEO) – I didn’t even have a Passport, only spoke “pigeon Spanish,”  and only had US/Canada sales experience. BUT, I ended up getting 102 country pins on my travel map and setting sales records in the ten+ years I was responsible for sales/marketing of boilers, HVAC, and Alternative Fuel systems – this was selling capital goods w/ value of $250,000 to $5,000,000 each. Following that, as a consultant, I used to do two to four US / Foreign licenses and/or strategic relationship agreements per year and still do one or two a year for my long-term clients.

In dealing with foreign training, selling, and technical support I learned (the hard way) the following – do it or you’ll pay for it later.

1. Research the country – music, food, culture, customs. Luckily, I was so terrified of my first trip (to Peru for the fish meal industry) I did this without having to be told. Absolutely mandatory for anyone traveling to do the actual teaching/service work and/or supervising such effort – whether or not he/she is on the trip or does it by text/e-mail or Skype from the home office. It can avoid a LOT of “foot-in-mouth” problems. The goal for each of your team members is to come out of the meeting or training session with at least one good personal relationship on the other side. You do that by eating, drinking, socializing with people on their terms, not yours. I always stayed in a local business hotel (not a big US chain) that usually didn’t speak English, but my host (customer, sales rep, distributor) took care of me. You don’t have to speak the language to enjoy a great meal, listen to good music, or watch local happenings or a game with the other person’s kids. These experiences create “bonding” connections which may save the day when you are in deep-doo-doo and need a favor, or when someone is being stubborn or thick-headed and you need advice on how to break the logjam. The other person realizes that it works that way for him/her too so it is not unfair to either party.

2. If you have access to a native language speaker in your industry for that specific country, use them to the hilt. If you don’t, do the research to find a good, competent (in your industry) professional translator. The American Embassy and your Industry Trade Journals that publish in that country are good places to start looking.  Set your schedule so that you have more than a couple of hours alone with the translator to go over what you intend to present and the key points you want to make. It may cost you extra dollars, but you can’t imagine the cost and lost sales and implementation problems a wrong translation can cause, which will usually come back to your account – regardless of what your English Terms & Conditions say. DO NOT use university professors, relatives, or foreign customer employees unless you are sure that they understand the business or subject matter you are going to present. Company employees and professors will “color” their translation with their own opinions and prejudices (especially if they know that you don’t have a clue what they are saying). These comments are especially true of printed or recorded “leave-behind” materials. They should be vetted by someone who will understand something that will come across as “wrong,” “stupid,” “prejudiced,” or “insulting.” The classic example is Chevrolet naming their South American export car NOVA which roughly translates into “no go” or “does not go.” Or the Mexican Restaurant Chi-Chis  which is a crude slang term for breasts in Mexico and Central America.

3. The English as a second language audience is a separate (and often more difficult) case. Many times the so-called English speaking person does not dare to admit that he/she did not understand what was presented due to their status within the company as knowing English. The answer here is the same as # 5 below. Secondly, the English as a second language person understands English in a very specific, exact “dictionary” manner so avoid slang or technical jargon and use simple terms.

4. When scheduling the program, double or triple your normal presentation and break time. After each topic change, stop for questions and to repeat segments that were difficult to understand.  Unless you have been the recipient of an incomprehensible briefing or program in a foreign language with English subtitles or through a translator, you can’t imaging how exhausting it can be – particularly when someone’s company or department or personal success depends on getting it right. Plan on at least one “pure” follow-up session to make sure that the basics “took” and monitor implementation on at least twice the normal frequency as in an English-speaking country.

5. When preparing written documents or brochures/posters,  OR briefing charts/slides, OR scripts for spoken presentation (and there should ALWAYS be a script or detail notes for any spoken briefing in case you have to go back and repeat – prove you made – a specific point) always use very basic and simple English language and sentence construction. Make it easy to translate and/or be understood by the second language person. Many times, to make an important point, you need to repeat it several times using different words and/or illustrations to make the point. NEVER use slang or highly technical jargon without multiple explanations about what it means.

6. If at all possible, especially under license implementation situations, bring a key person from the receiving group to a good example situation in the US or some other English-speaking country so that you have someone in the room who understands most of what you are trying to get across to the others, but don’t let them make the briefing unless he/she has actually run your operation in the US.

This sounds like a lot of work and expense, and it is; but it pales to insignificance when compared with re-doing, repairing, re-training, undoing and re-doing stuff with a 10,000+ mile one-way trip for each session that is not going to be paid by the licensee or customer. As the saying goes: “You can pay now or you can pay later, but you will pay!!”

Martin E. Gilligan, Jr., is the Owner & Principal Consultant at MARTIN & ASSOCIATES “Who you SHOULD see before you HAVE TO SEE an attorney”. Mr. Gilligan can be reached directly at martinejr@comcast.net. For more information, visit his website at http://www.martingilliganconsulting.com

The topics for this blog often come from you. Usually a conversation or an email results in ideas, and commonly the same issue will surface a few times within a week or so. This week, several American colleagues mentioned challenges in working with foreign experts who speak a primary language other than English.

As a result, I am going to try something new and start a discussion around the challenges in these situations by creating two hypothetical case studies for you to consider. The readers here have similar interests, so please share your advice, recommendations and opinions with others. Sometimes you respond with comments on the website, other times I hear back personally from you responding to me in email. Either way, if you’d like me to share your comments with other readers, let me know. Hopefully, we’ll all benefit as we learn from the wisdom of the Working With SMEs crowd.

Case Studies To Consider

Case #1: An American English-speaking training company is dealing with Japanese experts in Japan and working remotely with them using Zoom, so they are seeing each other and sharing slides. The training company has a team consisting of a designer and writer both on the calls. The Japanese experts have English skills and the American training team has no Japanese. The trainers are having difficulty understanding the experts’ accents, and the experts present their slides written in Japanese.

Consider: Taking the situation’s perspective from either the training company or the Japanese company, what would be your next move and how would you salvage this relationship so it results in an effective training outcome?

Case #2: An English speaking training company based in the UK with offices in the US has been contracted to build a series of training modules for a company of 150,000 employees located in 75 countries. Many of the employees speak English as a second language. The training company has been hired due to their strength in visual training modalities. They are excited at the opportunity to work with this global corporation and to explore the potential of their cutting edge technology.

Consider: What are some of the first steps you would take to ensure a smooth process? Who should be at the table from the training company and its client company? What kind of safeguards and procedures would you put in place so language and cultural sensitivity is built into the process at each phase?

General Questions to Consider

When an English-speaking American is working with foreign-speaking experts, whether within the U.S. or in another country, how do you build cultural and language supports into your training development?

Do you:

Hire cultural competency experts to ensure sensitivity and eliminate cultural bias?

Hire foreign language or translation experts to assist with non-native English speakers?

Provide cultural or language education for your English-speaking, Western-based training team?

Prefer to work in person as often as possible to develop and strengthen relationships?

Explore the issues openly with clients at the beginning of your relationship, looking for places where you can establish processes and provide additional supports to reduce cultural and language differences or misunderstandings?

Specialize in working with non-native English speakers or outsource your work to training companies that do?

Wisdom of the Working with SMEs Crowd

Instead of our usual offering of advice and opinion, we are turning the tables on you this week. We have a lot of questions. If you have opinions or experiences to share – or even other related questions and issues – we look forward to hearing from you.