Monthly Archives: October 2015

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When a Reluctant SME is Protecting Their Job

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One of the issues that I continually hear in my discussions about subject matter experts is the problem of the reluctant SME. Simply, a reluctant SME that doesn’t want to share his or her knowledge with the organization.

In particular, this came to light in a discussion with a training department that was having difficulty getting employees to share their knowledge because they felt it threatened their union and their status within the organizational hierarchy. As it turns out, this is a very common but touchy issue.

Union contracts usually designate the order in which people are promoted or let go, for example. So an employee may jealously guard their unique skill set or knowledge in an attempt to protect their position. They may also not want to share with the employer for fear it would jeopardize union power.

I discussed this with an executive that has dealt with unions throughout his career, and he admitted that it is a thorny issue but one that can be handled when it is dealt with sensitively and on a case-by-case basis.

For trainers who are having trouble getting what they need from a unionized subject matter expert, think about having both the corporation and the union leadership deal come up with a plan. Everyone needs to realize that the good of the company protects jobs. For compliance issues, those training topics are a matter of law and not negotiable.

If you’ve dealt with a reluctant SME attempting to protect their job, how have you handled it?

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Why Subject Matter Expertise is So Important Today

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When I started thinking about the effect of subject matter experts on the training process about two years ago, I wrote a book because I couldn’t find one. The book was based on my own experiences capturing expertise for training programs – and other materials such as white papers, articles and books – for two decades. As soon as I shared my thoughts, people from the training world, the marketing world and experts themselves started to step forward to share their thoughts and questions.

These blogs have mostly been responses to the questions and discussions that are happening as a result of that initial public inquiry. In fact, it appears that the subject of subject matter experts is coming into its own for, I think, several reasons:

  1. A lot of expertise is leaving the workplace as the last waves of the post-World War II industrial boomers retire, so there is an urgent incentive to capture what they know.
  2. The technology exists for subject matter expertise to be captured by the SMEs themselves, putting a new slant on what to capture and how to capture it for knowledge transfer within organizations.
  3. We have a lot more expertise running around the world. The exponential growth of knowledge means you can never know all there is to know about a single subject, and so expertise is becoming more laser focused on very fine niches.

Knowledge on Subject Matter Expertise was Sparse

I recently ran into a colleague who wrote his PhD thesis partially on how to develop expertise among novices on a very critical issue in pharmaceutical product handling. In writing the paper, he researched the nature of expertise and how it is acquired, and he shared some of that with me. What I found most striking is the relative dearth of research into this subject until now.

Some research taught us a few things about expertise. Two of the most striking and important findings for knowledge transfer that are relevant for industry came out of studies in the 1980s and 90s. One study concluded that it takes about 10 years of exposure to a job to become an expert. Another is that an expert is considers about 50,000 “chunks” of information simultaneously when they are thinking about a problem.

Why Subject Matter Expertise is So Important Today

Those findings are important because:

The value of apprenticeships and mentorships in preserving critical organizational knowledge is imperative to transfer important tasks, skills and knowledge in an unbroken line from people who know more than they can ever express, and

Training on your critical processes and procedures can’t start soon enough or be intense enough to be able to get novices up the learning curve as quickly as you’ll need them.

Knowledge capture, apprenticeships, internships and mentorships on your core critical processes and procedures are the lifeblood of your organization. Even, and especially if, you expect that technology and cultural change will cause radical shifts in your business, you need to be capturing critical organizational knowledge before it walks out the door.

Training is like the saying about the best time to plant a tree. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, and the second best time is today.

 

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Now Available: Finding Your SMEs Workshops

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The Value, Scarcity and Difficulty of Working with Subject Matter Experts

Last week, I had the pleasure of presenting Working with SMEs to a group of subject matter experts at the inaugural AGXPE conference attended by compliance and regulatory folks from the biopharmaceutical industry. Nothing is more fun or educational than playing with colleagues and sharing info.

Kudos to John Lewis of Merck, Ken Petelinkar of BMS and Tammy Cullen of Lilly for pulling off a great event. Next year’s show is already being planned. Check them out and join the group at http://agxpe.wildapricot.org/ At present, membership is free.

I attended the conference as a vendor but abandoned my post for most of the conference so I could hear what other people have to say about some of my favorite topics – quality, leadership and training needs analysis.

Despite all that, I learned a lot in my own session because I gave out evaluations in which I confirmed some things and gathered some valuable intelligence. I confirmed that SMEs have inestimable value to their organizations (obvious), SMEs can be scarce when you need them and they can be notoriously difficult to work with for any number of reasons, most often because they are in high demand and stretched thin.

Now, about the results of my intelligence gathering. I violated several rules of presenting by trying to stuff 10 pounds of feed in a five pound sack and did a bait-and-switch because the last third of my session was market research.

However, here’s what that little foray into no-no land netted:

  1. Some companies are talking to some SMEs and getting the info they need for organizational continuity. Some aren’t.
  2. Whether they are or they are not talking to the right SMEs and assembling their knowledge management plan, every respondent believed their company would benefit from a formal process to identify their internal SMEs.

That bit of confirmation means I am formally launching a Finding Your SMEs Workshop. The workshop is already developed and I am scheduling one local test case in suburban Philadelphia in the next few months. However, I would prefer to have at least 3 or 4 test cases. The pilots will help refine the Finding Your SMEs process and be presented as case studies in a book in development. The workshop and process can be adapted for any size enterprise and business size is one of the variables in the design.

Looking for More Test Pilots

For the foreseeable future, which means until I gather enough info to feel confident I’ve isolated most of the outlier issues, I am offering pilot half-day workshops for up to 20 people for a very low cost – basically enough to cover my expenses and keep the lights on while I do my research. I can reasonably do two workshops a month to spend enough time with each company. It would be great to have at least 3 or 4 company case studies before I publish the next book.

If you are interested in being one of the test sites, please write to me at workingwithsmes@gmail.com or respond to this email if you are reading this as part of my mailing list. If you aren’t on the mailing list, please sign up on the blog homepage.

Thank you for reading. Comments below are welcome!