Strategies For Finding And Sharing Organizational Knowledge

6:29PM Jun 23, 2023

Speakers:

Shannon Tipton

Nathan

Anh

Douglas

Samantha

Melissa

Stella

Connie

Erica

Robin

Maureen

Jason

Keywords:

stories

organization

people

knowledge

process

work

podcast

share

gathering

idea

information

nathan

years

good

valued

talk

conversation

love

day

training

Oh, welcome back Robin see when Aiden, I

love that background.

I know. I really, yeah, this

isn't my first time at the coffee. It's just my second. But the last time I was here, I got several compliments on the background. So I did have to make sure I had it up. I turned on my camera, which was the reason for the delay.

So absolutely. I remember that. Well. Yes.

Oh, and you changed yours to Douglas. Where are you at today? Are you not at the office?

That is correct. Okay.

And your your background is a nice plug for our next learn something new Wednesday. So our next learn something new Wiggins is actually on gamification. So your 20 bucks is in the mail.

Thank you very much. So welcome, everybody. Let's see.

lay people come on in. And today's Fridays. Uh, while we wait for people to get their audio hooked up or their videos on? Go ahead and share with me in the chat? Yeah. Like, what what did you achieve this week? Some small win, that there are a small win that you had this week that you're particularly proud of. And it could be anything. It could be anything. For me. I'm just glad that my plants are still alive in the heat. So I'm going to take that as a win.

I didn't quit my job. Well, you

know what, Jay, I know we all have those motions, right? We want to just throw in the towel. So I commend you for not taking the temptation. cleaned out your email box. Oh, Connie. Girl, can it can I just turn my email box over to you then? Because I'll tell you, it's helpless. Let's see I got access to the LMS for our trainers sometimes. Not the easiest when you would think LMS systems would be easier to work with when you they're just not snow. So you have to where are you?

I'm in far northern California, Oregon. I'm literally on the border. And you had snow. We had snow, we can get snow up to we say the Fourth of July. Oh, okay. We generally don't put our plants out until the first of June.

I don't either to be honest here in Chicago, or we're always going to get a frost of some sort at the beginning of June. So my plants usually don't go into the ground until about mid. But we had. Yeah, we had like that weekend a couple of weekends ago where it was 60. And I was scared that everything was going to die. And then it went all the way up to like 85 or something. And of course no rain through all of that. So my plants have whiplash.

Yeah, right? 60s is parka whether it depends on where you're from. If it's 30 We're

still in sweat shirts.

Right? It's like it's all about perspective. It is all about perspective. I've learned that, you know, in the winter when you go outside, and it's 40 you're like, Whoa, man, this is not even cold weather. Okay, we're doing good bikinis. Yes. You know, but then when summertime comes around, we're all griping when it's 50 Yeah, you know, yeah, no. Hey, well, let's get on topic, shall we? Thank you, again, everyone, for showing up today. Really appreciate it. It's a glorious Friday outside. And today, we are talking about service teams, the knowledge and stories of your organization. How can we go about doing a better job? Or how do we do a better job of storing them and sharing them? Because let's face it

today,

businesses are connected through the stories that tie them together. And part of the reason that people leave an organization is a lack of connectedness. You know, there's a lot of other things obviously at play, you talk about culture, or you talked about no work life balance or being underpaid or what have you. There are a lot of mitigating factors there that make a person want to leave. But if a person felt connected to their organization, a person is going to think twice before they leave because they have a built in community of sorts. So that's one thing. And the other thing is that it be does become a competitive differentiator. When you organization has a grasp on the knowledge that sits within it. You know, where if somebody should happen to leave, then they have that person's knowledge, they're able to still carry forward, there's a business that I do business with, that I work with. And if one person takes if one person, one more person left that organization, that organization would fall apart. That's not the way it should be. Okay, so, my friends, my rebel friends, I'm willing to turn this over to you. And I would love to hear first off, how are you? You know, what are I always hesitate to use the term best practices, because what works for you isn't necessarily going to work for me, you know, but I'll just say what are the practices that work for you and work for your organization. So who's going to kick this off and share their experiences in regards to harvesting organizational intelligence, or getting your people to share their knowledge stories or even cultural stories?

If no one else will go, I'll

go, I will say that my first experience, you know, in terms of getting organizational knowledge out of individuals was in a call center. And what I found was really effective was just taking them out for lunch before you start the conversation, right? For me, one of the big challenges when you interact with individuals, and you're trying to get, you know, the gold from them, is a feeling of trust, or that you're actually there to help them. One of the things that I've dealt with a lot, particularly as I mentioned, I've worked in call centers is is this feeling that this individual by giving you that information, they are going to devalue their own worth inside of the organization, right. And a very big part of that is showing that they are valued and buying them lunch is a good way to start. No, and furthermore, it's it's really about saying that you're going to make their life easier with the products that you're giving them, that you're not there to, to just mine them and be a replacement. And so yeah, that's been my own experience.

Well, I love that approach, because what you're doing and this was made mention of in the learning rebels community space, is that first we have to set the stage. You know, for a little bit of psychological safety there, you know, we have to, we have to build our own personal connections, before we just start jumping in and people's lives is Hey, what is it that you know?

Right? And I

so what was the reaction? Nathan? So as you're trying to gather these stories up, was there a, like a knock on effect or a snowball? You know, effect that went with this? Well, yeah, absolutely. Right.

So So you know, if you're in a consultant role, or if you're in a salary role, your reputation is really important, right? And so if you establish an open communication and and an environment where employees feel valued, especially by you, then that that has an immensely powerful effect as you go on in the relationship.

You said something really important there that they feel valued by you. Because that's when that's when baby step two them feeling valued by their organization, because you represent the organization, right. Absolutely. I love that. Thank you for sharing. Okay, who would like to go next?

I just like to point out that Nathan, although I appreciate that, in some instances, that could almost be considered a bribe. But I love it. Right? Because

I've read words.

I'm too nice to be worried about ethical considerations. That's Roger,

Roger that. No, but I think, right, so just like on pain points, you hit him where it hurts. So find out what the entry point is, right? And relationships do that. And I like the I like to take them out to lunch kind of thing or share, right? It is about building that that safe space with the individual to get them to share that knowledge or tell that story that and we generally don't have a problem with our our guys willing to just, you know, they're saying loose lips sink ships that were case we'd have no vessels because our guys can talk. It's fine tuning it, and then recording it, or, or finding the right place to how's that? For instance, we got a boat captain, that's 35 years with our, that particular boat just getting ready to retire. There's no way you can, there's no way you can infiltrate or even record all of that.

So we do

a fairly good job of anytime we're rolling out a new procedure, a new policy, a new way of doing things. Yeah, once we get it all written out, is bringing it to the to the craft level to the field level to the guys that this is surely going to affect a lot more than anybody else and say, Okay, here's where we're at, tell us where we're missing the point. Right? What are we missing? Or what are we saying that you're actually don't do? What are what are you actually do? So that we can find that that happy medium, I

think what

you're saying there is really important, and I'm making a note of this, you know, part of gathering part of gathering knowledge is the documentation of that knowledge. Right, and, and I'll throw myself out there. As an example, as some of you may or may not be aware. My virtual assistant, Amanda went on vacation

last week.

Boy, there was a lot that I didn't have written down. And I'll tell you a bit too, it took and and myself to complete a task that Amanda usually does by herself. And it's like, Oh, my God, I thought we had good documentation. I really did. Because we have little videos and everything else. But there were some gaps there, that I really didn't realize until you have a key person, you know, who dares to

take a vacation?

You know, and I think what you're saying there, Douglas is really important is that process of documenting not only the process, or even anything else around a procedure, but then there's the real life documentation. Right? So these are the steps Step 12345. But there's always something in between there that you might be missing. And what what is the real life story behind that process? So I love that example. I think it's a good one, Melissa,

um, say I, and I'll say this, from my experience, I retired almost a year ago, and now I'm with another organization, but I spent 25 years in a school district and school of communications. And the guilt of taking a day off or taking your vacation weighs on you heavily when you're the only person who does your job. So think I reframed it in terms of teachers create sub plans, right, creating substitute plans for yourself. So in your absence, someone else can do your job. Yes, there is that threat threshold you'll have is are they going to take my job, but they need to know how to do it if you get in an accident if you are gone for a period of time. So I made a list of every program a piece of software that I used on a day to day basis with the login information. The main reason we use that platform, what it was used for, and then went the next step saying here are people you can contact and other districts who use the same stuff, and will be able to support you in if you run into a pitch. So it's a matter of your network, even outside your organization who do you know, that can support you in a crisis that you would be able to reach out to, you know, it's a matter of creating detailed notes and then putting it in practice saying, Okay, let's all trade kind of have a boxing day like they do in Canada, everybody trade jobs for the day, see if you can do what that plan says and act it out. We did that with our business office a number of different ones, because the redundancy is important, even in every department to be able to understand what everyone does not as a threat, but to the success of the organization.

Mm hmm. I like that. And so my follow up my follow up question. my follow up question to that is how can we then build those sorts of techniques into organizational practice? Because that's all part of harvesting, gathering organizational knowledge and while it may be habit for you, and it may be habit, you know, for Nathan How can we help build that into our organizational structure?

For us I can

see my officers right outside the business office they really struggled with that and didn't have that you know, you had somebody doing accounts receivable somebody Accounts Payable someone was facility reservation, but not It was very siloed. And so it was just a matter of leadership saying, Look, we're going to take time, you're going to block off this much time in your schedule to work on your processes, and then just have like a weekly or bi weekly meeting, saying, Hey, how's the progress going, and just kind of checkpoints along the way for everyone, and deadlines to get it done saying, it becomes an expectation saying, we value as an employee, and we know, you, you earn these days off, or you earn sick days, we don't want you to come into work, when you're sick, all of those things, we framed it net mentality saying, we value you and the time that you've earned. So putting these processes together will help you in the long run, because you feel like you can leave and take those days.

And yes, that's what worked and was successful for us. Yeah. And so it's kind of like a baby steps to help people. It's, it's actually building a culture, isn't it? And I like Stella's comment there in the chat. Still, if you want to expand on that, you know about making the subject matter experts. You know, the heroes of the story, right?

Yes, the problem is always dismissed, don't have time, everyone has no time. So then I have to try and charm them and tell them Well listen, you can talk in the video, I put your photo, and you know, all our distributors, the whole sales force, they will recognize you as the expert. And then some Smith's, they still say, I don't have time you do it. But I can't do all the videos. I mean, who wants to listen to a middle aged woman in 100 videos. So then I really use a lie, I tell them, Listen, the Board of Directors, they are watching all the videos, and they really think they are doing a great job and they accomplish it. So I'm lying, but I have the big intent. You know, because because we were talking the other day, we were talking about coaching and mentoring. So in three weeks, that's the summer party. And then I will go and ask one of the board, one of the directors to coach me, or to mentor me, you know, so I get this right, I want to have an I think they they will help me because it's important for small, we are only a medium sized organization. So it's very important to communicate.

I agree. And I love that approach. You know, and I think it's all in how we in how we build the framework around it, you know, how we approach people, how we talk to people? How we like Douglas said, how do we address their pain points. And, and Nathan, you know, Nathan's, like, if I'm gonna,

I prepare, I prepare everything for them. I do the slides with lots of visuals. I make a script, and then I tell them, you can change anything, you know, I don't mind. It's your expertise. But don't make it any longer. You know, you can talk about anything, but not longer than six minutes, you know, shorter is okay, but not longer change. And some, they change a lot. And others Oh, it's fine. I just do it. You know, so people are so different. But I always give them the option to to modify.

And I think that that's, that's another great technique that we can use to get subject matter experts to open up. And I wanted the comments in the chat was also around job security to a certain degree. And I missed who wrote that down. So you can raise your hand and let me know. But it was. Yeah, if we convince people to share their secret sauce,

then,

you know, are they going to go? Well, I'm not competitive within my organization any longer. You know, so that is a that's a barrier that we need to address when it comes to, you know, again, harvesting the knowledge of our organization so that the organization and the people within it can can continue to be successful. So what are your thoughts around those barriers? Connie?

Can you hear me okay?

I sure can.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I was just one I think that one of the comments about that. And I think it's based on experience, at least it is in my case. I have experienced where the company valued me less Because I, even though I had the knowledge, I had shared the knowledge. Now I believe in sharing knowledge all the time, as much as I can. And I feel that, you know, if someone steals my knowledge per se, and takes credit for it, or or just uses it to their advantage or nice me in the back,

shame on them, you know,

I'm still going to share knowledge, because I think knowledge is very important. But I think company's approach to that is also very important. And not every organization makes sure that that knowledge is valued. And that if it's shared, they want everyone to share it. They want everyone to document, but then they don't like sometimes in my organization, someone new will come in, and they won't even take them through any of that. And so it's like repeating yourself over and over again. And it's like, okay, well, we already set it up. And it's okay to change and offer new ways. But not until you know what we did and why we did it, then you can make good changes. But if you just come in and say, Well, I think we should do it this way. And you do not have the background of the 12 years that I do and why we're doing it the way we do it, then you're disrespecting the fact that of the the history and the background and why people are doing what they're doing. That doesn't mean you don't want change. I mean, we do want change and new ideas, but only if it's based on solid information and knowledge of the organization, and how things work. So I've been burned multiple times with sharing knowledge. But again, I believe in sharing knowledge no matter what, but it really makes people weary of organizations and of other people coming in. Yeah,

I get it, I get it. And I'm sure we've all have been in that position before, I think all of us have, where all of a sudden, and especially. And not to take this too terribly off topic, but especially for the ladies in the room. You know, where we share information, we share knowledge, and then it gets picked up by somebody else. And suddenly that I did gets wiped away as being yours. You know, so that that happens. And I think this is why the documentation of the knowledge is important. You know, where we have a process to gather those stories and a process to gather that intellectual bit, you know, so that we can go on record to say, this was this, this whole process was carnies. And this is what we do. But I think you said, you also said something else that I would like to talk about, which is we take the stories,

we take the knowledge, but then we don't do anything with it.

You know, so I think that was awful and

start protecting our end of the secret knowledge deal, right?

Is it not to be Nathan? Oh, well,

no, I was I Well, frankly, I was just saying, right. So. So there are moments where you have a conversation with an SME, and they give you some knowledge that is that I would describe as almost like secret sauce, right like that, that frankly, even you can't communicate it to the learning audience if you wanted to. Right. And so I was just gonna say, you know, when you leave that off the presentation that's you're kind of just filling in your end of the bargain that I was kind of talking. So that's that's my only point and and I'm sorry for interjecting that was no you can hear

Jack. You can interject anybody can interject. You guys got a point. Shout it out. You all most of you are familiar with this learning rebel's process. Okay, and so now and I think what I think what you bring up Nathan was just another even though tongue in cheek. Still a good point. Because other people your salespeople are protecting their jobs by keeping hoarding by hoarding. And sometimes we protect our jobs also by hoarding. You know, so what's, what's the example that we're trying to set? So Eric, I see your hand.

Hi, thank you, Happy Friday, everybody. To the point that you were making chanin about like, if we're going to go through any process of doing the collection of the stories or the knowledge and then making sure that they just maybe don't sit idle in a repository. You know, maybe if you're able to anchor it to something so meaning like, you know, are you able to anchor it to an initiative that's going on at the organization or are you able to anchor it to maybe Whenever your high level of high level cheerleader who wants to assure, like, Oh, this is a really great idea, this is awesome work and an example. And what what what I'm noodling off of is I'm on a project right now, that actually was instigated by a higher level VP to help us to to help create a more standardized one way to train what is called a tier one associate within a small, tiny, little call center in our human resources and central HR at USC, that's called the HR Service Center. And what we've come to understand by doing a lot of

just

seeking to understand we've had a lot of seeking to understand meetings with these individuals attends if the manager and it tends to be their three main trainers that are also leaves. And they are actually very excited about this process. They're very happy that they're getting the support of like a learning and development organization that's coming in. And now we're at the place this is very well timed, that we're trying to get whatever that content in current state that isn't recorded somewhere, but they know that they're training off of meaning. They're doing things wrote Shannon, like you mentioned you and enfant, you be able to do something, you know, real quick, you thought you had good documentation, they're aware that they're training off of things that are very much the folklore knowledge. And but it's not recorded, we seem to have been able to capitalize off of the idea that this was already something that someone else instigated, they were gonna go in kind of a different direction, we've been able to sort of educate them through performance consulting, about like, that shouldn't be the end result of all of this, we have the beauty and all of your going to be like, Oh, you stock, we aren't being pressured to do this in like a month, because this is going to be a years long process, because there's three levels within this, this call center. But the ability of us now that we're going to try and get legacy information out of their brains, we're going to record those meetings, or if it's a mock training, however, we can get that information out of them. And we are, we are fortified by the fact that this project has been you know, I don't know greenlit stamp of approval. So it's, it behooves us. And it actually then shows to the point that then I guess Nathan was making about like whether or not we're gonna sit on stuff, even if we've collected it to then translate, transmit, and then elevate their training by getting it all done into a standardized format, so that we do have a learning journey. And we've got those, all of those things that may be inside of their head, they're like, Oh, I'm thinking about it now. So I'm going to train this person on it, but I forgot about it, and I don't train the next person. So I think that helps us to feel like we've got fire in our bellies of like making sure oh, we're going to do good capturing of this information. And then we really want to make sure that we're going to be able to say this can get turned into this sort of artifact, whether it's elearning. Or if it's a more streamlined IoT, etc, etc. I know that we always, we don't always have maybe that sense of like, if somebody's rooting for us, but are there ways that we can think about it that anchors it to something so that we're feeling that motivated motivation and generation and making sure that we don't collect it all and then just not do

anything with it? Right. And, and subsequently, that's the issue at hand. Right. And Robin, I saw your comment in there, about what you're trying to figure out is how the leaders of our organization can use stories and experiences to keep people engaged, informed and involved. And I think this is what it's all about. This is exactly what this conversation is about is about harvesting that knowledge and those stories and those experiences. So I'm curious if you're, if you're willing to or can talk about this initiative, and what you're discovering so far, I think would be really handy.

Well, I haven't gotten that far yet. But what what we're trying to do is actually make people feel comfortable, actually telling stories, right? The people at the top they're fantastic. And you know, their, their TED Talk material and all of that stuff. But for your frontline managers or their people or they don't even realize said they do it when they do it. So doing it purposefully becomes a challenge, they have an emotional block, to to. And I'm the same way, frankly, I know I tell a bad story, I jumped, I jumped to the, you know, the, the end, before I should I forget important details that really make this story and that sort of thing. So we're having a mid year meeting next month. And one thing I'm really trying to do is give people tricks or structure that can help them feel comfortable putting together their experiences in a format that is storied, like, and then, you know, make it their own. And right now, I've just got 1000 ideas pumping through my brain. And none of them are very organized. And I'm hoping for a miracle, frankly. And that will help me tie it all together, you know, make it useful for people because I think people recognize the value. Because we all have been on the other end of a story that really motivated us, or helped us understand why this change is important, or gets, you know, gets us anxious to jump on a new initiative. But it's hard for us to see how we can use that on a day to day basis, when I just want my folks to feel like they are valued, or I just want to have them make a change to the workflow or the process, or recognize the value of working in the office instead of from home or whatever the situation is. And using stories to help explain the why. Or the you know, that sort of thing. So as you can see, it's a fumble right now. But I'm hoping to make it into a useful discussion.

Yes, I think I think it is. And one of the things that I appreciate what you're saying is the effort that it takes to find the stories and the build the stories and the structure and to host in, you know, where are they gonna live is a new realm within our positions, you know, so it's l&d professionals, our jobs are just massively changing. And I think this is one of the areas that we need to pay more attention to. And it's beyond gathering documentation. It's it is getting to the heart, the heartbeat of your organization. And I think we all have a superpower for that. Because our ability to connect with people is what makes us good at what we do. So then, how what does that look like? How do we go about it? And so for you, the struggle is real. But I also think that it's a struggle that most of us are either going to or have experienced, you know, and we need to do this better.

Yeah. And to Eric is point I think this is you don't want to have a seven hour process to to deliver a two minute story or a 32nd story. Because that becomes very rightfully so daunting and not valuable.

Right, and nobody's in wants to participate in any challenges that are completely different. Yeah. Anyone else want to build on what Robin is talking about here?

What I did make a comment just about the the cultural differences with a global audience that I've experienced. And I have found that when it comes to storytelling, for example, my Pakistani and Japanese colleagues are not comfortable telling a story that makes anybody look bad, right on any level, particularly their leadership. And so it can be very, very difficult to get them to describe and diagnose the problems that they're experiencing. And so I just wanted to talk I actually I feel like storytelling is very, very vital to what we do. I do also think we tend to talk about it academically and like lean into this like almost like script writer approach to us, and that that does seem like overcomplicating it, right? So you know that those are my thoughts. Thanks for the opportunity to share.

Well, and thank you, and you're absolutely right. It's it's not shocking at all, that a group of l&d professionals will overthink a process to us that is, that's also part of our DNA. You know, we're things, things like storytelling where cavemen gotten, you know, they all sat around the fire and drew pictures on the wall that was not difficult. That was part of what their culture was. And that's how we now they communicate it to the next family that moved into that game. It's all that's, that's the process. Very simple. And how can we do better at you know, replicating that particular process. And I think one of the things that I actually wrote down here, when Robin was speaking was sometimes we do need a guide, not not like a written guidebook or documentation, that maybe someone who's really good at pulling a story out of someone you know, so it's that, for lack of better terms is that story guide person, it's that person, the interviewer, it's the Jimmy Kimmel, it's it's the person who is there and ready to listen and listen deeply and intently with heart to get to the, to the bottom of what is happening. And that person may not even sit on your team, it may not even be you. But it may be someone within the organization that you know, you know, who can help you with that? Right? And then I also appreciated what Eric has said, what was it here about? Mean gathering the stories, and I'm paraphrasing here, Erica, when gathering the stories, being inclusive of all levels of your organization, because you have people who are you know, your boots on the ground, people feel as though their stories don't have value. And if you can get those stories for them, show that they have value, help them understand that their stories have value, rather than that kind of snowballs into other areas of the organization, you know, where people then want to tell you their stories, because you've started this sort of initiatives. Now, let's talk about now.

For example,

gathering the story, it's one thing, how we're storing it, and what we're doing with it is another. And so it's that second bit now. So Robin has her stories. So I'm just going to use your Robin because I can see you. And so Robin has Robin has is gathering her stories. But are there different techniques that we can use, for example, a form such as maybe this? You know, so if you had a half hour or 1520 minute type of coffee chat with a group of salespeople, and you just threw them a question, kind of like what we do here. Here's the topic today. Talk to me about this topic, and you recorded it. Right, who knows what's going to pop out of that, you might have some really great stories from which to follow up on. So now, so now and also this also goes for the intellect of the organization also, because somebody may have a story of what connected them to sales in the first place. Awesome. That builds connection, that's part of the heartbeat. But also you may end up with something that is, oh, that's a really good, I didn't know that process was happening on the back end. You know, and that's really good information. And we want to share that. So Erica,

process

that I'm a real fan of that I think then naturally can bloom into you know, then having these little small finger lips kind of grow out of it is when we're developing learning, you know, I've learned to come to appreciate the idea that ask your sneeze about well, what are the the main pain points? Where are the points of fair failure when somebody is attempting to do this? And by starting off the conversation in that way, I think the two things then naturally happen. And first of all, they're expressing their expertise to us. They're sharing because a lot of people usually are very willing to tell you why things went wrong. Moreso than Well, yeah. So well. And and so obviously with us wanting to effect behavior change and move the needle from current state future state. That's also the great way to to posit that question, but then from that can also balloon like, you know, you then thinking about like, oh, and then I'd like to ask this additional thing or that additional thing or maybe they say look and then because this happens, and this is a pain point. This is the reason why we need this or why I'm feeling like this isn't happening the way it should And then that hopefully if we're being non judgmentally curious and being open to riffing with them, it's like, okay, well, so tell me more about that, then like, so what about this process that exists that you're feeling? And this connects to something that somebody said previously, and I apologize, I don't apologize. I don't remember who that person was. So I think maybe even a starting off with asking like, where things aren't working, where there are those gaps, where their usual points of failure is a great way for people to then just want to talk? And then it not even feel too constricting as like an interview. And then as long as we're being open, and then it's like, maybe like, well, I don't need to answer, ask that question. I don't need to ask that question. And we're able to be fluid in that moment, as well. And then I think that gives us a great repository, because we get a lot more from them than maybe we initially thought. And then there might be different ways in different places that that information can be utilized, even though our initial ask was maybe for this particular project.

I completely agree. And I love that approach. Maureen.

Yeah, so I was just I was looking at Robins comment about interviews are a good way to good vehicle for telling a story. And it just reminded me of science, like, if you set it up like a podcast, or like a radio interview, and you tell you let the person know ahead of time what the questions are. If they're not, if they're not going to see the visual, some people are more comfortable having that they just don't want to be on camera, regardless of what's there. That's one way to kind of get some of that, that knowledge drawn out and know stories. And then the other is we have at our organization, it's the leaders. And they can't remember what it's called. But it's basically like a 30 seconds or 60 seconds. It's relatively brief, but there's just like a topic that then they talk about. And they they're like, they share something that's there. And it just helps to, again, to share that, that information or knowledge across the organization. And that's just part of our culture, which is shifting to be much more open and collaborative than it was in the past. So and I'd also said earlier, when we are speaking with people don't overlook the opportunity to recognize and reward them for sharing that, because that may encourage others to be more open and sharing and not hold it so close to the vest. Because and let let people know how, you know, helps you feel valued that there's you know, somebody, somebody wants to hear from you, you know, and learn from you. Yeah, it was just in my it's just in my, my mid year review. I thought it was like, Oh, I was like, you know, didn't have to take this but it was that I have was it say that I have great tribal knowledge. That was immensely helpful. Oh, nice advanced the project, because based on different experiences I've had through the years, I could pull in some key learnings from that and apply it to, you know, what we were doing, which is to onboard a whole bunch of new new hires in a particular area. So anyway, just just funny tribal knowledge. Okay. All right. Yes, that's what it's

called. Are you are the keeper of the knowledge guy guess.

I mean, I'm but I shared it in a way where it's like, I don't just dump it. It's just like, Okay, if something comes up, I go, Okay, let me share, like, it's always in the context of when somebody's learning something, so then it can be retained.

We'll see. And I love the idea. And it kind of ties in nicely with what Erica was saying, you know, about the discovery process. And I love the pot, you know, me, I'll I'll take a podcast as a solution any day of the week, you know, because it fits in so many places, and it fits here. So if you created a podcast series, and I'll just go with your example there, Maureen. So the podcast series was quote, unquote, you know, 60 seconds of or six minutes, six minutes about XYZ, you know, six minutes about sales, six minutes about customer service, six minutes about our CEO six minutes about, right. And then and if you follow that sort of path, then people will listen, people will pay attention and then those stories just by default, become part of the organization. And then you can create, you know, other branching type of, you know, audio, you know, to go along with it, but I think that that's a great way of of gathering, you know, organizational knowledge and organizational stories.

Yeah. And what's interesting too is they used to be those the ones with the leaders like the, you know, the armchair conversations or whatever, used to be a longer, you know, a longer video, audio, whatever, and that people at first liked it when it was all new and shiny. But it was, they pivoted and modified. What it was because people were like, Yeah, we don't have time for that anymore. So now it's just much more brief, that's much more palatable, because it's bite size to take it in. And then that also can spur the conversation where other people then contribute, you know, some of their lessons as well.

Right? Right. You can also, you know, do different branches of it, right. So you can have a full conversation like this, and it's an hour. And then you can say, for those people who really want the in depth, here's an hour, for those of you who you know, are on your 30 minute lunch break, here's 30 minutes, for those of you who just want the bite size while you're on the treadmill, here's, here's 10. You know, and then you can take from that longer piece and just take key points, and put that together. And it all becomes you know, reuse, though a term from the 80s. Right, that reusable learning object, you know, where you can recycle, recycle, recycle?

You know, any other ideas?

Cannot Connie.

Yeah, something you said just a little bit ago, and then Stella had mentioned something to in his. And I know, there's a couple others. So to me, it almost feels like I would like a template of how to how do I know that it's information that is important that needs to be shared, or that is good to share, versus something that really doesn't matter. Because it was someone did it for X amount of years. And that's just the way they did it with no changes kind of thing. You know, just, I'm someone who loves to have a list or template or something to go by. Because I feel like I'm not that creative. On my own. I don't have come up with these great ideas. But I sure can sure can use other people's ideas, and go forward using them. And to me, it feels like there's almost some standards in there that could be developed to say, this is the kind of information that's really important to keep. And then even in those bite sized things, or bite size videos or podcasts, you could hit on those key points. If you knew how to, you know, just figuring that out, what are the key things for you to know. And granted, you can probably, I can probably come up with some of the key points. But I think about that, and that I don't always focus on the key points. Because I'm very detailed. I give way too much detail I give the hour when people would like just a bite

from either 10 minutes, or 10 minutes. Well, you know what I'm looking at Melissa's comment, and your your comment calm. Funny. Man trouble talking today. ties directly in with like Melissa wrote here, and I really love this, I wrote this down myself. And this is almost a podcast in the making traditions trash and try prep, that's a podcast title just waiting to happen, you know, for your organization. But I love to this, you have this idea or method rather, of categorization. Right? So we have this this information. Is this something that and I'm paraphrasing here and Melissa, you can expand on it is, you know, is this a tradition that you know that the organization, it's part of the organizational heartbeat, this is a tradition that was in the heartbeat, right? And then you've got something that may work, it's tractable. So it may work for you, but not necessarily work for me. You know, so do with it what you will, and then the trial, I love the trial. So the Try It is the you know, early adopter, the pilot the experiment, just give it a shot, see what happens, right? Like it that right? Yes.

And I ultimately and maybe it's because I was in the position so long I wanted the person coming in to be successful too, because ultimately, me leaving I retired, you know, it probably depends on the reason someone leaves, but I want them to be successful. And I want the organization to be successful. You know, because ultimately what they were doing what was I wanted them to have that experience. But I didn't want them to think that trashing it's like you're not going to hurt my feelings. I don't work there anymore. So if something's not working for you get rid of it. That I feel like they had to hang on to it because I did it. Yeah, but when I looked at tradition, things I knew It would be, it would be royally bad for them. If I was like, Don't not do this.

We'll see. And I love that. And in that part of categorization there, Connie can help you determine what is the information that should sit for the greater good. You know, and then you can even, you know, try to label it or or what have you, you know. So, Jason, I see your hand.

Yeah. And that's Melissa's point is exactly kind of where I've been leading is. What are those questions you want to ask your leaders or your subject matter experts. And so here's, here's a tradition that we have to stick to,

there's something that we

don't really need, we can trash it or something that we need to try. And having a set of three, five, however, many questions you want to ask, of every person you interview is what's gonna make want a really good podcast, a really good interview, whatever, whatever you want to call it. And now we want to turn it into and I love the fact you use the word reusable, because that's where my my mind goes all the time is, can I take these two minutes and put it into an elearning? To explain something else down the road? And I think this is part of a communication plan. And can I drop that out into teams to tease something else down the line? But having that framework of like, if I'm going to interview somebody, I'm going to always ask them these three or five questions. And I learned that from a podcast, or that's a great idea. And everybody gets those same questions, and just where the story goes, where the conversation goes from there, but you always ask those three or five questions, each person as part of that conversation starter, and then I don't remember who said it earlier, but give it to him in advance. So they can start thinking of those questions. Or thinking of their answers. And then when you go in, just be prepared to focus on those items. And then you've got your content, you've got start building those repositories.

Right. And I love that I love the idea. And it does go I think it was with what I think Don was talking about it now Maureen was talking about it. You know, having them be prepared. So if you do let's, let's continue on the pot, let's continue on the podcast idea, right. So before they jump into your podcast, you can tell them, I'm going to ask you this, this and this. And then the conversation is going to go in the direction that it might naturally flow afterwards. So I think yeah, you're setting him up for success when you do that. But it also gives the story of theme. You know, so all of the story, you can link now all of the stories together. So I like that. So you

don't really have a, you have a theme, they have a possible title, right, you've got a brand. And then however you decide to push it out, people start to anticipate it. They know like once a month, they're gonna hear this thing, and they're gonna get these ideas.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. Excellent. And we are almost at the top of the hour. So are there any I know this time just flies? Are there any other ideas that you all have about sharing, gathering information, knowledge stories.

Maybe just think about how you're going to tag that content at the end of it, oh listed about the tags that you use, and then that also helps build up.

That's good. That's,

that's a nice tip. I got all kinds of files labeled in all sorts of different ways. And that can be a mess, especially, you know, if you've been collecting stuff for as long as I have now you have no set method of finding.

Good tip. All righty.

Okay, for those of you who are new, this coffee chat happens every other week. So not next Friday. But the Friday after is when we're going to start talking about different knowledge tools. So let's talk about how we can use podcasts to build the knowledge how we can use things like rice or articulate or any other short of platform that we can use to gather those stories and bring them more to life. So I'd like to have a continuation of this conversation and see where that goes as well as some of the other tools that you know we might be missing or neglecting. So we are going to have that conversation in two weeks. And as I said at the beginning, the learn something new for next month is up and we are going to have found Becker and he's going to be taking us through to game or not to game. That's the question. So should if we're going to use gamification, let's be sure that you're using the proper game mechanics and making good game methodology decisions. And he's going to be talking about that. So keep your eyes open for the, we'll be issuing an early bird code, or those of you who are in the community, you all get this learn something new for free. So there's another incentive for some of you to join the community if you haven't already. And a last piece of big news here is that all of our Learn something news, as well as the information that's being shared in the community are now eligible for APTT AP TD and CPT de certification points. So we are very excited by that. So if you have your ATT certification, add your Association for Talent Development certification, any of our courses now, you can get points for recertification. So there's another incentive to you know, participate in the learn something new events as well as to join the community because we do have learning themes each month that you can get credit for. So super excited by that. Yeah. All right. So keep your eyes out. And then also for looking for these resources. Just a reminder, the process has changed. I used to email the resources to you now they sit on the website. So you just go down into learning rebels.com, find the Coffee Chat resources, and they will be up and loaded within the next 24 to 48 hours. So I hope to see you at the next coffee chat here in two weeks and our Learn Something New next month. I hope you guys have a fabulous weekend. And thank you for all of the ideas today. Y'all are wonderful as usual. So anything fun happening this weekend. No, no fun.

I'm getting together with a documentary filmmaker on some LGBT rights in Central Florida. That's my big plan for this weekend and everything. I'm really looking forward to that. But yeah,

yes, you need to share the outcome of that on the next chat if you show up. That would be lovely. And Robin Your dad is going to be 97 There's some story to collect. Absolutely buy that man. Oh, whiskey. He deserves it. All right, going to Las Vegas. Nice morning going to Las Vegas where you can say marine

the treasure island the first two nights and then the ARIA resort a

very Yeah. Nice. Yeah.

Nice. My travel buddy. She is like oh my gosh, she's got wandered last big time so she just like she used to like her points from her different casino things and and then I use points for my credit card for like the rental car and tickets that were coupons to get the Hoover Dam tour pass and the Neon Museum and so the only thing is that apparently, I don't know if it's also grasshoppers, plus these Mormon crickets, but there's these like, disgusting amount of like, crickets that have made their way to the surface. And like,

I've never heard of such a thing I

know. And I was like,

Thank you for my nightmare. And I

exactly Oh god. Ah,

I would say Google it but don't

ya don't I mean, we're happy spotted and lanternflies which have taken over things but like, yeah, these crickets and look at like, all that stuff. It's weird. It's weird that they surface like every seven years and

ah, it's like cicadas right. Yeah, yeah.

And I was just like, okay, is this like one on one of the you know, it's like a plague of crickets or grasshoppers instead of Lucas like, you know? Well, yeah,

let's stick to that neon. Make

sure I go make sure I go to the confession before I go. So I'm clean.

Are they worse than potato bugs?

I don't know what potato bugs are. But that sounds

to come out. I think it's like once every 16 years and they make a bunch of noise like are cicadas right? The cicadas right? Yeah. So yeah, they have a cycle that I think is like once every 16 or 19 years or something like that. It sounds like these guys do it once every seven. I'm not an insect. I'm freaked out. I don't

like the Spy Museum.

Okay, the the one in DC or the or the Vegas? Oh, okay. Yeah, there's a there's this. There's a mock museum. I think that's

it's the mod Museum. That's right. Yeah, he's an old town. I'm

trying to keep busy. So I mean, we'll do a little bit of gambling, but I could so easily be sucked into that. So it's going to be hotter than Hades. So we're gonna like go into and out of the different air conditioner. I mean, even just like watching like the free things or going into, like different lobbies and seeing, like, the glass and the, you know, yeah, rubies and everything else. I just think it'd be fascinating.

Yes, and I'm sure you're walking shoes.

I know. Everything's planned around the shoes. That's my mom said, I just remember going when it was hot, and it was like the heel, but almost like the soles would be like sticking to the pavement. I'm like, Oh, that's gross.

And in Vegas, it has it's like an optical illusion. Right? So something looks like it's just a block away. But it's like miles away.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, everything is probably designed to make you forget time and space. Just go in there. But yeah, I mean, it'll be I mean, and also just like to get to spend time with my friend and I was like, Okay, so do we need a code word? Or we just say like, I need some downtime. Like let me be by myself for just there's gonna be a lot of stimulation over stimulation, you know, so it'll

it'll be good. Well, haha All right. All right.

Be sure to share.

Thank you. Maybe not. These days. My friend is watching she's watching all Vegas the movies of course the hangover, but like all these other things, she's like, you know?

11 Yeah. She's

honeymoon in Vegas. Is that the one with them? Nicolas Cage and the Elvis is coming out of the airplane. Yeah, I haven't seen in. I won't watch Leaving Las Vegas is not the one we're happy sad one but yeah, thanks. Yeah. That one? Yeah. No, no sad things.

No sad things this weekend. All right. All right, people. See you. Bye