Tribal Knowledge, Organizational Knowledge, Organic Knowledge - these are several of many terms that are used to characterize the knowledge of individuals within a company.  The sources of this knowledge can come from the education, training, experience and reading of the many individuals within your company.  It is held by individuals from the manufacturing floor, to administrative assistants, to individual contributors, to managers and supervisors, to middle management and all the way up to the CEO.  Companies have even implemented knowledge management processes and systems to capture and enable the sharing of this knowledge throughout the company.  Knowledge management systems are very useful.  However, systems cannot capture all the knowledge that you may need.  Everyone in the company does not contribute to knowledge management databases for a variety of reasons ranging from being too busy to not having the desire to contribute knowledge through the formal processes.  There is probably very useful knowledge that is available through informal avenues. 

 

There are three (3) things, which I call Generally Accepted Sage (GAS), that I have found to be true about people.

How can you use this GAS to tap into the wealth of knowledge that is not available through formal sources?  The bucket for dipping into this well of knowledge is relationships.  Here are suggestions on how you can build and take advantage of knowledge-producing relationships.  

The first 3 suggestions remove barriers that people assume based on differences such as levels in the organization, gender, race, ethnicity and assignments to organizations or departments.  People respond to you favorably when you respect them and make them feel important.

 

I would like to share 2 personal experiences in which relationships that I established helped me.  I was the controller of a division of a Fortune 500 company.  The division was formed when the company acquired another company.  I was selected to be the controller of the division and relocated to the location of the company we acquired.  I was the only person in the division from the parent company.  I knew none of the people in the management of the new company.  I established a relationship with Pete, a manufacturing shift supervisor.  Pete had worked with the acquired company for several years.  He had known members of the local management team for several years.  I initiated the relationship with Pete by asking him questions about the manufacturing process.  This relationship, not only gave me valuable information about the manufacturing process, but also valuable insight into the culture of the acquired company and the traits of members of the management team.  I learned the dos and don'ts of the organization from Pete.  This was very helpful to me in my adjustment and for working with the local management team.

The other experience was when I was responsible for end user support services at a Fortune 500 company.  I found that administrative assistants were excellent sources of information on the personal computing needs of individuals in their departments.  I established relationships and acquaintances with several executive assistants.  These relationships expanded into an informal information network.  The company was experiencing difficulty with its on-boarding process for new employees.  I asked members of my informal knowledge network for help.  My contacts helped me organize a standing room only meeting in the largest conference room at the corporate headquarters.  The administrative assistants, on whom a great deal of the on-boarding tasks fell, provided suggestions that enabled us to simplify the process and drastically reduce the time it took to on-board a new employee.  I could not have obtained that type of information that quickly through formal means such as surveys.