1. SOME USEFUL – INTERESTING RESOURCES
To help leaders and team members understand themselves and others and work together more effectively:
The Social Styles Handbook – Wilson Learning Library
PACE Palette – communication style assessment
Predictive Index Assessment Tool – behavioral assessment
The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization – Peter M. Senge
TMBC.com – Marcus Buckingham
Focus of work is on leveraging individual strengths

2. On a mission to retain, manage and transfer knowledge and experience?
This is often the starting – and sometimes the stopping point for organisations.
This like any other goal for a business can not be addressed – at least not successfully --- in isolation.

3. Then, Now and the Future The physical environment The work The people
Traditional structured cubicles
The work
Work and responsibilities narrow silos
The people
No true team structure or interaction
Random social groups/connections
The physical environment
Open ‘pods’ based on geographic regions
The work
New ‘leveled’ roles
The people
Teams of 6 – 8 with a Team Leader
Cross function, experience and generations
Not change for change sake – change with purpose and intent!
Physical changes – to help build teams, cooperation, information sharing, leverage the strengths of individuals in context to the team.
Work changes – remove barriers of understanding… reflective of diversity of knowledge and understanding. Leveled roles provided progression via development and career progression = retention of staff
People changes – create a broader base and disperse the knowledge of the department and for individuals. Create opportunities for individuals to grow and develop.
Integration of the LEARNING ORGANISATION MODEL

4. The Goals Vision for a desired end state
Improved ability to adapt to change
Retain and transfer knowledge and experience
Retain staff
Not change for change sake – not ‘flavor of the day’
Connected and interdependent goals -- What did we want to improve as oppose to change?

5. What do you need to start with?
Commitment up and down the organisational chart
Learning organisation model (LO)
Right people for the work and doing the right work for the people
Without commitment up and down the org chart – limited success
Integrate learning and continuous learning into the function of the team and the roles within the team.
For new hires – right people for the work starts with the recruitment process.
Screening interview
Meet the team interview
Profiling candidates – tools such as Predictive Index
Re-meet the candidate interview
For existing staff – doing the right work for the people.
Helping them understand and adapt to change
Create a working environment that is change and conflict resilient
Ownership of personal development and growth

6. The LO Model The Goal Strategy Style (leadership) Skills Strengths
Stakeholder
Values
Shared
Value
Systems
(process)
Structure
The LO Model
Training
and Development
Many different sources for this information available. It is a strong model to use as common goal or goals is a key element… everything drives to the same desired and understood outcomes.

7. Bridging, Transferring, and Sharing within a Multi-Faceted Work Environment
“Team member bridges” created and supported by the work environment
Work distribution and individual progression that requires and supports knowledge transfer and sharing
Continuous adaptation leveraged through multi-faceted work teams
Changes to the physical environment created bridges within the teams –
shared and sharing knowledge and experience is an expectation regardless of role, seniority etc.
Distribution of work and individual progression
how work is distributed and individual progression are linked
work/tasks are categorized based on complexity and roles follow the same model of degree of knowledge required to ensure that individuals can put all the pieces together as they progress through basic to more complex tasks.
Leveraging diversity
all the work belongs to the Sr. Specialists (3 levels)
individuals were placed in the most appropriate corresponding role
Representative
Specialist
Sr. Specialist
-- Example: team members with less experience overall might have more experience in a specific level of work and would be able to be positioned to share/train individuals with longer service.

8. Bridging, Transferring, and Sharing
Recruitment
How
Who
On-boarding and integration into the team
Retention
“Leaders” and team builders
Recruitment
Only recruit new staff for the first/entry level position within the team
Individuals with strong foundational skills and diverse knowledge – team centric and service oriented primary consideration
integration into the team starts during the interview process and follows through to day 1 on the job
Retention
creation of an environment that allows individuals to leverage their strengths and opportunities for improvement
even playing field for all – team leads to remove barriers and coach in addition to manage/lead
progression in the hands of the individual – how quickly can they learn new tasks etc.

9. In a Nutshell Removed the physical barriers
Removed the technology barriers
Removed knowledge and experience barriers
Physical barriers can and do keep individuals from interacting
remove physical barriers that can create selective social groups
remove reliance on limited individuals
Technology barriers don’t always apply to the long term or ‘older’ employee
comfort with new technology or adaptation to changes in technology is often associated with younger employees
comfort with existing systems and ones that might be seen as ‘antiquated’ is most often associated with long term employees
Knowledge and experience barriers will always exist
determine how to level the playing field for newer staff
leverage knowledge based on experience not years of service
use a learning organisation model to entrench learning into the daily work for all staff