You have some pretty unique knowledge - it’s why a lot of people trust you and want to work with you. Your associates, team members, and strategic partners also have some pretty invaluable knowledge. It’s called institutional memory, and it’s the reason you don’t have to start your business from scratch, rebuilding it every single day.
It’s big things, like understanding the processes that run your business, and the technical expertise that people pay for. It’s the little things as well (which are still incredibly important), like knowing that this one customer you work with wants messages going to this email and not that one, or that this type of communication is supposed to go towards this member of a family or business but definitely not that one.
It’s understanding the key times in your business, like when annual reports need to be filed, insurance policies come due, and when that fiscal year ends. It’s also understanding key times for your customers, like when they’re most likely to be looking for a business just like yours, or when certain messages, documents, services, and products are expected to be received.
It’s understanding the people in your business, how they work, and how to get the best out of them. Maybe you know it’s a good idea to avoid calling Krysten before 10 am and that you can call Shannon as early as 7 am - but neither of them will answer in any case if you haven’t booked the time in their calendars. Maybe you know that giving your introverts a bunch of information and letting them chew on it for a while before asking them to give you their opinion is best, while giving your extroverts some time to talk it out with other team members helps them process their thoughts.
It's knowing that everything in your office will need to be replaced (whether it's in two weeks or two years), and every customer that walks through your doors will have their own quirks. If you don't have a system in place to manage every detail... you will burn out.
The institutional knowledge in your business is vital. It’s where technical information meets irreplaceable experience.
If you lose it… you’re going to have to build it all over again - and you don’t have time for that.
Many businesses unknowingly end up relying on “tribal knowledge” - the kind that isn’t written down and isn’t easy to know without looking it up or having a brand new experience. This type of knowledge is often what we end up relying on administration and operations teams to simply have, and why we cry bitter tears when they move on. It’s the kind of information that is key to the quality that you provide, and may be one aspect of your “bus factor”.
What bus? Why, the hypothetical one that seems to keep taking out key team members when we imagine what events could derail your business. What knowledge and capabilities would be irretrievably lost (or at least expensive and time-consuming to find again) if that proverbial bus took out your right-hand person? Or even worse… you?
Knowledge Management
If you are a fan of Murphy’s Law, “anything that can go wrong will go wrong”, then planning ahead might turn that law in your favour. If you’ve done all this planning, perhaps that hypothetical bus will skip over your team members and move on to accidents that will do far more damage to other businesses. By planning ahead you’re not only protecting your business, but you’re also subverting that bus away from your team members. Awful nice of you.
Managing knowledge is hard and it’s painstaking. It’s also not a ton of fun, especially if you’re starting from scratch. Not to worry though, we’re here to help! Here are some key ways to help you start protecting your institutional memory:
Written Procedures
We love, love, love written procedures at Admin Slayer. So much so that we write and maintain procedure manuals for each one of our clients. You can learn about how to create a process (and why we’re so nerdy about them) here, and how to write one here.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software
Come back! They’re not the nightmare that they once were. Or, more truthfully, they don’t have to be. We’ve seen nightmare CRM scenarios, lived them, and ran screaming towards spreadsheets and calendars. We know your pain. We also know that CRMs, when they’re designed for your processes and the way you work, can solve endless problems with day-to-day management of institutional memory.
File Management Rules and Systems
Having data isn’t particularly useful if no one can find it. Having clear standards around what kind of information to keep (and when to purge it), where to save it, and how to name it ensures that if you’re looking for that one thing, you don’t have to wait for someone else who has all the information to tell you. Your data standards system (handily written into your procedure manual) ensures that you can find anything you want, whenever you want, no matter who is around.
Security
It might not be losing people that will mess you up - it might be flat out, just losing data. Avoiding cloud systems and staying analog isn’t going to save you. The more common reasons for data loss are human error, hardware malfunctions, power outages, and hardware theft - not hackers in your cloud. Great cybersecurity, hardware, data backup and ongoing training are just some of the ways you can protect your institutional memory.
People Management
Yep, if it weren’t for all the people, this business might be easier. But then again, there probably wouldn’t be a business. Managing the folks around you so they understand expectations, responsibility, and their accountability is vital to the maintenance of quality institutional memory. If people weren’t taking action on all those knowledge management items above, well… they’d simply be ideas - and ideas aren’t useful without execution.
Open Communication & Clear Expectations
This is harder than it sounds. When you have built up institutional memory, you start to imagine that everyone knows what you know. But they don’t. They often don’t know even a small fraction of what you know - yes, even if you’ve told them multiple times. There are a lot of different opinions about how many times a person needs to see, hear, or experience a piece of information before it gets in their brain, but that number definitely isn’t “one”. We’ve heard everything from seven to thirty, so “open communication” is not just telling people and expecting them to remember it. It’s creating a system so they see that item between 7 and 30 times, and get a refresh every so often.
These systems can include instant messaging, like Teams and Slack, email, verbal communication, video conferencing, and much more. Expect to repeat yourself ad nauseam (or, you know, have other people do that).
Clear expectations about who should do what and when need to come from a variety of sources, including supervisors, training, procedure manuals, 1:1 meetings, company updates, and written structures (we’ve made frequent use of the DARCI framework) help everyone get, and stay, on the same page.
Appoint Knowledge Keepers
Some people just love data. They like finding it, sorting it, sharing it, and moving it about. These excellent, structured thinkers can understand and empathize with people doing different types of jobs and leading different projects and groups within your organization. They understand how an action that happens over here can impact an entirely different project or group over there. They understand how to manage information and create systems so that people with different concerns and perspectives can find what they need when they need it.
Cross-disciplinary Communication
There are going to be a number of people doing several different jobs in your business. Someone might be over there, working on your finances. Someone else might be here, working with you on your day-to-day. Another person might be in that corner, organizing your marketing, or another aspect of your business. They’re all vital to your business, and they can work pretty autonomously - which means, without careful thought… they will.
You need these people to communicate with each other. You may have decided to make some changes in your business - the way you work, who you work with, and how - that impacts your revenues and expenses. You may tell the person who works with you on your day-to-day. They’re right here, and most immediately impacted.
But if they don’t communicate with your finance person, that person is going to keep right on sending invoices and collecting payments and updating your books the way they’ve always done. They may get it wrong, and you’ll either find out from an irate customer or an annoyed government employee. If this isn’t communicated to your marketing team, they’re going to keep on trying to sell your offering to the wrong people, in the wrong way. Your messages won’t get out the way you wanted, and The Big Shift you were implementing (whatever that may be)… shifts your business in the very wrong direction.
As your company grows you might start to form departments, which might become silos or “sub-tribes” within your organization. You will need sharp people who ensure that cross-functional teams are collaborating. They don’t have to understand every other person’s expertise, but they WILL need to speak the same language - and trust each other enough to ask questions.
Training, Redundancy & A Culture of Documentation
Specialists and experts are useful, but behind every star should be another one - waiting in the wings. Whenever possible, it makes sense to ensure that anything that can be trained into redundancy, is. The ability of your team members to pick up where another team member left off is key, and by training and understanding each other’s jobs, it’s much easier to do just that. Then, when someone is sick, on holiday, or (shudder) leaves forever… the job can still be done. The learning is happening, organically, all the time.
As each person learns something new, they should then update the procedures. They might even record a video (some of our slayers much prefer to create and watch videos for particular types of learning). There is always, always, always a record of the knowledge, added to your business’ long-term institutional memory.
A Safe Environment
Too many businesses pay just enough attention to compensation, structure, and the happiness of their staff to keep them from leaving (they think), and are endlessly surprised when they inevitably do. Focus on creating an environment where people WANT to stay, because they are given opportunities to grow and learn and exist in the ways that work for them. Encourage them to make mistakes, learn from them, and add that knowledge to your growing institutional memory. Reward them for sharing, and make it clear that they’ll get ahead through collaboration, not competition. Then show them exactly where “ahead” is, and how they get there.
Understand that people grow and leave - even if you’ve done the Best Job Ever. People and lives change. Invest in people because they are your business, but plan for life without them at the same time. You’ll always, always, need a staffing strategy.
Leadership
Your ability to lead well is where the rubber hits the road. It’s one of the toughest skills to learn (and keep learning, endlessly). Make becoming a better leader part of your long-term growth. You’re never going to reach the finish line on that one. In the meantime, just try not to be an asshat.