My approach to succession planning has always been to find someone who
thinks somewhat as I do, with enough differences to learn what I have
learned in a different way so that it may be applied in a way that will
not destroy the continuum (the "kaizen", continuous improvement) and yet
will be able to provide a breakthrough which will take the organization to
a new level. Simple, huh?
>There are many side to this problem. Among other things:
>(1) We will have to deal with the technical, cultural, and
>process problems related to capturing the retirees' knowledge
This part is one of my favorite!! The best way to capture knowledge is to
write about what you know. This does not mean procedures and work
instructions so much as it means thinking. It is interesting to read
Einstein's philosophical writings, which reveal more about Einstein than
his work on relativity, which most of his peers could not fully
comprehend. One of the problems here, however, is the ability of the
retiree to create an intelligent system, either in wet ware (behavior) or
software (text, hypertext, and database).
>(2) We will have to deal with the same types of problems related to
>communicating this knowledge to the replacements
If you are trying to capture procedure, it's a current situation analysis,
document, deploy model. If it's behavior you want to model, be careful,
especially with genius.
>(3) We will have to implement effective systems to prevent this problem
>from resurfacing in the future.
discover->develop->document->deploy (PDSA with gray cells attached) Note
that documentation can occur in the brain more readily than in RAM or on
paper and may be more satisfactory to the system than a paper heap.
>(4) What else?
Deploy: teach, mentor practice lavishly, praise good behavior rather than
results
John Zavacki
jzavacki@greenapple.com
--"John Zavacki" <jzavacki@greenapple.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>