Do your employees operate as if they are in a silo? Does each department solve problems in a way distinct from the rest of the company? Do you have expert employees who are holding the entire business together?
If your answer to any of the above questions is “yes,” then there needs to be a change in your company. Because when that one employee who knows everything about the company takes a sick day, goes on vacation, retires, or moves on to another job, that entire department will fall apart. And because each department is operating in its own way, it will be incredibly difficult to put the pieces back together.
Fortunately, there is a simple solution to this siloing problem.
That is: the process of capturing what your teams know and making it accessible to the people who need the information, also known as knowledge transfer. Silos stop forming by default when knowledge transfer becomes part of your company culture and your company becomes more interconnected. This not only means that the place isn’t resting on one or two shoulders like a modern-day Atlas, but it also means that the team can pick up the slack when an employee takes a vacation or deals with a family emergency.
Why Businesses Silo Knowledge, and What It Costs Them
There’s usually a good reason that a silo forms. For example, the sales department might get absolutely slammed over the holidays and be way too swamped to document their solutions to holiday-specific problems. Or a manager might build a system to solve a problem that seems specific to their department and never think to ask other teams whether they are encountering a similar issue. Or a key employee retires, leaving only one person who knows how everything functions to run vital aspects of the business.
At the end of the day, though, the main reason a silo forms is that the company lacks a culture of documentation and training on that documentation.
Even when a department operates as if it exists in a silo, no business is actually made up of separate, self-contained parts. A company is a holistic organization where a decision made by one department affects another. Even employees whose roles keep them working entirely within one department can benefit from understanding how the rest of the business functions and how their job fits within the existing structure.
This context allows employees to solve problems in ways that do not create issues for another department.
Even though we encourage employees and business owners to think of the company as a whole, not every employee needs to study up on the specialized knowledge required for every other job in the company. Some information is genuinely department-specific. However, just because knowledge is department- or even role-specific doesn’t mean it shouldn't be documented. In fact, the more specific the information, the more it needs documentation.
This is where knowledge transfer documentation comes into play.
In a more siloed environment, it ensures that each department's critical knowledge is captured, protected, and accessible to the people within that function, so the department itself is never dependent on one person. In a more open environment, documentation can be shared more broadly, giving every employee a clearer picture of how their work connects interdepartmentally.
Either way, company-specific knowledge is preserved within the company, rather than living in someone’s head.
When to Build Knowledge Transfer Documentation
Ideally, you want knowledge transfer documentation in place before a crisis hits. However, there are certain moments when it becomes especially important:
Before a key employee leaves.
Whether the employee is taking a planned vacation or has put in their two weeks, the moment they step out the door is the moment when someone will inevitably need their expertise. Documenting this knowledge in advance will make everyone’s life much easier.
When hiring an assistant, secretary, or apprentice.
It’s likely that the new hire was brought on to help take tasks off of someone’s plate. However, if the new hire needs to be hand-held and trained one-on-one because there’s no documentation in place, they will feel like a liability rather than a help.
As your business scales.
Your business will take on more people as it grows. Having knowledge transfer information in place and as part of onboarding will provide your new team members with the context they need to hit the ground running.
Ahead of a merger, acquisition, or sale.
The new owner doesn’t want to buy a business that depends on one person’s knowledge base. They are buying a going concern that can run no matter who is in charge.
When encountering a bottleneck.
If work grinds to a halt any time one person is out sick or on vacation, then that person is the bottleneck. And I can assure you, they don’t want to be. They’d likely rather be recovering or having fun than fielding phone calls. So, putting knowledge-transfer documents in place as part of a standard operating procedure can make everyone’s lives easier.
Stepping out of a silo means sharing what makes each team effective with the rest of the business. This is done by ensuring expertise is captured, structured, and available, so your business runs as the connected whole it actually is.
If you are ready to start documenting the expertise needed to bring your business together, then we have a free ebook just for you! It’s called Stop Carrying Your Business in Your Head.
Don’t want to read an ebook? Are you ready to work with knowledge transfer experts? Schedule a free initial consultation with Business Success Consulting Group. We will help you turn the knowledge locked inside your teams into an asset the whole company can use.
