sharing knowledge within your company

In april 2015, Laszlo Bock published the international best seller Work Rules. Among other interesting HR topics, the book contained insights into how the Googler-to-Googler programme helped Googlers share skills and knowledge. We’re a great advocate of peer-to-peer learning and used these principles as the foundation for the programme we rolled out at Sanoma.

We noticed that there was no structured way of sharing learnings with peers. Often the answers people were looking for outside the business, could have been answered by a colleague in the office around the corner. We’ve recruited over 50 experts which we helped train the rest of the business. We call them Knowledge Champions. These people are the local maximum of the business, meaning, that although there might always be someone better in the field, this champion, is the best in the business.

“Although the content is the basis of learning, sharing it in the right context is crucial for growth” 

We quickly found out that these champions had another crucial advantage opposed to external consultants or trainers while sharing their knowledge. The Knowledge Champions could empathise with their own colleagues like no other. This allowed us to help them share knowledge and skills linked to the day to day challenges of the learners. Although the content is the basis of learning, sharing it in the right context is crucial for growth.

Finding the Knowledge Champions in the business wasn’t the toughest challenge we faced. We found that these A-players often speak a different language than the learners. Our team helped them deconstruct their knowledge and translate their insights and learnings using the Feynman Technique. Not only did we create actionable resources hosted on a learning platform, the Knowledge Champions themselves were forced to built a deeper understanding of the subject, which helped them get their growth.

Remember, the Knowledge Champions have been selected for a reason. These employees are often busy making impact in their day-to-day activities. That’s why our team helps them to get to the finish line. There is a always a risk of ending up with unfinished resources written in a language nobody understands. Helping them translate their knowledge and accelerate sharing in the language your learners understand, is what will help you succeed in creating a culture of learning.

We ended up supporting over 50 Knowledge Champions create more than 750 instructional video’s on 40 knowledge areas.

This is only a glimpse of the learnings we had in this project at Sanoma. If you’re thinking of setting up a sharing eco-system in your business, feel free to reach out and discover how we can help you get your growth.