To Boost Knowledge Transfer, Tell Me a Story

Field reports that global companies routinely ask employees to create are too often ignored by coworkers and thus of little use. But there are ways to make these internal debriefings into what they were intended to be: highly effective tools for knowledge transfer. We studied a particularly successful program of the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation called SmartLessons. Started in 2005 in response to a push from managers in the field, the voluntary program teaches employees how to deliver information through human stories that people can connect with. It offers a simple guide for writing narratives to post online, as well as the services of an editor, who ensures that the articles and multimedia presentations posted on the SmartLessons site really are in story form. We found that storytelling dramatically increased IFC employees’ ability to absorb information. Here’s the organization’s recipe for success: Encourage honesty. IFC, which provides investment funding and advice to emerging-market businesses, considers it a plus if the submissions include descriptions of setbacks and of the emotional impact of the knowledge gained from them. A contributor told us that under the program, “I have felt empowered to write a no-holds-barred account of lessons I learned.” For example, one report says finding a management consultant in a particular locale was like “panning for gold—time consuming, generally disappointing, [but] with the odd, exceptional shining star.” Highlight contributors. The site provides biographies, which include outside interests, to help readers connect with contributors and their ideas. Talk it up. IFC sends out daily News Flashes, summarizing stories. The publicity signals that the organization values the knowledge system, and creating buzz helps boost readership and increase the flow of information. Let users determine the value. Readers can rate each posting by how interesting it is (not its technical perfection). Additionally, the stories are rated by a panel of judges, who award $1,500 twice a year to the top-ranked post; the next-ranked gets $500. Early survey results show that more than 80% of IFC employees who read SmartLessons find them relevant. “SmartLessons are now an integral part of how I think through project design,” a user told us. In an organization of some 3,225 employees, SmartLessons are being viewed an average of 1,800 times per month. And, excluding portal pages, the SmartLessons website is the most frequently visited of the 159 intranet sites that IFC tracks.

To Boost Knowledge Transfer, Tell Me a Story

Summary.

Partner Center