Workers' exits risk loss of know-how

As members of the baby boom generation continue to selfishly retire, waltzing off to engage in ridiculous activities like "enjoying life" and "relaxing," the rest of us are left with the drudgery of work and, in many cases, a notable lack of institutional knowledge.

According to the Pew Research Center, 10,000 baby boomers are reaching age 65 each day. While it's been on the horizon for years, the reality of the boomer brain drain is still catching companies off guard, making "knowledge transfer" the buzzword du jour.

Before veteran workers depart, it's crucial they pass along not just a rough outline of how they do their jobs or a filing cabinet stuffed with old manuals and reports, but some of the deeper knowledge gained from years of experience.

It's something Dorothy Leonard, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School and co-founder of the consulting firm Leonard-Barton Group, calls "tacit knowledge."

"There's a big difference between information and knowledge," Leonard said. "Knowledge, I would argue, is partially based on experience. So what I mean by tacit knowledge is stuff in your head that's never been written down, never been documented. Maybe you've never even articulated it."

That's why companies often fail to retain that deeper variety of knowledge once a longtime employee retires — they don't think to look for it, and it's not something a person writes in his or her carry-over note before racing out the door for the last time.

One of the means of transferring that form of knowledge is something Leonard calls "mini experiences."

She told me about an experienced designer at a defense contractor that makes and assembles missiles who knew how important it was for design engineers to understand the assembly process.

"So this expert took [the person he was mentoring] to the end of the assembly line on the assembly floor where a technician was giving the final test," Leonard said. "There you can see all the mistakes that can occur when you put together individually assembled components."

It was a small mentoring moment, but: "The way our brain works, we attach new experiences to something that's already there. Now that new engineer not only has some new insights but a comprehension of the need to think about the assembly when designing. And to that experience he can attach new experiences. It creates receptors in our brain."

Rex Huppke writes for the Chicago Tribune.