How to build a self-learning system? – How to preserve the experience of project implementation in your company, establish a mechanism for the exchange of experience and ensure the continuity of knowledge.
Six months ago, our fast-growing company ran into a certain barrier. The number of projects, clients, and employees has doubled (and by the time of this writing, it has tripled). If earlier five or six key employees managed to delve into all projects, now each of them heads a separate working group.
The specifics of firms providing professional services (public relations, consulting, legal, accounting, advertising and any others that require intellectual labor) are such that the client chooses a contractor most often according to a combination of several factors – the experience and specialization of the company, the portfolio of projects. But is her experience always completely identical to that of team members?
We faced the question, how to preserve the experience of project implementation in our company, establish a mechanism for the exchange of experience and ensure the continuity of knowledge? The existing mechanisms at that time – weekly status meetings – ceased to justify themselves when the number of regular customers exceeded a dozen, and projects – over 50. It took at least 40 minutes to simply run through the current tasks, and there was no question of a detailed analysis.
Creating conditions for the exchange of experience
We have created a combination of different types of training and internal presentations – mandatory and arbitrary.
A mandatory element is a regular (in our case, weekly) presentation of the completed project (press events, development of a PR strategy, website creation, round table): detailed, with an in-depth analysis of strengths and weaknesses, conclusions for the future and subsequent discussion.
It is important that the entire project team participates in its preparation – from the assistant to the manager.
The second mandatory element is reviews of professional literature. It has even more pluses. Firstly, it forces employees to read at least one book a quarter, secondly, the need to present a book orally improves presentation skills, and thirdly, comments and opinions of colleagues are often a very strong argument in choosing books to read. Now I regularly observe how after a review of a particular book (provided that it is useful and interesting), a queue of those who want to follow it is formed.
Practicing and consolidating skills
The next element of the training system is an arbitrary, so-called skill development. At the strategic session of the entire agency, each employee made a list of skills that he owns and that he would be ready to “sell”, as well as those that he lacks for professional growth. We constantly supplement this list with new skills born during projects, as new employees arrive, after reading books and attending conferences.
Two or three times a month, one of the weekdays begins with a training session, when positions are erased and a new entry-level employee may well teach more experienced colleagues some narrow skills (for example, this week there was a topic “How to write business letters-claims”).
Preparing for it, the “teacher”, as in all other elements of the cross-learning system, structures and organizes knowledge and works out the skills of presentation and persuasion, and the “students” acquire new knowledge.
Going beyond your industry
The third element is the “general education” program. I truly believe that creativity and emancipation are an important part of the success of any professional services firm. And creativity largely depends on the breadth of horizons and understanding of related industries.
Therefore, at least twice a month, we invite a specialist professional from a related industry to a small guest lecture just to talk and get acquainted with life beyond their small client-project world.
Among our guests are media planners and advertising strategists, art historians and publishers, bloggers and representatives of technology companies, owners of small businesses and professional coaches.
Unlike the previous elements of the training system, here we do not expect an immediate “return on investment”. Rather, we add new points of view and perspectives to our picture of the world (although deep down, of course, I hope that this will increase the professionalism of the team).
Trust and Resources
When I tell my colleagues about our experience, I often hear objections, saying that they only do what they learn. And when to work?
Let’s do the math. In an average 50-hour working week (I think now it is almost the norm for the advertising and communication industry). An employee can spend one hour at a general meeting (presentation of the implemented project and book review). One hour at internal training (skill development), one or two hours at a meeting with a guest from outside.
A total of two to four hours, if suddenly during the week all types of trainings happen (which is quite rare), and another three to four hours. If the employee prepares for the presentation on his own. Are you willing to donate 6% of your subordinates’ working hours to their training and professional development?.
If so, it’s a small matter: make sure that you have the same vectors of professional development. That they, like you, want to grow, enlist the support of key specialists and opinion leaders in your company. Regularly update the corporate library, and rigidly fix these few hours in the calendar – your own and employees.