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1.
INTRODUCTION
This practitioner oriented paper draws on an exploration
of continuity management (CM) within a large Irish semi-state
organisation (referred to in this paper as Semstate) that is entering a
period of transition. Whereas knowledge
management (KM) generally refers to attempts to identify, capture and
share know-how that is perceived to be valuable throughout an
organisation (Edvinsson and
Malone, 1997; Field, 2003), CM refers to “the efficient and effective
transfer of critical operational knowledge—both explicit and tacit,
both individual and institutional—from transferring, resigning,
terminating or retiring employees to their successors” (Beazley et
al., 2002: xiv). The empirical component is based on ten
in-depth interviews with members of Semstate’s senior management group.
Overall the
main findings reported here suggest that CM does have a role to play in
both KM and human resource management and development (HRM and HRD).
There is a clear consensus in favour of introducing a
CM system in Semstate—but also clear recognition of the barriers, such
barriers perceived to be mainly cultural. The structure of the
paper is as follows: in section 2 we present a very brief review of some
relevant CM literature allied to a brief description of the research
context and methodology; the main findings of interest are then
presented and discussed; finally, we conclude that CM has an important
role to play in designing, implementing and maintaining any broad KM
strategy linked to the HRM/HRD strategy.
2.
Context, literature and method
Semstate is set to lose almost
one third of its senior management staff, and one seventh of its general
workforce, over the next five years. This fact alone has the potential
for major discontinuity in the “upper echelons”, but it also provides a
suitable site for CM oriented research. Based on the literature reviewed
a decision on semi-structured interviews (see Appendix A for interview
outline) with members of the senior management team was deemed to be an
appropriate research strategy in accessing the “perceived reality” (Henriksen
et al., 2004) of Semstate’s “upper echelons”. Ten interviews
(representing almost one third of the senior management group) were
conducted in early 2004, recorded and transcribed generating ~40,000
words.
The CM literature (Beazley et
al., 2002; Field, 2003) suggests that there are advantages to be gained
from implementing a CM system but that there are also significant
barriers. The advantages of CM may be listed as follows: speeds up
orientation and settling in of new or newly promoted employees;
facilitates knowledge creation and innovation; results in better
decision making; preserves knowledge networks; places emphasis on
identifying job-critical knowledge; may prevent knowledge hoarding; and,
increases long term organisational effectiveness. Barriers include the
attitude of knowledge workers to skill acquisition, the bargaining power
of workers with transferable skills and the implications of both these
aspects for reward structures. A knowledge-sharing friendly
organisational culture is deemed crucial to the success of CM but is one
of the most difficult factors to achieve. Further, CM needs to be
aligned with the intellectual capital (IC) of both the organisation and
its employees, including the human, social, internal and external
aspects of IC. This IC focus is broader than individualistic human
capital theory and highlights the importance of both internal and
external networks to CM, and indeed to KM (Bontis, 1998; Edvinsson and
Malone, 1997; O’Donnell, 2004; Sveiby, 1997).
CM may also be viewed as a
continuation of a long stream of research on succession planning,
particularly CEO (chief executive officer) succession. Canella and
Lubatkin (1993) note the distinction between the ‘adaptive’ and
‘inertial’ views of succession, which can also be applied to senior
managerial succession. From the adaptive perspective senior management
favour external recruitment when performance is poor or the organisation
is in crisis as “outsiders are perceived to be more capable of changing
the mission, objectives and strategy ... than are insiders (p. 764)”. In
contrast, the inertial perspective suggests that selection processes are
likely to be relatively unadaptive due to the number of people and
vested interests involved (Child, 1972). Large organisations tend to
resist change (Henriksen et al., 2004), cling to outdated
strategies and administrative forms and resist outsider selections
(Canella and Lubatkin, 1993).
3.
Findings and discussion
Seven broad themes were
identified in the preliminary analysis of the interview transcripts
presented here: perceptions of intellectual capital; replacement
strategy; information sources; knowledge transfer to successors; tacit
knowledge; CM system; and finally, barriers to CM implementation.
3.1
Intellectual Capital
A short questionnaire on the
dimensions of intellectual capital (following O’Donnell et al.,
2003) was completed by each respondent. The perceived value of
organisational IC in Semstate is ~70 per cent. Respondents were also
asked to distribute 100 points between Human, Internal and External
dimensions of IC with reference to their perceptions of their own
IC. Averages are almost half (46%) human capital and an approximately
even percentage on internal (28%) and external (26%) dimensions. The
tentative finding here, in terms of the relevance of IC to CM, is that
these senior managers perceive half their IC to be personal human
capital, with the other half more or less equally divided between
internal and external forms of capital—areas of Semstate IC that new
external recruits would not be expected to have. This suggests that we
take a broader view on CM than on merely human capital—and take both
internal and external knowledge sources/networks into consideration.
Knowledge and experience of the internal organisation and links to
external clients, customers and other institutional connections are
critical components in any CM strategy.
3.2
Replacement strategy
The age profile and impending
loss of IC was well signposted in recent years but little action was
taken to guard against this loss. Eight noted that managers leaving were
not easily replaced from inside and that such promotions had become
difficult. One stated the opposite; and another stated that it depended
on the job. There have been quite a number of promotions in the recent
past and this resulted in “the well being pretty dry” and a view that
“we have promoted to management level as much as we can at the moment”.
A number of reasons were put forward to explain this including the fact
that Semstate currently has a policy that all management posts are
generic leading to generic job descriptions. The contention was that
prospective external candidates don’t really know what they are applying
for—“You advertise for an assistant regional manager. What does that
mean?”
Another respondent, from a very
‘adaptive’ perspective, stated that at least 50 per cent of new managers
should be recruited externally. Two of the senior managers expressed the
view that it depended on the management post—“There are some people who
are super in some management functions and some who are dreadful in
others”. Some positions could be easily filled from inside because:
In some areas there will be a
number of people who will be very close to each other in terms of what
they do and how they do it ... A lot of experience of the departing
person will have been acquired. There would be other jobs, I suspect,
where experience, knowledge and know-how would be more important than
others. You can’t package (those) and hand them to someone.
At the younger level, now that we
have started all the development…(we are) more serious about the type of
development that the staff are undertaking…. I think they have the
where-with-all to do it now.
Semstate has a very strong
culture, a culture that has grown up around historic HR policies that
involved recruiting only from within for management grades. Semstate
very rarely recruited externally, except for specialist posts such as IT
or finance. Various agreements with the trade unions also tended to
marginalise external recruitment. With regard to recruiting externally
all respondents, bar one, expressed the view that this would pose some
difficulties—evidence of internal ‘inertia’ emanating from historic
institutionalised norms and practices. Most mentioned a large learning
curve as a difficulty with external recruitment and that this might in
turn lead to gaps in services to clients. Of greater concern was the
ability of such new managers to “have credibility and fit in”.
If you promote people from within
you are obviously getting a certain amount of continuity but if you take
people from the outside, you may lose some of your services ... but
having said that ... you may get new ways of doing things and you may
actually improve your services.
New talent and new blood is
needed…new ways of doing things and new ideas... and the best way of
getting that is to go outside and get them.
The biggest… handicap for people
coming from outside. What do [they] know about Semstate? I’ve been here
for 20 years! There is a view that Semstate is Semstate and nobody else
can know anything about it except Semstate people. This is nonsense
actually.
If the right people were
recruited from outside they would bring new thinking and ideas and no
baggage.
Another aspect concerned the
competencies needed by managers to do their jobs. Five noted that
Semstate had too high an emphasis on academic development, with many
having availed of its generous staff development policies over the
years—but much of this is perceived to be overly “academic” and not
backed up by experience in external business or industry—leading to a
lack of experience as one of the principal reasons for present internal
promotional difficulties. This is the difference between learning “to
be”, being actively engaged in the practice in question (Brown and
Duguid, 2000: 128), and learning “about”. There is a clearly articulated
need here for the “local, relevant, current, modifiable and effective”
type of “hands on knowledge” (Beazley et al., 2002: 211) that,
apparently, has not been passed on from retiring Semstate managers to up
and coming others leading to a promotional void—the type of adverse
outcome that CM is supposedly designed to guard against.
3.3
Information sources
With one exception, those
interviewed stated that their main information sources were internal
networks of one form or another including peers and “the
grapevine”—strong support for the internal capital dimension of IC or
indeed social capital. Other sources were the Intranet, e-mails,
policies and the internal management information systems (MIS), as well
as external networks (external capital), contacts built up over years
and current literature. Knowing who to contact and when, and “feedback”
from the ground were regularly mentioned as key information sources.
Meeting people on the floor and
talking to staff.
Being inquisitive enough to ask a
lot of questions.
Talking to clients and
customers.
Wear out two pairs of shoes every
year. Walk the streets, driving around is no good. Talk to people.
I’ve been around Semstate long
enough to know a lot of people so if I hear rumblings of anything
happening I ring up and directly ask what’s happening.
Most viewed the internal
person-to-person contact as the chief means of getting the
information/knowledge needed to do their jobs. The social side of
organisations has a crucial role to play in KM; these experienced senior
managers certainly know the value of such information and are very clear
about how and where to get it. In terms of CM the location of specific
organisational memories is a key point. For example, who knows about a
particular issue or process? Who has been through it before? In CM
terms, this is one area where new recruits to senior managerial grades,
particularly if recruited externally, would be expected to require some
social mentoring as their knowledge of internal capital and Semstate
culture would be minimal.
3.4
Knowledge transfer to successors
Interviewees were asked for the
three most important things (in knowledge terms) that they would
highlight to their successors in order to help them to succeed. In
general, the respondents believed that the technical knowledge required
to do the job was a “given”—taken for granted. Six referred to the
importance of knowing the right people to contact at the right time,
which links to the previous discussion on internal and social capital,
and knowing where to find information. Other suggestions centred around
the areas of personal integrity and talking and listening to colleagues
and peers. A number of respondents saw themselves sitting down with
their successor and:
Saying right, this is where we
are in relation to this…. this is what we are trying to do…these are the
barriers to success…this is what we are trying to get around…. watch
this…. watch that person…This is what you are going to have to take
account of in dealing with it.
These are the things you need to
watch out for, if you want that read, take this slant, otherwise it will
be ignored.
Other advice involved talking to
people who had done some good work for Semstate over the years and also
finding out who “the fumblers” were and identifying the “key
performers”. “Listening to what people were saying” and talking to
others – as individuals and through networks in order to find out what
was happening and how things were done permeated these interviews. If
most of the information needed to do the job comes from knowing who to
contact and when, we begin to get a picture of how difficult it might be
for an external recruit to fit in, particularly in the early stages.
You have to listen to what people
are saying and you have to address what people are saying. You don’t
have to always agree…cultivate your network…. Get out there and talk to
people formally and informally or whatever. It only takes a few minutes
and it really is important to scan the environment, the horizon and see
where things are coming from and what’s going to happen.
I suppose the key point I’d try
to get across to them would be from the client’s point of view…Generate
a sense of empathy with the client in trying to help them solve their
particular problems.
All referred in some way to the
importance of getting to know “how things are done around here”—internal
or structural capital, which is particular, contextual and normative—and
probably at least a quarter of Semstate’s IC. There is a strong sense
from these interviews that Semstate has “a way of doing things”—“there
is only one way of doing things and that is the way we are doing it
now”—“we don’t want change”. The desire on the part of these senior
managers to recruit externally may arise from a wish to break up this
culture and to get some “new ways” of doing things and have them
accepted or institutionalised over time—perhaps using external
recruitment strategically for this purpose. There is a long history in
Semstate of protracted and difficult industrial relations negotiations
concerning change. Change can be slow, yet Semstate is in transition, is
changing; indeed, must change. One can also sense a certain impatience
in many of those interviewed who wish to speed up the pace of change and
to get results more quickly.
3.5
Tacit knowledge
The respondents believed, on
average, that at least half and probably more of the knowledge needed to
do their jobs was “in their heads”, that is, it was not written down
anywhere—it was tacit. Some believed the percentage to be much higher
with figures of 75 per cent to 80 per cent being quoted. All were asked
if they personally were doing anything to codify their own knowledge.
Four of ten had some kind of system in place. In the case of two of the
four, this was informal. In one of the other two cases there was
extensive written material about various programmes and agreements—this
history had been collected and maintained over a considerable number of
years. The other instances involved both specific cases and also more
general negotiations, discussions and agreements.
Five of these senior managers
mentioned, however, that they were conscious of the fact that they were
being observed in some way as they worked; in meetings, during
negotiations, handling various situations as they arose, and so on.
Their strong opinion was that there was quite an amount of informal
learning going on, even though it was not labeled as such. In all cases,
such learning was happening within a close-knit group and was very
specific—evidence of a type of informal community of practice (CoP).
CoPs are ideal vehicles for the promotion and transfer of learning for
continuity purposes, between novices and experts as well as amongst
experts (Beazley et al., 2002; O’Donnell and Porter, 2003). Most,
however, referred to the fact that this knowledge was not written down
anywhere:
...it is certainly not in the
procedures…it comes from experience. You can’t buy it.
You have a Job Spec. But that’s
as far as it goes. A lot of the way we do our job is having learnt
it…good experience and broad understanding. That’s how we do it – in the
head.
You’ve heard it before and you
know…what way it’s going to go... how it’s going to fall for you…. you
know how to react.
Eight referred to knowing how the
system worked, who to talk to—or as one respondent put it “who not to
talk to”—and “knowing the right people” as important pieces of knowledge
that they carried “in their heads”. The terms “intuition”, “gut”,
“judgement”, “cop on” and “know-how” were also used to describe such
background forms of tacit knowing.
3.6
Continuity—threat or opportunity
Those interviewed were asked for
their opinions on the large number of exits over the next five
years—five (half) of the ten regarded these exits as an opportunity; the
other five mainly as a threat. In terms of threat the key point is that
all of these people are leaving around the same time. The majority were
recruited when Semstate first came into existence over thirty years ago
and are now coming up to retirement. This can be referred to as a
variant of “The Acute Threat - Catastrophic Knowledge Loss” (Beazley et
al (2002: xi) used to describe the losses from the impending
baby-boomer retirements in the United States. Two noted examples of
where both a manager and an assistant manager in their areas had retired
at the same time or within a short period of each other—a lot of
“knowledge, expertise and management skills went out (...) overnight”.
No internal candidates had emerged to fill these posts. Again it was
commented on that there were some good people coming up through the
system but that they do not have the required experience at this
point—also noted above. Four perceived this threat to be due mainly to
the loss of middle management grades—again due to the perceived
difficulty in integrating external recruits from a credibility point of
view. According to these and other respondents, big learning curves were
going to be involved whether the candidates were internal or external:
The big problem is the way the
numbers are falling for us, there are so many ... going out at the same
time. If it was more of a trickle we’d be able to deal with it better.
But the fact is we are going to lose so many of them.
The assistant manager is retiring
this year and the manager is retiring in two and a half years time. So
in two and a half years time all the knowledge will be gone. We are
about ten years behind in my view.
On the other hand there were
those who believed that the loss would not be overwhelming, and
that it could in fact be turned to advantage and open up new
possibilities. People leaving could be “good or bad especially where
people are worn out”; and other more optimistic comments such as:
In fact I think it would be a
good thing…get a package together and …(get) people into the sunset very
quickly, the quicker the better for Semstate.
The fact that [so many] people
are leaving might be an opportunity to restructure Semstate
totally.......... we should set out a new platform for the future.
In carrying out these interviews
and observing the behaviours and body language of the interviewees,
there was no doubt but that there was a deep concern expressed by all,
even though their concerns related to different sides of the argument.
Strong, even vehement, views are held on both sides. On one side were
those who saw a serious threat to Semstate because of a lack of
continuity. They feared loss of service to customers and clients, loss
of credibility with stakeholders, breakdowns in systems, breakdowns in
communication, differing interpretations of agreements….the list was
long. This is again in keeping with the views expressed by Beazley
et al. (2002) who argue that as the importance of knowledge
increases the negative impact of knowledge loss for an organisation
rises exponentially. The negative effects will differ depending on the
organisation but these effects are costly and can send an organisation
into a tailspin from which it might not recover. These were the types of
underlying concerns of the senior managers who viewed the impending loss
of knowledge as a threat.
On the other hand there were
those who felt that Semstate would survive despite this and would
perhaps be better off without some of the knowledge that Semstate
was preserving. Perhaps the time had come to jettison some of it? Its
very strong culture reflexively preserves itself and its form or
definition of organisational knowledge in a very robust manner, even
though, in part at least, it may be past its sell-by-date. This is the
implicit argument posed by at least half of the interviewees here. The
perception is that Semstate looks back into its historical knowledge
store, the safe ‘inertial’ view, rather than moving forward, the
‘adaptive dynamic’ in Canella and Lubatkin’s (1993) terminology. CM is
not solely about preserving old knowledge at the expense of the creation
of new knowledge. Preserving existing operational knowledge is a crucial
CM element but is not the sole goal. The primary purpose of CM is to
create new knowledge based on the existing knowledge (Beazley et al.,
2000: 210) and Semstate may not be fully realizing the value of the
knowledge and IC that it actually has.
It is not surprising perhaps that
the group interviewed was evenly divided in their perceptions—there are
clear advantages and disadvantages on both sides, but achieving a
pragmatic balance between them is not going to be a simple task. The
difficulty in transcending any adaptive-inertial dialectic, of course,
lies in identifying who to retain and what to keep, what to jettison and
what new or innovative ideas, processes or systems to introduce. There
is no simple generic answer here.
3.7
Introducing a CM system—Barriers
With one exception, all believed
that a continuity management system should be in place. Without
exception, however, all believed that there would be significant
cultural barriers to implementing such a system. The main CM issues and
suggestions to emerge here included the following: succession planning,
rotation both within Semstate and outside, work shadowing, working in
teams, mentoring, coaching, good induction, appropriate management
development and appointing people to positions as a development
opportunity. While there were emphatic “YES” answers to the concept of
bringing in some form of CM system, there was a corresponding emphasis
on probable barriers to such a system. Encouragement qualified by
pragmatic caution is the main finding here.
Absolutely, there should be a
system in place…. There is no doubt about that…(but) we haven’t
consciously gone out and ear-marked anyone for mentoring because you
know that wouldn’t sit well in [Semstate]…the culture is not right. The
culture would have to change significantly.
Many mentioned that a lot of
knowledge exchange was going on informally:
The only reason I knew that was
because I met guys and had a cup of coffee with them and it came up in a
conversation. There is a lot of stuff going on in little groups and
nobody seems to be pulling it together. We know it through the old boy
or the old girl network or we know it over a pint or something like
that.
One explained that there was a
considerable amount of work shadowing going on, also noted above—but
again, that it was never called that:
It is better for both the
individual and [Semstate] to have specialists specialising… provided the
operation is such that there are other people in sufficiently close
proximity to be schooled along the line so that all the expertise is not
vested in [one] person and leaves with [that] person.
Many expressed concern about
union resistance to any form of succession planning—that such a system
would be “fraught with danger”—that there would be an element of
“teachers pet” and “people being lined up for jobs”. Such a system
could be perceived to be favoring some over others. Three cited cost as
being a barrier or, more likely, as an “excuse” not to get involved.
Letting go of control was also seen to be a problem, with one manager
noting that Semstate “people don’t easily give up control”. There was
also one view that introducing yet another system (that is, a CM system)
could be viewed as a burden—“managers are very busy; they still have to
do the day job”. There was also a view that rotation would be “resisted
by the unions and by some management grades”.
Something like succession
planning would be a problem as it could appear to fast-track some at the
expense of others. Who decides on the chosen ones?
Others mentioned the importance
some people placed on “contacts” and how they guarded them:
We are very protective of our
position and feel that if we pass on too much knowledge we become
redundant.
People are always looking at your
job wondering when you will move on…(wondering) when you will fall off
the edge!
Another issue to emerge relates
to the competitive performance bonus in place for Semstate’s most senior
managers. CM needs to take account of reward systems and how these
impact on knowledge sharing. The current structure, it could be argued,
is pitting the most senior people against each other and if that happens
it is bound to cascade downwards with certain individuals being rewarded
at the expense of the team. One respondent posed the apt question:
If you had a performance bonus …
on your salary .... are you going to share your level of knowledge with
me? It might be a different situation if I were retiring.
It is notable that every single
senior manager interviewed made some comment regarding information
and/or knowledge sharing in the context of continuity management. This
was either a spontaneous comment or as a result of a supplementary
question during the interviews. For some, a CM system would not succeed
because people quite simply would not share information/knowledge. Seven
of the ten in the group believed that there were various difficulties
and problems around the issue of knowledge sharing—one of the most vexed
and complex research areas in the KM field.
I have worked with people who
wouldn’t tell you the time of day. They feel this is the way they
control people. This is disastrous from a succession planning point of
view.
Because knowledge has
traditionally been considered power and because knowledge creation is
difficult work, many people are very reluctant to share it without
reward or recognition. The majority of those interviewed in this study
believe that the present Semstate culture is not yet “right” for this
type of sharing. Knowledge hoarding, however, represents a huge threat
to CM. If the hoarder leaves there is no back up; and if the hoarder
stays there is no added value as others waste time trying to locate such
knowledge by other means—with deleterious effects on both organisational
efficiency and effectiveness. It is probable that a serious
investigation of the present culture, visualisation of the type of
future culture demanded by changing times, and how to go from one to the
other is a prerequisite for introducing a successful CM system in
Semstate—and perhaps also in others.
4.
Conclusion
This paper set out to explore the
idea of introducing a CM system in Semstate, an organisation set to lose
one third of its senior managers and a significant percentage of its
workforce over the next five years. The main findings are that the
senior managers interviewed were evenly divided on the question of
opportunity versus threat; there is informal learning occurring in
pockets where knowledge is certainly being transferred despite the fact
that no formal CM system yet exists; there is a clear consensus in
favour of introducing a CM system but this is pragmatically qualified by
a clear recognition of the barriers, many of which support the research
summarised by Beazley et al. (2002) outlined briefly above.
Introducing CM raises a number of
serious issues, many of which have far reaching implications, not just
for Semstate, but also for other organisations contemplating embarking
on this road. Significant cultural change is probably necessary if the
requisite knowledge sharing and transfer is to occur. The Intellectual
Capital issues raised in a CM context can also be expected to have
serious implications for remuneration and reward structures. Succession
planning, for example, emerged as a major concern for many people in
this study—yet, there are no criteria at present by which successors can
be selected. Competencies that take account of the entire scope of what
is meant by IC (human, internal, external) need to be developed so that
the requirements for management positions can be more open and
transparent. CM is a new management function that requires integration
with other management functions (such as KM and HRM/HRD) in order to be
successful. Succession planning, coaching, mentoring and rotation all
have some role to play.
The more
critical a job is to the company, the more important it is that it be
part of a knowledge continuity management system. You also need to
consider such questions as how significantly poor productivity in the
job would hurt co-workers or the company and the complexity of the
knowledge needed to perform the job successfully. The more sophisticated
and complex the knowledge a worker possesses, the more difficult it is
to pass on—and the more crucial it is that it be passed on.
(Field, 2003)
From a theoretical viewpoint, the
difficulty in transcending any adaptive-inertial dialectic (Canella and
Lubatkin, 1993) proves useful in that the general finding here is that
getting the organisational culture right is a key first step in
attempting to introduce a CM system. Without buy-in it will not
succeed—and it is probable that this will require fairly radical
cultural change, which is never easy. CM is not a quick fix, involves
painstaking work, and takes time to complete and initially will probably
represent a cost—longer term, however, the benefits are potentially
substantial. Comments to the authors welcome.
5.
Acknowledgements
Sincere appreciation to the
senior Semstate managers who participated in this study. We also wish to
acknowledge useful comments from the reviewers and from Kathryn Cormican
and José María Viedma Martí on earlier versions of this paper. The usual
disclaimer applies.
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Coates, B., Kennedy, T., Keary, B. and Berkery, G. (2003) ‘Human
interaction: The critical source of intangible value’, Journal of
Intellectual Capital, 4(1): 82-99.
-
Sveiby, K. E. (1997) The new
organizational wealth, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, CA.
6.
Appendix A: Interview Guide
-
Do you think that
senior staff in Semstate are easily replaced from inside if they leave?
-
Do you think senior
staff would be easily replaced from outside?
-
Do you think this
loss of senior people has any impact on our clients/customers in terms of
service gaps?
-
How? Can you
elaborate briefly?
-
What are the three
(3) main sources of information that help you to do your job successfully?
-
If you examine your
own job, in percentage terms, how much of the knowledge that you need to
do it is in your own head?
-
What are the three
most important things that you would highlight to your successor in
knowledge terms, to help her/him to succeed in your present job?
-
From your
perspective, at what level in the organisation is the greatest threat, if
there is one, in terms of discontinuity of knowledge in the organisation
when people leave?
-
What, if any,
barriers would you envisage to the introduction of a continuity management
system within Semstate?
-
If you had a choice,
what method would you suggest to pass knowledge on to your successor or
new entrant into Semstate?
-
Are you presently
doing anything to harvest or codify your own knowledge and /or pass it on
at any level to your successor?
-
Do you believe
Semstate should have a system in place to pass on such knowledge?
-
Would such a system
succeed?
-
Yes? No? Can you elaborate a
little
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