Today’s companies compete in ever-changing markets where up to date information is crucial, and knowledgeable employees are a critical component in meeting customer expectations. With information overload, and never-ending streams of data coming at us from every direction, it is almost impossible to keep the employees who deal with customers well trained and well prepared. That's why there's so much interest at the Executive Suite and Boardroom levels in "Knowledge Management," and creating true "Learning Organizations." To achieve this state, management needs to think out of the box, and adopt aggressive Knowledge Management strategies that allow the real wealth of the enterprise, that critical "know how" that people have, to be shared and leveraged among all employees, partners, and customers.

One of the areas that holds the most promise for this challenge is "Just-In-Time" Coaching Software that arms employees, like sales people, with quick answers to their questions, training and process reinforcement, and timely advice and guidance. These coaching systems allow an organization to better share "Mission Critical Knowledge" to help people perform better and drive the whole organization to higher states of learning and competence. This paper covers the issues involved in implementing effective coaching systems.

Overview

Coaching is defined as the ability to provide quick answers, training reinforcement and "just-in-time" advice to help a person perform better. Coaching implies a single place to go to for Information, Insight and Wisdom on a wide range of topics within a specific body of knowledge. To implement effective coaching, one must first understand how knowledge is managed and, more importantly, how it is shared. Here are some basic concepts and principles:

• Knowledge is more than Information; it also includes the Insight and Wisdom of an organization, most of which, has never been written down (See Figure 1).

• Enterprise Knowledge Sharing efforts should focus on Insight and Wisdom. Coaching employees, partners and customers is the key objective, not managing Information.

• Business success in a knowledge-based economy requires implementing a mission critical business process for Knowledge Sharing and Coaching.

Figure 1

Each level of the pyramid provides the user with answers to an increasingly difficult type of question.

• The bottom level is Information: It includes data, descriptions, and facts.

• The middle level is Insight: It includes ramifications, value judgments, opinions, conclusions, and links to other related Information.

• The top level is Wisdom: It includes recommendations and advice.

The higher up the pyramid, the more value the knowledge is to the person with the question. Documents may contain Information, Insight, and Wisdom, but is usually difficult for the user to intuitively locate. Organizing knowledge according to these three levels improves the authoring and maintenance of the knowledge base as well as the speed of access, comprehension, and retention of the user.

To help you establish an effective knowledge sharing and a continuous learning environment, some insights on Technology, Culture, and Processes are addressed in the following "10 Truths of Software-Enabled Coaching."

Technology Truths

1. Coaching Systems are about people and performance . . not documents.

While document databases and libraries will always be a fundamental component of a knowledge management strategy, organizations also need software to share the frequently needed knowledge that either lies buried within those documents, or has not yet been written down. This requires a whole new class of software technology that is complementary, yet very different from document-based content management software like Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange, and others that are designed to organize, store, and manage increasing volumes of documents.

In contrast, coaching systems are focused on the user's need to learn, comprehend, and retain information, along with the author's need to minimize the time and effort it takes to create high value content. The main objective of coaching software is to leverage the enterprise's most important knowledge, and rapidly bring large groups of people to a common level of understanding and a higher level of overall performance. As such, the key components that a Coaching System must possess are:

• An architecture for knowledge that easily adapts to change.

• A technology that manages knowledge the way people do, including:

1. A relational knowledge framework. (People think relationally, not in the sequence that documents are written).
2. A technology that manages knowledge as short sound bytes (like FAQs). (Reflecting the way people learn and remember).
3. The ability to efficiently store a great deal of knowledge, on a variety of topics, in one place, so most answers are accessible with a few clicks of a mouse.

• An authoring environment that is easy to use, and provides the author assistance, not only for capturing knowledge, but also with improving and refining knowledge quality.

• An engaging user interface that is easy to learn, fast, interactive, and consistent.

• A publishing and administration capability that allows for easy deployment and reuse of the knowledge for different purposes and audiences.

• A workflow process that drives continuous knowledge improvement.

All this implies the need to integrate Information, Insight, and Wisdom in a single knowledge base, deliver the appropriate guidance for a specific situation, and provide people with answers in the order they have questions, something documents cannot accomplish. This 180-degree difference in orientation from a "documents only" strategy, demands new approaches and technologies, otherwise, providing an effective Knowledge Sharing and Coaching environment is almost impossible.

2. Coaching Software should work the way the mind does.

Because knowledge is in the mind of the beholder, and in most cases, fuzzy rather than precise, many people question whether it can be really managed at all. A good coaching system needs a simple knowledge model, like the previously mentioned Knowledge Pyramid (See Figure 1), that identifies and organizes knowledge the way people do. This is based on four observations:

• People equate knowledge with answers to the specific questions they have. The more pressing the question or need, the more valuable the knowledge is.

• The mind processes knowledge in small pieces, linking them together in a relational fashion.

• Information, Insight, and Wisdom are different forms of knowledge. Most organizations have only documented the Information, very few have been able to document Insight and Wisdom.

• People need access to information and knowledge as much for reminding, training and process reinforcement, and quick reference, as they do for learning new ideas and other things that they have not yet experienced.

3. If it isn't simple to create and maintain . . . it will not be shared.

The authoring and maintenance of any content, both paper and electronic, has traditionally been Knowledge Management’s biggest challenge. To be effective, any general purpose Knowledge Sharing and Coaching System must include a simple authoring component that can be used by a wide range of people to create and maintain a knowledge base. The authoring component of the Knowledge Sharing and Coaching Software should satisfy the following basic requirements:

• It can be learned in less than an hour, by anyone fluent with a PC.

• It possesses built-in intelligence to assist the author including:

1. Smart cut and paste to import knowledge from existing content.
2. Guidance on how to format the knowledge, so it is more valuable to the user and retained longer.
3. Linking assistance.

• Re-use assistance for commonly needed knowledge.

4. Coaching Software should leverage the enterprise’s best documents.

The 80/20 rule works with traditional document systems, in that 80% of the time people use 20% of the documents. This is because some documents are more important to day-to-day jobs than others. In the sales and marketing arena this is especially true. As such, a complete Coaching Solution should take advantage of the enterprise's best documents and integrate with, and leverage them. One of the fundamental capabilities of Coaching Software should be the ability to immediately launch the best documents, whether they are on a hard drive, a CD, a LAN, an Intranet, or the Internet.

5. Coaching Systems transcend organizational and application boundaries.

Knowledge (Information, Insight, and Wisdom) can be needed at any time, at any place, by anyone in the company. As such, it transcends organizational boundaries to a greater extent than transaction-based information. This demands that you share knowledge throughout the entire enterprise with a ubiquitous general-purpose system. Because of this requirement, coaching should not be available only from proprietary libraries within traditional transaction-based applications. This includes knowledge bases that are part of an opportunity management system, repositories like proprietary Marketing Encyclopedias that are available only to sales people, and FAQ systems inside a Customer Service or Help Desk application. The reasons for this are:

• Significant overhead and cost is incurred to provide broader access to the knowledge.

1. Additional per seat application costs for casual users.
2. Systems administration activities to maintain the system for additional users.
3. Time and effort for users who have to learn the application so they can assess the knowledge.

• There are multiple authoring and maintenance systems that need to be learned for building the different knowledge bases and keeping them up-to-date.

• Knowledge can not easily be shared, or reused among the different applications.

Cultural Truths

6. Coaching is not rocket science . . . but it does take some thought.

Traditional high-end, knowledge-based technologies, like expert systems, inferencing and case-based reasoning are like rocket science, consuming massive amounts of intellectual resources to install, maintain, and use. Effective Coaching Systems, on the other hand, take a less strenuous approach. The organization just needs to capture the "important stuff" and then use available off-the-shelf technology to manage and share the newfound knowledge more effectively.

With that said, there is a certain amount of up-front thought and planning that must be done to set up a framework and the ongoing processes critical to the success of the Coaching effort. In most cases, it makes a lot of sense to accomplish this planning in the context of a pilot project with one or two departments like sales and marketing.

7. Coaching requires management commitment, discipline, and persistence.

It is natural for people to hoard knowledge, not share it, so establishing a more effective Knowledge Sharing and Coaching environment requires users to abandon their comfort zone and make sharing more natural. This takes management commitment, discipline, and persistence. The first job of management is to create a clear vision for the enterprise as a "Learning Organization" and to continually reinforce that vision with visible action. If a company is not knowledge driven from the top, then any Knowledge Sharing and Coaching effort faces serious long-term challenges.

It is critical to name a Knowledge Sharing Champion to shepherd the process from implementation throughout the on-going Knowledge Sharing Life Cycle. This Champion needs to have the power to effect change, and cut through organizational boundaries to ensure that an environment of continuous knowledge improvement is achieved.

Other easily implemented tactics include:

• Insuring that the Coaching System becomes one of the company’s primary communication vehicles, and that the authors put in the time needed to keep it current. This means it becomes a specific part of the job description against which they are measured.

• Establishing incentives and recognition programs for people, other than the authors, who contribute to the knowledge base.

• The Champion should ideally chair a "Steering Committee" of users and authors which meets regularly, to review and guide the effort.

Process Truths

8. Coaching is a process not an event.

Coaching is an ongoing process of gathering and creation, deployment, and continual refinement. An effective Coaching System should support this process so enterprise knowledge assets are fully leveraged. Coaching Software should employ a "closed-loop" approach that includes a complete Knowledge Sharing workflow process of creation, deployment and refinement (See Figure 2).

Figure 2

A Knowledge Workflow Methodology allows an enterprise to implement a life cycle approach to Knowledge Sharing. This life cycle approach lets a company establish an on-going state of continuous knowledge improvement and an environment where the enterprise knowledge assets are actively shared and leveraged by all employees.

9. Concentrate on sharing Mission Critical Knowledge (The 80/20 Rule).

Document-based technologies like the Internet, Lotus Notes, and Microsoft Exchange are designed to manage 100% of the information in structured and unstructured "Large Objects," like web pages, white papers, presentations, and sales brochures. These systems are effective for doing detailed research, when users have the time to browse through mountains of information. However, the mountain of information makes these systems ineffective in quickly delivering that 20% of the knowledge that people need 80% of the time.

Coaching Software should help organizations define their knowledge in an organized fashion (Information, Insight, and Wisdom), and provide facilities to effectively manage and share it among all employees. The next question, however, is "Which knowledge helps people do their jobs better and provides the most value to the enterprise?" The answer is the company's Mission Critical Knowledge: the Most Frequently Used Information, the Best Insight, and the Most Sought After Wisdom, and, it follows the 80/20 rule
(See Figure 3).

Figure 3

Mission Critical Knowledge is that body of fundamental knowledge that management actively trains its employees on. It is also that knowledge that requires continual refreshment and reinforcement to make employees as effective as possible. Some of the characteristics of Mission Critical Knowledge are:

• Departmental Mission Critical Knowledge is needed throughout the enterprise. For example, Human Resource professionals need to be articulate about company policies and benefits to act as consultants to employees. Occasionally, however, other employees might need to get a quick overview on their own. Mission Critical Sales and Marketing Knowledge is another example. Management always wants sales people to be fluent on marketing messages and value propositions, but they also want engineers and other employees to be able to give the company's "Elevator Pitch".

• Mission Critical Knowledge is dynamic, and constantly in a state of flux.

• Mission Critical Knowledge is relational. For example, knowledge on products relates to customer needs and also to competitors and best sales practices (See Figure 4).

Figure 4

• Mission Critical Knowledge is everywhere. It is in documents on the company Intranet, e-mails, white papers and other mediums. Much of it, however, is also in the minds of employees. A great deal of the truly important knowledge in the enterprise has not yet been captured, and is usually shared only around the water cooler or by phone. Effective Knowledge Sharing Software establishes a process that allows these untapped assets to be collected and organized to be leveraged throughout the enterprise.

10. You can measure the benefits of Coaching . . . and you should.

It has always been difficult to measure the value of knowledge transfer initiatives like employee training, new collateral, documents and manuals. It is obvious that there are some significant benefits, but they usually involve the avoidance of some unproductive or undesirable result including:

1. Lost sales and longer sales cycles.
2. Time wasted looking for answers.
3. Time wasted by experts answering basic questions.
4. Longer new product rollouts.

These are critical business issues, but they are tough to measure and, quite frankly, can be impacted by many things other than knowledge. Additionally, they are not as visible as some of the more tangible metrics that are used to run a business. The fact is, however, that the benefits from improved Knowledge Sharing and Coaching can be measured, both explicitly and implicitly, and a just-in-time coaching initiative should have ongoing measurements as a key component. Some of the measurement techniques sales and marketing organizations might use are:

Summary

Knowledge Management has become the latest buzzword and as analysts try to determine what it really means, software vendors are redefining their products and services in knowledge management terms. The frenzy of activity can be confusing, and can cause companies to waste time implementing technologies that provide little value to the organization. The bottom line is that increased productivity and a well-organized coaching system can deliver the results that drive revenue. By following the guidance in this paper, you can ensure that your company gets the most out of its Knowledge Management initiative and Coaching Software.