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Teach What You Know: A Practical Leader's Guide to Knowledge Transfer Using Peer Mentoring

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I came across a book that deals with an issue that is often discussed but rarely executed well... knowledge transfer. The book is Teach What You Know: A Practical Leader's Guide to Knowledge Transfer Using Peer Mentoring by Steve Trautman .

Table of Contents:
Roles In Peer Mentoring
Managing Time and Communication
Focusing On The Most Important Information
Developing A Training Plan
Teaching What You Know
Leveraging Learning Styles
Assessing Knowledge Transfer
Giving and Getting Peer-Appropriate Feedback
Peer Mentoring From a Distance
Peer Mentoring in Practice
Appendix A - Peer Mentoring Tools At A Glance
Appendix B - Sample Training Plans
Index

In every IT job I've ever had, there was an expectation that "knowledge transfer" would occur between you and someone else. It could be during your training period when you're trying to learn the ropes. Perhaps you've been "designated" as the person to train the new hire. Or as is often the case these days, you're supposed to learn from the consulting expert (or transfer your knowledge as the consultant to the staff). All this is easy enough to say, but the majority of the time it's approached in a very haphazard manner. Successful learning is more by accident than by design. Teach What You Know attempts to change this all-too-common situation.

Trautman lays out an 11 step approach to successful mentoring. This starts with accepting an assignment as a silo or primary mentor and proceeds through to assessing the learning and providing feedback. There's an acknowledgment than mentoring could be active (planned time and instruction) or passive (availability for questions), and both types can be appropriate given a particular situation. He also defines the roles that are present in the mentoring situation. There's the primary peer mentor (overall knowledge), the silo peer mentor (specific knowledge in a given area), the manager (the overall director of the mentoring arrangement), and the actual apprentice (the person needing the knowledge). In addition to plenty of assistance to the person doing the mentoring, the author also covers how the material should be viewed from the manager's and the apprentice's angle. That final perspective is very important, in my opinion. If you are "the new guy", you can use this information to take a level of control over your training plan. It may feel odd to tell the gurus what you want in terms of training, but that's far more effective than simply hoping for the best.

I'll admit to feeling certain levels of "uncomfortableness" when I was reading some of the chapters. It's not often that you'll hear someone giving you permission as the mentor to tell your trainee "don't interrupt me between times x and y, as I'll be busy and I won't appreciate the intrusion". Nor do you normally see someone spell out exactly what style of communication they prefer, and how adherence to that style will make the mentor much more pleasant to deal with. But if you think about it, those are the exact things that normally go unspoken, leading to a buildup of friction and resentment during the training process. Training isn't easy, and only adds to an already overloaded schedule. A different approach such as the one advocated by Trautman may be just the remedy for the general failure of knowledge transfer in most organizations.

So... You can continue to be put into these training and mentoring situations, and you can continue to muddle through them, hoping for the best. Or, you can take a step back, learn a few new skills yourself, and make the inevitable training sessions become more effective and less of a drain on everyone's resources and nerves.

I know I'll be approaching mentoring situations in a different light now...

This book is a very clear, easy-to-read book about how to duplicate abilities to carry out repeatable tasks. And lest you think, "my task is special or too complex," think again. For better or worse, a lot of what we do every day is repeatable and not particularly creative. It makes sense to be able to train more people to share those burdens, anything from computer system configuration to project logistics, at the lowest cost to the current experts in our organization. It's all about getting more people up to speed, so we can all concentrate on the interesting part of the work: the creative and problem-solving parts.

For mentoring that part, try searching "lucid quality" on the web.

I highly recommend this book to people that value quality in the workplace. I'm amazed how relevant the information is to different companies and possibly even personal/family life. I work in the high tech industry, customer support. Everything I've read so far (I'm only half way through) has been totally worthwhile and applicable to me and the team I work with. I believe the ideas presented would also be much needed at the coffee shop where my wife works. Pretty basic sensible stuff once you get down to it, but isn't it the basics where we often come up short?

I like the clear writing style. It's refreshing to read something where the intent is obviously to educate the reader, as opposed to some authors that appear to be trying to convince the reader how intelligent the author is. It's one thing to show how much a writer knows, it's an entirely different thing to help a reader learn valuable information efficiently. I think Steve is clearly and thankfully in the second group.

I think this is one of the most valuable books in my library.

Don't be put off by the length of "Teach What You Know: A Practical Leader's Guide to Knowledge Transfer Using Peer Mentoring"'s title! This book is a must read for any one at the apprentice level, right up to CEO.

There's no earth-shattering advice here, as Trautman states himself in Chapter 10 of the book: "Every idea in this book is common sense..." and it is! Even so, reading the book will give you that "Ah Ha!" moment and lead you into the wonderful world of Peer Mentoring.

Trautman has extensive mentoring experience at companies such as Microsoft and Electronic Arts and he uses that knowledge to give "Teach what you know" all the necessary steps you require in the mentoring process - along with some very good examples of why we should mentor people.

Each chapter is well written in a friendly, conversational tone and includes various real-world examples of the points Trautman's putting across - many of which will have you thinking "I've been in that situation, if only I'd had this book back then!" I personally found the examples very useful when relating the mentoring process to my current job as they enabled my to think, "Ah, that'd be useful to do with So-and-so." Within a couple of days I was asking people exactly what they wanted to know (rather than assuming what it was they wanted), how they wanted that information delivered (email, quick chat, full meeting etc.) and how I'd know they'd got "it" once I'd delivered.

The interesting slant with the book however, is not how you will benefit others (whether that be co-workers or the company in general) by using the mentoring process but how you will benefit from the process, how it will save your time, your role, your sanity etc.

Another good point of the book is that at the end of each chapter is an "Apprentice", "Mentor" and "Manager" summary, which gives an overview of what relevance the chapter is to each group. The "Manager" sidebars are particularly useful if you, either as an apprentice or prospective mentor, are looking to set up a mentoring programme in your workplace and need to convice your manager of the benefits it will have.

It's not often I'd recommend a book to all levels of management/staff in a workplace but this is one that's relevant no matter what level of the organisation you sit at. All-in-All, this book is a must have for anyone working in a company that has an existing (or is thinking of implementing) an internal training structure, and a definite "Leave on the breakroom table so I can share it with my colleagues" read.

I have not completed reading this book at the time of this writing, but it contains some very intriquing concepts which I will introduce to my own teaching opportunities. This is NOT just for "professional educators" but anyone that has a leadership roll to play in our world today. Highly recommended and a fairly easy read!

The principles and tools imparted in 'Teach What You Know' really work. Steve Trautman keeps it simple and illustrates methods for effective peer mentoring with spot on examples that make the book fun and easy to read. Just thinking about this book leaves me feeling energised. A straight forward approach for taking the stress out of peer mentoring, improving the experience for new starters to an organisation, and capability and confidence in all staff who read it! I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Sarah Sanderson
Knowledge Management Specialist
Water Corporation

Very good conditions of book and fast delivery. I'm very pleased to have done service with you, and would like to do it again if the chance come up.

Teach What You Know provides several concise and clever grab-and-go tools and templates for delivering the most important knowledge in the "lean" amount of time. The book explains the entire mentoring process from scratch guiding the reader through every step of the mentoring process, up to and including feedback and knowledge assessment. No matter how much experience and mastery an employee might have with a certain skill, this in no way guarantees the ability to teach it effectively. The book proves useful here by suggesting the best starting point for each stage of the mentorship role. All facets of the subject of mentorship have been thought through and mapped out by the author; he is a true specialist of the field. A few specific topics such as remote mentoring and practical cases of author's experience with real life companies have also been laid out.

I have used this book for mentoring a summer intern. Followed many advice and the tools provided. Me, being an only three-year experienced engineer on the job; my protege being an only freshman-year finished college student, had a successful project that will be valued my work team for a long time to come. The load of the project was nothing to look down upon especially within the time constraints we had. Thanks to Steve Trautman,it became an easy breeze!

The bare-bones can be listed as;

- Laying down a foundation: First Things First Essentials

- Transferring Episteme: The effective mode of acquiring and arranging knowledge in a given period

- Assessing Knowledge and Giving/Receiving Feedback: Ensuring comprehension is being achieved

Additionally, the book is not only tremendously useful for mentoring, but for peer relations, too. It includes many tips for supervisors, silo mentors and proteges as well. Tapping into the psychological aspects of learning styles and relations is another big plus. Many of the tools and templates that have been found to improve the effectiveness of mentorship-protege relationship have been explained and made easily customizable for any individual or company case. It is an especially great resource for learn-on-the-job companies.

The path to the effective mentorship always has to cross the clear definitions of

* roles,

* communication preferences,

* the big picture,

* the work assignments,

* training plan,

* content being delivered.

As with most things, planning of the mentoring process can save a lot of time and frustration for the mentor, protege, supervisor and ultimately the company.

This title is a useful addition to the literature. Mr. Trautman's method is very similar to the system used on nuclear submarines to "qualify" new personnel. My work includes consulting on succession planning and new employee development. After reading Mr. Trautman's book, I remembered my submarine-days and the practical application "training what we know". Would recommend to anyone looking for systems/methods to train new employees and to increase the intellectual capital of your organization.

Good, practical advice. For the impatient, you can read this book on O'Reilly's online service.

From Chapter 4: "The training plan is perhaps the most important tool in the entire book. If you take advantage of only one idea, I hope it will be this one."