Lis Merrick
In the latest in a series of columns dedicated to mentoring, we look at intellectual capital. This issue: how mentoring can spearhead knowledge management in your organisation
Strategic mentoring can harness the power of your staff’s tacit knowledge and enhance productivity
The knowledge and skills of a workforce (its intellectual capital) are an organisation’s most valuable asset. Knowledge can be explicit or implicit (possessed by highly skilled individuals or ‘master’ performers, who may or may not be able to articulate what is behind their expertise). However, there is a third kind of knowledge that cannot be articulated – tacit knowledge – and it is key to an organisation’s competitive advantage.
Tacit knowledge may be held by people, but it has not been captured, so lessons learnt in the workplace have not been shared with others. It is often linked to senses and experience. Strategic mentoring can help share this knowledge just where the organisation needs it.
Mentoring is also an incredibly powerful tool in facilitating the transition from ‘knowing’ work experience to ‘wisdom’ or ‘knowledge in action’ in the workplace.
Whereas most formal training programmes have little impact in the longer term, learning by doing and mentoring develops a deeper and more profound level of knowledge, eliminating the Knowing-Doing Gap (between the knowledge an organisation possesses and its use of it) identified by Pfeffer and Sutton (1999).
The rationale behind most mentoring programmes is to develop the mentee in order for them to maximise their potential.
Any organisation that designs a programme so that both the development of the mentee and the goals of the organisation coincide, can be called a “mentoring organisation” (Garvey and Williamson, p87, 2003). In designing programmes to enhance an organisation’s knowledge productivity, it is possible to identify strategic learning and knowledge alliances, which benefit from sharing knowledge and that can deepen their knowledge and expertise in specific topics by formalising mentoring relationships.
So which types of mentoring can be most successfully used to enhance knowledge productivity?
Role model mentoring The mentor is generally older and more experienced than the mentee, who can then look up to them as a role model and guide.
Peer mentoring Employees with similar experience levels take on the roles of mentor and mentee. Peer relationships tend to provide higher quality exchanges, greater reciprocity and better continuity over time.
Peer co-mentoring or reciprocal peer mentoring Where the roles of mentor and mentee are formally exchanged between the two individuals in the relationship. It works best when both parties have relevant knowledge to share.
Group peer mentoring Informal, supportive group meeting using mentoring techniques similar to those of action learning.
Reverse mentoring Where a more junior individual is the mentor to a more senior mentee. This can be useful where the mentor has specific skills or knowledge in a subject unknown to the mentee.
If you assess potential tacit knowledge flows, create transparency around knowledge movement intent and identify the most effective mentoring form, you are likely to create a very effective knowledge management intervention! n
References
B Garvey and B Williamson, Beyond Knowledge Management, Pearson Education, 2003
J Pfeffer and R Sutton,The knowing-Doing Gap,Harvard Business School Press, 1999
Next issue: How mentoring can be used to support vulnerable young people.
Lis Merrick is a consultant and visiting fellow of the Coaching and Mentoring Research Unit at Sheffield Business School.
She welcomes correspondence on anything to do with mentoring. Contact: Lismerrick@coach mentoring.co.uk