You Don't Know What You Have Until You Clean Your Closets

You may recall that in the last post, I shared with you how to develop your team of coworkers who will help develop and strengthen your organization’s memory.  This week we are going to talk about cleaning out the files. It’s not nearly as scary as it sounds, but the next step requires a little digging to locate pieces of your memory that may have been buried under the piles for a while.

Most organizations have created documents for presentations, websites, loans, accreditation, or other professional opportunities that contain valuable pieces of information about the organization. Some of these may be in the form of handbooks, business plans, feasibility studies, strategic plans or self-studies. These documents are invaluable to the organization because they help the organization identify what its goals were/are, weaknesses or strengths of the organization, and methods used for overcoming challenges the organization has faced. Unfortunately, many of these valuable documents (which some colleague has spent months creating) are often discarded to stacks of files once the crises or project has been completed. This practice leaves our organizational memories fragmented and the history of those documents are often lost when the author of the piece moves to a new position or leaves the organization.

That’s why I recommend that the organization memory team clean house. They need to identify the documents they have available to them so they can establish the foundation of their organization’s memory. An initial brainstorming session will bring to light many pieces that can be used for this purpose. Each of the team members can be assigned offices to visit and the team members can inquire about any significant documents in those offices. Once this is done, these pieces will need to be accessed and stored, but the initial phase is to identify which pieces exist. The team will (hopefully) be pleasantly surprised at the proliferation of items available for use. If not, don’t fret. We will be able to create some of the documents with ease in the future.

If you are working through this process, I bid you happy gathering. Next time we will discuss how to organize the items we  have found and discuss how we are going to store our memories going forward.

Happy hunting,
Sarah

Creating s "Dream Team" to Capture Organization Memory

Happy New Year to you and your family!  I pray that the new year is full of blessings for you and your kin, your communities and your businesses.

Last time I posted, I discussed the importance of creating an organizational memory for your business or organization.  This  “memory” helps you keep track of the where your business has come from, how it has changed over time, what worked and did not work, and where you want it to go in the future.  As we move forward, I will share with you a process to follow to begin identifying resources that can help locate and document your organizational memory, provide recommendations on how to organize and store your memories, and will help you create processes for adding information to your memory as your business moves into the future.

Select Your Team

To begin the process of organizing an organizational memory, you need to identify key individuals in your organization that can assist in this process. These are going to be individuals that have access to files, both electronic and paper files.  At least one of the individuals needs to be the go to person in your organization, perhaps the CEO’s secretary or a human resource person, that everyone goes to find out answers their organizational questions.   One of the individuals needs to have some significant history with the organization. It can also be helpful to have someone relatively new to the organization, or someone to ask questions that a seasoned person might not think to ask. The key to success will be to have representation from a cross-section of offices and to identify people who have the skill of being able to reach a consensus.  If you must select an individual that has the knowledge, but has difficultly reaching consensus with a group, consider bringing in an outside consultant to help mediate the meetings and move the committee through the process.

Size of the Initial Team

As you select the correct individuals for your team, consider keeping the number on your initial organizational memory team to a small number, five to seven works well.  These individuals will be the pioneers of the concept in your organization, but the goal of the team is to get every single person in the organization involved in the process of managing their files in a cohesive manner.  The initial team needs to be excited about the process, able to communicate  to the rest of the organization and organized.  Remember, the ultimate goal of the process is to get the entire organization to participate, so no one is going to be “left out” in the long run.

Goals of the Team

Moving forward through the process, the team you select for this is going to help the collect information that has built the organization and currently guides the organization.  The goals include establishing processes for managing that information that is logical, ensuring accessibility to the data so that everyone in the organization can utilize the data as needed, and instituting guidelines for the creation of new information that can be added to the organizational memory, so as to maintain its validity over time.  These goals may seem very ambitious, but in future posts, I hope to provide guidelines to help you through each of these steps.  Remember, this process of creating an organizational memory is a process, not a one time event.  Making these types of changes must occur over time, with thoughtful guidance, and good documentation.  The benefits of creating this memory structure are will greatly exceed the time and effort you will invest in this process, and should be the driving force for completing this process.

I hope that you have found this article helpful as you consider creating an organizational memory for your organization.  Next time we will begin to break down the processes needed for reaching your goals.

May your new year be blessed with exciting new adventures,
Sarah

This post is also being published at Ethos Leadership Group. Ethos Leadership Group, LLC is an executive coaching and employee training consultancy.

Organizational Memory (Week 1)

Recently I had the pleasure of visiting with my 93 year old grandmother. During our conversation, she was trying to recall someone’s name. She couldn’t remember it at the moment, but assured me that it would come to her later. I told her that I understood; she has millions of memories to sift through from her 93 years and sometimes it takes a bit to recall the exact memory.

Perhaps your organization can relate when trying to locate an item of information in its organizational memory. Maybe you want to make a change in policy, and you struggle to remember how or why policy changes were adopted in the past. Perhaps you just need to locate some historical data on a project from ten years ago, but you can’t locate the information, so you have been forced to wade through old files in order to find it. Maybe you work at an organization that repeats its past behaviors, over and over, expecting to get new results, and you are ready to stop the insanity. Organizing your organization’s historical memory can help with all of these challenges. 

Many organizations fail to create a structure to store their “memories,” and as a result, unplanned turnover, a significant change in administration, or changes in organizational structure can be catastrophic. These changes can result in thousands of lost man hours, poor project results, and even in organizational failure. It is very important to create a structure for the organization’s historical memories that lasts through any of these crises. 

Over the next several posts, I will outline ways to improve the organizational memory of your company or business. I look forward to exploring and improving our memories together.

Sarah