The Information Advantage

Knowledge and information are powerful possessions. That's why the cost of higher education in the United States has soared over the past few decades, and one of the reasons why prestigious universities remain such a symbol of status and exclusivity. It's also why Artificial Intelligence is all the rage right now, and why there is a such a large demand for its utility.

The information you know qualifies you for promotions and ascending in the workplace, and the gaps in your knowledge constrain your impact and reduce your opportunities.

This truth causes us to intuitively gate-keep our knowledge, because information arbitrage represents a competitive advantage. Insider trading is illegal because possessing certain information represents an unfair, exploitative advantage. All of this is embedded in our psyche, and has a causal relationship with the gatekeeping of knowledge.

While it is true that, in an open, every-man-for-himself system, information arbitrage represents a competitive advantage, not so in an organization. In fact, the construction of information silos within an organization actually works to the detriment of the organization, hindering the organism's ability to reach its goals, and constricting its effectiveness and efficiency.

Your organization, your coworkers, your peers, and your subordinates are not your competition.
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The Incentive to Share Information

Legacy Forge is a course developed by Herringshaw Group to prepare executives and leaders for a planned exit from their organization. In the second chapter of this course, we refer to the individual's knowledge as their "special sauce." What you know, conscious and unconsciously, is what makes you a valued member of your organization.
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Metcalfe's Law

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the United States underwent a major infrastructure upgrade. Telephone lines were strung across hundreds of miles, connecting an extensive network of switchboards, operators, and telephones. As more users purchased the service and installed phones in their homes, the network itself became more valuable.

After all, having the only phone in town wouldn't be very helpful. Who could you call? But as your friends, family, and neighbors began to join the network, the convenience of having a phone increased.Being able to call ahead and see if grandma is home, or check on the availability of a library book, or even order a pizza would eventually become too much to pass up.

In 1980, this phenomenon was coined "Metcalfe's Law", after Robert Metcalf, who stated that the financial value or influence of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of compatible communications devices (or users) of the system.

Metcalfe's Law applies almost universally to the workplace. In fact, the only exceptions might be government bodies and intelligence agencies, who's main focus is the protection and preservation of sensitive and classified information. But, by and large, your organization becomes more optimized in proportion to the degree to which individuals and departments share information with each other. Said differently, the better your organization is at sharing information, the more likely it is to reach its goals. 
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Accelerated Iteration of MrBeast

To date, MrBeast is one of the most popular and profitable YouTube accounts. Belonging to Jimmy Donaldson, the account has over 307 million subscribers, and has generated hundreds of billions in profit. 

In an interview about the page's astronomical success, Donaldson shared that in the early days of his career as a content creator, his daily routine began with a video conference call with other YouTube creators. Sometimes, this call would start in the morning and last the entire day. On the call, they would discuss anything they were learning about user behavior on the site.

On those calls, a select group of creatives were able to iterate at unprecedented rates, teaching each other lessons learned from failures and pointing out opportunities for growth and exposure. The sharing of information between them led to the discovery of best practices and the systematization of viral video creation.
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Knowledge Transfer at NASA

NASA has exemplified the effective application of knowledge transfer principles in its journey of space exploration, consistently building success upon success while learning from its failures along the way. Through a combination of rigorous documentation, collaboration, and iterative improvement, NASA has cultivated a culture of knowledge transfer that has allowed each mission to benefit from the lessons of its predecessors.

For instance, the Apollo program, with its numerous missions and moon landings, served as a foundation upon which subsequent missions like the Space Shuttle program and the Mars rovers were built.

Moreover, NASA has embraced failure as a valuable source of learning. Events such as the Challenger and Columbia disasters prompted profound introspection and knowledge transfer, leading to safety enhancements and improved mission planning. By adhering to these principles, NASA continues to push the boundaries of space exploration, drawing from past achievements and setbacks to pave the way for future successes.

Investing in the democratization of information will increase the value of your organization.
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5 Keys To Democratizing Information In Your Organization

Your organization is unique, so an initiative to democratize information will look different for you than it does for every other. Use your intimate connection and knowledge of your organization to apply these five keys, and watch information begin to flow freely across your organization. 
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1. Invest in accurate reporting

The surest way to improve the information sharing within your organization is to improve the quality and increase the quantity of your reporting. Anything that can be quantified and tracked should be. Benchmarks, inventories, contracts, ROI, expenses––all can be quantified and qualified, and should be.

This supplies you and other members of your organization with the raw material necessary to communicate quickly and with great accuracy.
Practical tips:

• Explore different corporate wiki page options. Small to medium-sized businesses could leverage a tool like Notion (that’s what we use here at Herringshaw Group). Larger teams may want to opt towards an enterprise level-tool like Guru.
• Did you know that 65% of the population are visual learners? If you have compelling and insightful data, make sure you present it in a visual form. Good data can only be actionable if it is easily understandable. If it's just numbers on a screen, 65% of the population won't "get it." Consider turning your KPIs, research, or any other data into consumable visual forms that everyone can process with minimal effort.
  
  

2. Incentivize information sharing

At its core, sharing information within your organization is your moral obligation to your team members. Your team is entitled to any actionable information that would further the collective mission. We believe that the opposite behavior, which is information arbitrage (to keep information secret in order to create a competitive advantage), constitutes a violation of this moral obligation, and should be addressed head-on.

That being said, team members are rarely guarding secrets. The most common reason for information stagnation is friction. If there isn't an easy way to document new information and share it, it's easy to put the thought on the back burner. 

That's why scheduling meetings and presentations is so important. You should also reward individuals and departments that increase their transparency and reporting to create the understanding that information sharing is not a formality, or a frustrating hurdle imposed by management, but an intrinsic aspiration of the organization. Transferring knowledge should be encouraged, praised, and rewarded.

As often as possible, highlight examples of information sharing within your organization. Did someone find and report a near undetectable mistake, leading to a correction and saving your organization from a potential headache? Tell your team the story, and thank them publicly. Did someone step into another department to help a frustrated client resolve their complaint amicably? Highlight them, and establish this behavior as your objective.

Practical tips:

• Remember how much fun Show And Tell was in grade school? Humans naturally love to share and display things we’re passionate about. Give your employees or departments opportunities to “show off” what they’ve been up to, teach other team members best practices that have helped them, or make important updates to protocols through “company Lunch N’ Learns.” Free lunch is always a great incentive! 🙂
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3. Facilitate collaboration across departments and roles

As much as possible, establish common language and reporting parameters so that everyone is comfortable sharing the information they possess, and so they can understand what others share. 

Occasionally, a lack of common language or reporting parameters can make it feel like the different parties aren't on the same page. Agreeing on and establishing a lexicon that everyone can return to and develop familiarity with will expedite the exchange of information and reduce the friction around the interaction.

Sometimes the barriers to information exchange are physical, like walls between offices, locked doors between departments, or branch offices in different cities. Consider context-appropriate solutions that will encourage the flow of information between departments, including meetings and activities where individuals who are physically separate from each other can interact regularly. What you're trying to facilitate here is more water fountain conversations––the casual, succinct interaction that maintains the door of communication frequented and open.

Practical Tip:
Two challenges that will go a long way. I’m certain this is the best advice in this entire article: 

1. Write a Thank-You Note to someone outside your department. Highlight something they did that made your life easier or did an overall good for the company. 
2. Trust = Character + chemistry + competency + credibility. Get lunch with one person outside of your department and ask them the following questions:
   1. How would you describe the Character of our department? 
   2. How would you describe the Chemistry of our department?
   3. How would you describe the Competency of our department? 
   4. How would you describe the Credibility of our department?
   5. How would you think our departments could build trust with each other?

4. Accelerate information sharing

The guiding principle here is this: knowing now is better than finding out next week, at the end of the month, or once per quarter.

Some mission-critical information tends to silo. Even when you improve your reporting, incentivize sharing, and remove organizational barriers to the flow of information, it still tends to accumulate and become stagnant. 

Wilderness and hiking enthusiasts know that, if you find yourself in the wild with no means of filtering or purifying your water, you should always drink from moving water rather than still water. That's because stagnant water is a better incubating environment for bacteria and parasites. While moving water can be polluted and unsafe for drinking, the constant movement does decrease the risk of ingesting harmful microorganisms. 

This principle applies generally to organizations. While information that pools and stagnates doesn't harm the company, it does hinder it. So, how do you accelerate the sharing of information within your organization?

First, take a look at which mission-critical information tends to stagnate and gather. Once you have identified it, and who or what departments are struggling to communicate regularly, look at their means of communication. Perhaps they only overlap in all-staff meetings, or are only privy to year-end reports. Maybe they only get a monthly memo, or a quarterly board meeting. Whatever the means of information-sharing, increase its regularity. Then you will see information flow more quickly, and stagnate less.

Some organizations have found it beneficial to invest in digital dashboards with live reporting of quantifiable metrics. Others have turned to project management software to keep members of the organization informed of daily operations.

Helpful Exercise: 

• Determine what has to happen in order to get a "customer referral".
• Draw one large concentric circle (see below) for each department who has a role in achieving a customer referral. Each large concentric circle should be filled out from the perspective of each department. The inner circle is "our responsibility", the middle is "we're involved", and the outer is "we know about it".
• Using post-its, tag each departmental handoff that takes place.

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Once you have these post its on the board, ask yourself: Do we have an operational procedure to make sure this departmental handoff happens well? If not, you need to establish them ASAP. 

If you're interested in this exercise, we discuss it in much great detail in our blog on effective knowledge transfer in your organization.
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5. Avoid the long "roll-out" 

Wholesale changes are necessary in certain seasons of the life of an organization. When this occurs, it's often the leadership that initiates the siloing of information. Though the intentions are harmless––leadership just wants to communicate clearly and implement changes swiftly, so as to "rock the boat" as little as possible––it often leaves teams and subordinates in the lurch. 

Often, when a plan is finally "rolled out" to staff, it elicits a response of shock. Especially if the new direction negates work that has already been done, your team can feel left in the lurch.

Instead, we like to recommend that executives and leaders––to the extent of their possibilities––communicate clearly with their staff. Find a way to share pain points, financial constraints, budget pressures, and looming decisions (even before you've decided what to do). By sharing your outlook, you achieve two major wins:

First, you generate goodwill and respect. Even if the worst possible scenario plays out, your team will appreciate that you made them privy to your thinking, which gave them the ability to anticipate a broad range of possible outcomes.

And secondly, you invite the members of your organization to help. Your concerns may not have been evident to anyone else. By articulating and sharing them, you add eyes to the issue, and open source the solution. Expect to receive more collaboration, and all kinds of interesting, innovative ideas.

Practical tip: 

• The best leaders can know and communicate the difference between provisional, planned, and promised expectations.some text
  • Provisional: It could happen. Future thinkers often communicate provisional expectations with a greater sense of certainty than present-minded thinkers.
  • Planned: The expectation is that what is communicated is scheduled, budgeted, and will likely happen. But, something in the end, could, in theory, take its place.
    Promised: Come hell-or-high-water what is communicated will take place. 
• Leader’s be nuanced and clear when communicating change or expectations. You will set yourself up for success and less apologies down the road.