I regularly work with people who are struggling with how to share knowledge and work in teams without a heavy burden of admin. They think about it a lot and they’ve been doing it for years, so why isn’t it easy?
Recent examples include: the investors in retail property funds in Central Europe who discover just before signing a deal that they’re missing 2 essential documents they didn’t know they needed. The outsourcing project managers who are so busy preparing for the next iteration that they’re in danger of forgetting the lessons they learned on the last one. The lawyers working on common new business plans across Europe who aren’t sure who the experts are among them, or what their latest targets are, or how to find out what happened in meetings they couldn’t make.
They’re all very good at what they do, and so busy doing it they haven’t found much time to think about how they do it. As soon as they’re liberated to do exactly that, and we start talking about the armoury of solutions available to them, they quickly become experts on teamworking tools and I have to work to keep up with their vision for what they’d like to do. That’s the first part. Then we work on adapting the best tools to their personalities, skills and working styles, so we can come up with things they will really use, over and over again. Habits and practices that will speed them up, not slow them down. Then I chase and cadjole them into using them, adapting as we go, until they’re second nature.
The best bit is when we’re working on the second or third project – whatever they’ve called me back for – and I’m busy extolling the virtues of some tool we’ve explored in the past. And I get that raised-eyebrow ‘oh we’ve done that a thousand times, doesn’t everybody use that?’ dismissive look. And I know I can move on to something else that still – dammit – manages not to be easy.
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