Continuity Management: Preserving Corporate Knowledge and Productivity When Employees Leave

Abstract

From the Publisher: This recurring management question, perhaps the most pressing of the Information Age, is insightfully answered in this groundbreaking book. Acute knowledge loss from downsizing and imminent baby-boomer retirements has exacerbated chronic knowledge loss from high job turnover; together, these factors pose an unprecedented threat to organizational productivity, profits, even survival. The loss of knowledge that accompanies an employee's transfer, resignation, termination, or retirement is the single most pervasive and costly source of knowledge mismanagement in corporate America today. But it doesn't have to be. Continuity Management describes a breakthrough process that transfers operational knowledge from departing employees to their successors. Knowledge continuity initiatives at Pfizer, Deloitte Consulting, EMC Corporation, the U.S. Army, and hundreds of other organizations are already under way. But such initiatives are just the beginning. They herald the sweeping change that continuity management will bring, revolutionizing how leaders manage and companies compete. Continuity management implementation generates decisive competitive advantages: faster ramp-up of new employees, improved customer satisfaction, greater innovation, a sustained commitment to learning, and increased productivity. Until now, knowledge continuity has been the missing link in the new paradigm that recognizes the organization as a network of thoughts rather than a hierarchy of positions -- and knowledge as the force that binds, directs, and vitalizes it. Revolutionary in its effect, but evolutionary in its practice, continuity management is central to the tidal wave that is reshaping organizational knowledge flow and creation in the new century and transforming the way we think about knowledge. Based on extensive research, this book offers a solution to knowledge loss that managers at any organizational level can use. Continuity management is fueling a new knowledge revolution. This book is about that revolution -- and how to lead it.