Surfacing and transferring expert knowledge: the sense-making interview

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Surfacing and transferring expert knowledge: the sense-making interviewAlbert Lindermana; Jeff Bakera; Stephen C. Bosackera

a Sagis Corporation, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA

Online publication date: 21 June 2011

To cite this Article Linderman, Albert , Baker, Jeff and Bosacker, Stephen C.(2011) 'Surfacing and transferring expertknowledge: the sense-making interview', Human Resource Development International, 14: 3, 353 — 362To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/13678868.2011.585071URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13678868.2011.585071

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PERSPECTIVES

Surfacing and transferring expert knowledge: the sense-making interview

Albert Linderman*, Jeff Baker and Stephen C. Bosacker

Sagis Corporation, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA

(Received 4 January 2011; final version received 8 March 2011)

Many corporations experience significant loss of intellectual capital andorganizational memory due to the retirement of key leaders and experts. Humanresource leaders can help their organizations by conserving this knowledge, whichcould allow for continued competitive advantage. But doing so requires a meansof both surfacing this knowledge, much of which lies tacit within the experts, andtransferring it to others within the organization. The authors have designed andimplemented a knowledge retention and transfer process that accomplishes thesegoals. Illustrated from two projects, the article explains the interview portion ofthe process that the authors have used with more than 20 clients over the past3 years. Adapted from Brenda Dervin’s sense-making methodology, the authorsoffer this systematic and repeatable solution for the elicitation of intellectualcapital.

Keywords: knowledge retention; intellectual capital; interviewing; transitions

Introduction

When UCare’s CEO, Nancy Feldman, contemplated the departure of CFO MarkHudson, she knew that she had to do something to conserve his considerableknowledge. She knew that an unsuccessful transition would leave significant gapsthat could derail UCare’s business outcomes. Hudson’s 17 years coincided withUCare’s growth from a fledgling Health Maintenance Organization to Minnesota’slargest provider of Medicare services. Feldman knew that Hudson was directlyresponsible for many of the decisions that led to UCare’s dramatic growth. Inaddition, he was a strong leader within the senior managers. Feldman also knew thatseveral studies cite the failure of between 25 and 50% of top executive and leadertransitions (Charan 2005; Fisher 1998).

But how to surface his knowledge, particularly that deeper knowledge he used tomove strategically in high-value situations? And what about a replacement and there-shuffling among the senior managers, which would result from his departure?Hudson, who was leaving in less than a month, wanted to help but was overwhelmedwith where to begin and how to condense 17 years of exemplary leadershipexperience.

Some people are just much more painful to lose than others. Take, for example, ourmarketing managers. People who are hired on this track take five to six years to get to

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Human Resource Development International

Vol. 14, No. 3, July 2011, 353–362

ISSN 1367-8868 print/ISSN 1469-8374 online

� 2011 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/13678868.2011.585071

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the top of their game. If they leave, we lose everything they have learned about ourconsumers and how to effectively market products to them. Losing just one marketingmanager, we estimate it actually costs the company millions of dollars! Mark Bailey,Director, Staffing and Recruitment, General Mills (Lancaster and Stillman 2002, 239)

The art of asking the right questions

When Feldman brought us in to help, she knew that Hudson had valuableknowledge that would leave when he walks out the door for the last time. Despitenumerous stories that Hudson shared with her and with Terry Chism, Senior VicePresident of Administration, she knew that much of his tacit knowledge had notsurfaced. Both lamented that Hudson’s skills in manoeuvring strategically with stateagencies and service providers, to say nothing of his excellence in doing in-housebudgeting, would be sorely missed. During the first meeting, Hudson shared how heintended to leave his knowledge with the organization but had been overwhelmedwith knowing where to start and how to proceed.

Steve Tourek, Marvin Companies’ Senior Vice President, faced a similarchallenge to that faced by Nancy Feldman of UCare. In Tourek’s case, he needed tofind a way to conserve the knowledge of Jim Krahn. Krahn’s knowledge of stateregulatory systems and social networks was so extensive that, though Marvin’sHuman Resources department had performed three different series of interviews,they failed to get a good understanding of how he practiced his craft. Tourekbrought us in to see what we might bring to help Marvin with Krahn’s impendingdeparture.

These two cases highlight the challenge organizations face in retaining expertknowledge. Part of the difficulty comes from the fact that an expert’s application ofhis or her knowledge at a given moment involves more than knowing the identifyingmarkers of the situation. These can be gathered from a more simple who, what andwhere analysis of the situation. Questions, such as why, how and when, becomedifficult to elicit given their more complex, intuitive and experiential nature. Tosurface this type of knowledge requires either an in-the-moment debriefing with theexperts or a means of allowing the individuals to relive their experience so that theybetter surface the knowledge they used.

Background

The ‘Sagis Interview’ method is designed to consistently and systematicallysurface experts’ deeper intelligence, what some have termed ‘deep smarts’(Leonard and Swap 2005). Adapted from Brenda Dervin’s (Dervin andForeman-Wernet 2003) sense-making methodology (SMM), it uses structuredquestions to elicit the actual raw material, or sense-making, experts use duringstrategic experiences. Once this type of knowledge is surfaced, it can be moreeasily retained by the organization and transferred to a successor. We have foundthe method adaptable and successful with most types of expertise. This articlefocuses on the first and most difficult step of the retention of expert intellectualcapital, interviewing experts.

Sagis Interview effectively accesses an individual’s lived experiences andbecomes a doorway to surface his or her extensive, deep and masterful knowledge.As a way to orient the reader to the method, we present a brief background of thetheory.

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Figure 1. Graphical metaphor of an individual moving through time.

Basic theory

SMM conceives of a human being moving through time. A person comes from a pastand continually moves towards a future (see Figure 1). The person constantly ‘makessense’ of his or her current situation by an ongoing reflexive evaluation of one’sactions, ideas, decisions, emotions, preferences and the like.

These sense-making activities are part of one’s inner talk. Everyone is familiarwith his or her own experience of inner talk. It is as if there are a number ofoverlapping analogue radio channels, each available for ‘listening,’ with you actingas the deejay, making choices as to which channel to attend to next. When you payattention, you notice that some channels are clearer, while others are faint. It iswithin these channels, these ‘parliament of selves,’ (Weick 1995, 18) that one’sknowledge and intelligence resides.

To understand how an expert moves through strategic work skilfully, aninterviewer must pay attention to both these inner voices – with his or hercorresponding sense-making evaluations of ideas, preferences and so on – and theenvironment in the ‘outer’ world. This outer environment includes the workings ofvendors, clients and competitor organizations. Experts choreograph their move-ments by using their own inner world and knowledge of the outer world wheninterpreting, analyzing and evaluating progress towards achieving a strategic result.

SMM allows experts to surface their inner world by addressing the in-between,the ‘gaps,’ between actions, even if the gap is quite short in actual time. The graphicalmetaphor as shown in Figure 1 demonstrates the idea of the ‘gap.’

Experiences are anchored in actions along a time line. An action is somethinginitiated by you or by someone or something else that affects progress towards astrategic goal. Actions are represented by planks in Figure 1. As you move throughan experience, you are always making sense, assessing the situation, exploringquestions, drawing conclusions and making decisions. This sense-making processcontinues throughout the course of the story line. Most of your sense-makingprocess gets tucked away in your mind as you step into the next action. We use thetime ‘gap’ that occurs between each action as a conduit to surface your sense

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making. Through neutral questions (see examples below), we allow the experts to‘relive’ their experience and, thus, articulate their intelligence.

Interviewing

The ‘walking person’ in Figure 1 provides the basic metaphor for the design of theinterview. To accomplish the interview, interviewers need the following two skills:

(1) Explicit verbal patterning – Intentionally probing in a way that allowsexperts (interviewees) to use their own words and their own mentalframework while talking.

(2) Artful use of specific language – Avoiding distracting words or terms likely tolimit useful responses.

A brief explanation of these two skills is as follows.

Explicit verbal patterning

Explicit verbal patterning involves word choice and sentence tense. We have learnedthat nouns can be problematic during interviews as they are the most easilymisunderstood word type. Interviewers must avoid imposing their nouns on theexperts. Since experts (as well as all individuals) are theorists of their own personalworld, they work best when they are not distracted by having to fit their experienceinto the nouns of an interviewer’s world. Allow interviewees to use their nounframework, and, as an interviewer, adjust your word choice to mirror their use.

In addition, in order to elicit remembrance that is most accurate, we have learnedto frame interview probes using phrases that express movement, activity andemotion. This fits with the fact that humans’ sense making involves the dynamichuman process of ongoing perception and cognition during the flow of experience.

We also figuratively transport the experts back in time to any particular aspectof the situation, incident or event being explored by making a subtle shift in the tenseof the questions. For example, when beginning to focus on a specific gap, we shift tothe present tense by simply asking, ‘What’s happening at this moment?’ ‘What areyou seeing?’ and ‘How will that help?’ This tense-shifting technique encourages themost vivid memory recall of the experts’ actual lived experience.

Artful use of specific language

We have also learned to avoid certain language during the course of an interview.One question we never ask is ‘Why?’ A ‘why’ probe can lead to speculation aboutmotivation, or to defensiveness, and a desire to explain, thus distracting the expertsfrom recalling and describing what actually happened.

We also avoid asking experts to interpret a fact, observation or experience.Doing so, we find, can encourage conjecture, reinterpreting it through the lens ofsubsequent experience, or defending it, thus diverting the experts from rememberingthe raw experience.

Also we generally avoid asking the experts to take a retrospective view. We donot want the experts to look back upon, but to ‘go back’ to the event, so that we canimaginatively activate their then-current memory recall.

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The three basic steps of the Sagis Interview

It is difficult, without skilled assistance, to relive and remember one’s sense making ateach moment along the way of a given story. The probing questions of our interviewprocess are designed to facilitate a reliving of the experience and a surfacing of theexperts’ applied intelligence. Almost without exception, at some point during aninterview, experts have stated something like, ‘Oh, that’s right. Now I understandwhy I did that.’ This experience of remembering one’s sense making is neatlysummed up in Karl Weick’s well-known phrase, ‘How do I know what I think tillI see what I say?’ (1995, 12). The three steps of the interview method are:

(1) Identification of strategic stories/trails – that is, choosing the exemplaryexperiences that will elicit the most valuable knowledge of the experts,

(2) Creation of an action-step outline – listing the specific actions associated withthe story line,

(3) Gap exploration – the systematic probing of the experts’ sense making eachstep of the way through the story.

Choosing the strategic trails

Initially, UCare specifically wanted to know how Mark Hudson designed andadministered a budget, negotiated with the state and negotiated with health-careproviders. These issues were crucial to UCare’s successor. Any divergence fromthe quality of the work of the new CFO would negatively influence UCare’s future.With this understanding as a background, we met with Hudson. We looked at hisjob description, going item by item, clarifying the accuracy of each role andresponsibility and prioritizing the relative value of each. For each role and high-value responsibility, we chose a time period that encompassed the execution of thestrategy to achieve a desired result. The time frame became the trail (story line) wefollowed during an interview session. For each trail, we created action lists. WithHudson, nine trails were chosen (See Figure 2). These trails came from different andsometimes disconnected time periods. When we refer to time frame for interviews,specific dates and duration of the experience can vary greatly between trails.

Action time-lines and gap exploration

When creating an action list, we ensure that each brief statement conveys only oneaction. Actions are added at any time during the course of a strategic trailexploration as is valuable to the interview. Not every considered action is pertinentto the interview, so some are left out. Here is a sample of an action list drawn fromone of Mark Hudson’s trails.

10-Jul: Read previous year’s end-of-year budgeting memo15-Jul: Meeting with marketing manager to discuss enrollment projection issues1-Aug: Review previous year’s budget key issues with CEO10-Aug: Planning meeting with the controller15-Aug: Prompt marketing manager for enrollment projection numbers8/15-9/15: Continued interaction with senior analyst15-Sep: Enrollment projections received16-Sep: Budgeting projections meeting with senior analyst

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20-Sep: Target options discussions with CEO25-Sep: Memo to senior managers. . . and so on.

When we have a reasonably complete action list representing a strategic trail, wereturn to the beginning of the trail and start our probing cycle (See Figure 3) fromthe first action. Probes are organized into five categories organized around thecurrent moment being explored. We call this moment the ‘Situation.’

Because humans create their sense at a given point in time based on how they seetheir situation, we begin each cycle of probes with a Situation probe; i.e. ‘How doyou see yourself at this moment?’ or ‘What is different about your situation now?’We follow with probes from the other four categories, probing to a deeper level if theanswer to an initial probe hints at more underneath it. When we have exhausteda particular gap, we proceed to the next gap and go through another probe cycle.This continues throughout the trail of actions.

In general, the process of using the Sagis Interview contains elements ofrepetition that at first seems a bit redundant. Interviewers ask similar questions overand over from gap to gap. SMM research shows this to be helpful in surfacing lessconscious knowledge (Dervin 2008). Usually experts get into the flow of this processwith the interviewer and so can streamline the time needed with each trail. This canlessen awkwardness and a seeming sense of wasting time.

Creating representations and designing regimens

Making intellectual capital explicit through the Sagis Interview allows anorganization to take the additional two steps needed to make this knowledgeuseful. The second step concerns the analysis and synthesis of the meaningful anduseful intelligence of the experts. Patterns emerge from comparing the interview datafrom the various strategic trails. Step 3 involves the development of effective and

Figure 2. Strategic trails and action lists.

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relevant representations of this knowledge from which others can comprehend andlearn. Step 4 contains the regimen and practices for successors/transferees to taketime and effort to learn and master the knowledge in the representations of Step 3.Success in these steps depends on the availability and cooperation of the sponsor.This is not a process that can be done ‘to’ or ‘for’ a passive client. Full benefitrequires time and resources to be set aside to gain the optimal benefit from theinvestment of time.

Both UCare and Marvin Companies provided the support needed to bring theprojects through to a successful transfer. In the case of UCare, we worked in tandemwith Hudson in identifying Hudson’s:

(1) Ability to analyze a proposal or an idea and envision how it would affectmembers, providers, other senior managers, UCare’s finances and UCare’smission and vision,

(2) Skills in analyzing and determining how to best work with the personalitiesand capabilities of the senior managers to facilitate what needed to be done ina way that increased success and promoted UCare’s welfare,

(3) Leadership with newer senior managers in mentoring, to both model andexplain behaviour representative of the mission of UCare,

Figure 3. The sense-making probing cycle.

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(4) Way of staying calm when involved with the management team in emotionalsituations.

The deliverable report produced at the conclusion of the project displayed theintricate interaction between senior managers and the unstated rules that govern theirinteractions. It also provided clear direction with rationale for the type of successorthat would be needed to take Hudson’s place. In addition, a detailed manual ofHudson’s means of doing the main budgeting and negotiating roles of his position wasdesigned and has been in use by his successor. His successor has commented on thevalue of these as well as the value of reading the interview transcripts.

Is not old information obsolete?

Some argue that the nature of our fast-moving society makes ‘old information’obsolete. We have heard, ‘Why interview departing experts since the field changesso quickly. Isn’t this simply old, obsolete information?’ Here is why. This critiquemisses the mark on three levels.

First, experts are not ‘containers of information’, but rather information seekersand interpreters. The essence of expertise is found in the ways individuals move fromaction to action, in essence, bridging the gaps. Expert thinking includes their view ofthe conditions that impede progress, the questions they may be asking themselvesin the moments between key actions, the options they are considering, their wishes andpreferences, and the ideas, decisions and conclusions they ultimately form. Gatheringthis type of intelligence forms the essence of what can help an organization anda successor. While some old information becomes obsolete, the insights, principlesand wisdom gained can be invaluable for the future strategy of an organization.

Second, expert knowledge can dramatically help an organization replace a key expert.Marvin Companies’ Jim Krahn had knowledge that was clearly crucial for the nationalwork of the company. As the interviews with Krahn were being completed, patterns ofhow he does his work were identified, and subsequently shaped in ways that, Tourekreports, has allowed the company to effectively surface and transfer his knowledge.

Third, internal organizational culture does not change rapidly. The originaldesign of the work with UCare was to capture Mark Hudson’s budgeting anddecision-making expertise. Through the course of our interview sessions, one of theauthors and Hudson brought to light the unique culture that had developed overmany years at the company. These insights were brought to the attention of thesenior management team, which alerted them to significant issues that needed tobe addressed in order to integrate a new CFO. These were applied and potentiallyaverted significant disruption in the integration of the CFO.

Tips to help interviewers

We have gained a number of insights from our projects that can assist humanresource and development leaders guide projects.

Interviewers do not have to be experts in the expertise of the interviewee

Experts know their world. Interviewers need to be able to elicit the experts’ worldand use logic and reason to know and sense when intelligence is being used. One of

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the authors, for example, had never been involved with medicine, yet successfullyinterviewed the head of a nationally known Physical Therapy clinic and transferredhis knowledge.

Iterate with sponsors

Sponsors have a vested interest in the outcome of a project. We have found it vital toreport findings to sponsors along the way. Doing so allows for mutual changes infocus and eliminates disappointments or surprises. Consider sponsors as partnerswith whom you wish to work iteratively to help focus and create what is needed forthe successor. Often what the sponsor initially identifies as important shifts aspreviously unknown expertise and understanding is revealed.

Define key objectives and manage effectiveness

The only negative result of our 20 plus projects involved a technical team designingcustom software for a national distribution network. We learned that the lack of aclear definition of objectives between the team and the sponsor circumvented oureffectiveness. The technical nature of the project also made for a long learning curvethat diverted and slowed the project’s progress.

Stick to the trails

More depth of intelligence will emerge through time spent digging into the gaps onstrategic trails. Experts enjoy telling their stories, but often the interviewer mustdiscipline the time by focusing on working through the gaps sifting for the morerelevant sense-making data.

Perspectives on the Sagis Interview

In this article, we include the following comments from different stakeholders whohave been involved with a project using the Sagis Interview.

Sponsors have said:

. The knowledge transfer process was invaluable. Our new CFO has commentedon that fact and its clear that she uses the information that was gathered tohelp her make good decisions as CFO. We are very pleased with the outcomeof the knowledge transfer process, and have updated our succession plans toinclude it as a key part of the process.

. What we had tried to accomplish off and on for over a year was completed inless than six weeks. We gained what we had hoped for, know-how from theindustry leader to help his successor fill his shoes quickly.

Successors have told us:

. I refer to the deliverable manual nearly every day. I also have read and re-readseveral of the interview transcripts as they contain such valuable insight thathelps me.

. The guide and coaching I received has allowed me to continue with similarresults to my highly regarded predecessor. I did not expect to need what the

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company gave me but it has turned out to be much more than I would haveexpected.

Experts have commented:

. A tremendous amount of my own know-how wasn’t in our computer systemsor on paper . . . what Sagis captured and organized through interviews andassignments was really remarkable. The Return on Investment (ROI) benefitsare substantial.

. I realized how much work this was saving for me. After I saw the firsttranscript I wondered how it would be put into a useful form and what thatwould look like, but after going through the 2nd interview and looking backon how we were starting to organize the information I realized this was savingme a lot of documentation work and it was doing it in a way that was muchbetter organized than I would have been able to come up with on my own.

. The whole process allowed me to speak and answer questions and talk aboutthings that would have been hard or awkward with (the sponsor). By havingyou say things like, ‘That is the 3rd time I’ve heard you mention somethingabout working with (the CEO), what is the significance of that?’ I began to talkabout some things I likely would never have talked about or thought about.

Conclusion

Creating the Sagis Interview by applying the insights of SMM to the surfacing andarticulation of the intelligence of leaders and experts has proven to be an effectiveand powerful way to preserve an organization’s intellectual capital. Human resourceprofessionals can provide a significant benefit to their organizations by adapting andusing this approach.

References

Charan, R. 2005. Ending the CEO succession crisis. Harvard Business Review 83: 72–81.Dervin, B. 2008. Interviewing as dialectical practice: Sense-making methodology as exemplar.

Paper presented at the annual meeting to the audience section of the InternationalCommunication Association for Media and Communication Research, July 20–25,in Stockholm, Sweden.

Dervin, B., and L. Foreman-Wernet. 2003. Sense-making methodology reader. Cresskill, NJ:Hampton Press.

Fisher, A. 1998. Don’t blow your new job. Fortune, June 22, pp. 162–3.Lancaster, L., and D. Stillman. 2002. When generations collide: Who they are. Why they clash.

How to solve the generational puzzle at work. New York: HarperBusiness.Leonard, D., and W. Swap. 2005. Deep smarts: How to cultivate and transfer enduring business

wisdom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.Weick, K. 1995. Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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