Enablement, One Seismic

Enabling a culture of knowledge sharing

By Rachel Saltsgaver — On November 1, 2022

Over the years, we've partnered with thousands of companies to help them enable their organizations with the skills, content, tools, and insights they need to grow. During this time we've noticed how important a culture of knowledge sharing is to enablement. That's why we're excited to bring you this three-part series that will take a look at how go-to-market teams can create, motivate, and implement a culture of knowledge sharing. Enjoy!

When one of your reps successfully navigates a sales deal against a new competitor, do they share useful information they learned with their fellow sellers? Then, does your enablement team take that knowledge, update playbooks and other materials, and disseminate it across the rest of the organization for future reference?

This is just one of the many examples of how important knowledge sharing is to the success of every enablement program. At the end of the day, enablement is only effective when go-to-market (GTM) teams are willing to contribute, collaborate, and work together in the name of business growth.

While instilling and encouraging a culture of knowledge sharing doesn't happen overnight, it's worth the time and effort. In this post, we'll take a look at why knowledge sharing is so important and how to make it a core aspect of a company's enablement culture.

What is knowledge sharing?

Before we dive into what it takes to enable a culture of knowledge sharing, let's clearly explain what we mean by the term. Knowledge sharing is part of the knowledge management process which also includes principles, organizational structures, and technology applications to help people share and leverage their knowledge to drive business growth. Organizations that have a great culture of knowledge sharing encourage employees to share what they know with others rather than keeping that information to themselves. This knowledge may be explicit and come in the form of documents and procedures, or tacit, which comes from experience. Both are equally important.

The power of knowledge sharing in enablement

As we've already touched on, knowledge sharing is a pivotal part of enablement. For scaling organizations, it's key to the rapid transfer of knowledge to get new hires ramped quickly. It's also beneficial for distributed teams or larger companies that want to promote autonomous work. Without a culture of knowledge sharing, there's a loss of both time and productivity with studies indicating that Fortune 500 companies lose more than $31 billion a year by failing to share knowledge.

Knowledge sharing comes in many different forms. Go-to-market engines heavily rely on knowledge sharing by equipping teams with the information they need to support deals and customers through playbooks, product hubs, FAQ docs, training, and more. It also encourages subject matter experts and teammates across the organization to share useful information that naturally comes from conversations with prospects, customers, and partners that may not be captured elsewhere. Without encouraging this type of fluid knowledge transfer, revenue teams are missing out on sharing essential information that everyone can benefit from. In fact, one report found that organizations that ask top performers to actively share their knowledge close more deals and increase win rates by 54%.

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5 steps to take to encourage a culture of knowledge sharing

There's always going to be additional opportunities to capture and share knowledge across an organization. As companies grow and evolve they collect more information that can be extremely valuable to your sales reps or support agents at any given moment. That's why embedding knowledge sharing into a company's culture is so useful. We've found that organizations that do this well follow five important steps.

Solicit feedback: The best way to find out what employees need or are thinking is to ask for direct feedback. Employees have valuable knowledge or ideas, but they may be hesitant to share it. By actively soliciting feedback, organizations can encourage more employees to actively collaborate and share what they know over time.
Be intentional: Like any other aspect of enablement, instilling knowledge sharing takes time and intentionality. What are your overall goals? Who do you need to work with, and what steps need to be taken in order to get everyone in the organization aligned and on the same page?
Share the why: People need to understand the reasoning behind large initiatives and shifting your company's culture is no exception. By giving your team insight into why this is so important, you'll likely get buy-in and motivate more team members to share knowledge over time.
Communicate and collaborate: Knowledge sharing should not fall on one specific team or department. The more perspectives, advice, and knowledge that are shared across the organization, the stronger your culture will be.
Make it easy: If you really want to see your team promote a culture of knowledge sharing, then it needs to be easy for them to do so. After all, if they have to spend too much time finding valuable information, then your efforts won't be successful. We'll take a closer look at helpful tools and resources your organization can use to make this as easy as possible later on in this series.

Still to come

When it comes to enabling a culture of knowledge sharing across your GTM organization, we still have some helpful tips and strategies up our sleeves. And, in the spirit of knowledge sharing, we can't wait to share them with you! Stay tuned for our next blog which will focus on how companies can motivate employees and overcome objections to knowledge sharing. In the meantime, learn more about the benefits of knowledge sharing and read about our newest product, Seismic Knowledge, here.

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What is knowledge sharing?

The power of knowledge sharing in enablement

5 steps to take to encourage a culture of knowledge sharing

Solicit feedback: The best way to find out what employees need or are thinking is to ask for direct feedback. Employees have valuable knowledge or ideas, but they may be hesitant to share it. By actively soliciting feedback, organizations can encourage more employees to actively collaborate and share what they know over time.

Be intentional: Like any other aspect of enablement, instilling knowledge sharing takes time and intentionality. What are your overall goals? Who do you need to work with, and what steps need to be taken in order to get everyone in the organization aligned and on the same page?

Share the why: People need to understand the reasoning behind large initiatives and shifting your company's culture is no exception. By giving your team insight into why this is so important, you'll likely get buy-in and motivate more team members to share knowledge over time.

Communicate and collaborate: Knowledge sharing should not fall on one specific team or department. The more perspectives, advice, and knowledge that are shared across the organization, the stronger your culture will be.

Make it easy: If you really want to see your team promote a culture of knowledge sharing, then it needs to be easy for them to do so. After all, if they have to spend too much time finding valuable information, then your efforts won't be successful. We'll take a closer look at helpful tools and resources your organization can use to make this as easy as possible later on in this series.

Still to come