Learning Strategy & KM

Speakers: Anders Sjolokken (Vice-President, Learning & KM, TechnipFMC) and Kim Glover (Director, Knowledge Management & Social Learning, TechnipFMC)

Session Description: Collaboration is critically important in leveraging what an organization ‘knows’, and that’s why KM is a key element in TechnipFMC’s enterprise learning strategy. The company is invested in supporting ‘enterprise dialogue’, both cross-functionally and within communities of practice as an enabler for social learning, innovation and better business outcomes. Connecting people across the organization provides continually increasing value as employees co-construct ideas and experiences into new solutions and better ways to solve problems as a collective, while individuals also benefit as they gain new knowledge and skills, thus ‘leveling up’ the skills of the organization. The ways in which TechipFMC utilizes KM and social learning tools and techniques to underpin learning programs and fuel collaboration are explored in short case studies, and the cultural aspects are shared, as healthy dialogue requires psychological safety and trust, as collaboration is established as an expected, normative behavior.

[These are my notes from the KMWorld Connect 2021 Conference. I’m publishing them as soon as possible after the end of a session so they may contain the occasional typographical or grammatical error. Please excuse those. To the extent I’ve made any editorial comments, I’ve shown those in brackets.]

Notes:

• Trust is Critical for Enterprise Dialogue
  • trust that someone is listening
  • trust that someone has an answer to my question
  • trust that my question won’t be career-limiting
  • trust that knowledge sharing is valued by the enterprise as a whole and by my colleagues individually
• Interpersonal Trust
  • has to be built — it requires openness to learning and a willingness to have difficult conversations that establish honesty.
• Connection before Collaboration
  • Personal connection is critical before true collaboration
  • “Turtaking” is a Norwegian for taking turns in which you stop to listen deeply to your colleague to understand what they are really saying (not just what you think they are saying)
  • You need to “co-construct meaning together” so that no single person is the sole author. [Instead, the finished product reflects the aggregate expertise of the collaborators. Ideally, it will be greater than the sum of its parts.]
• Develop a holistic perspective: View the enterprise as a holistic ecosystem that includes KM methods/tools and Learning methods/tools.
  • then mix, match, and deploy the tools for optimal learning
• Culture: Establish a Learning and Collaboration Culture at the Individual and Enterprise Level
  • enable collaboration, knowledge sharing and learning at the individual level. Individual adoption supports personal development
  • leader-driven deployments to support business strategy and the individual’s work.
• Learning Ecosystem:
  • 4 Interrelated Platforms
    • A competency model that connects directly with the learning system 
    • Learning hub (formal learning curriculum and a catalog for employee-driven learning)
    • The collective knowledge base built by the employees to support their exchange in the communities of practice
    • Business-sponsored communities of practice
  • Integrate KM into Learning: Knowledge resources are fully integrated into the learning strategy
    • knowledge sharing webinars
    • podcast about their people and business
    • facilitated collaboration (virtual workshops + a platform for crowd-sourcing ideas)
• Putting it into practice
  • Once the Learning & KM Strategy is in place, you have the tools to deeply enrich knowledge sharing and learning. Their channels:
    • The Well = their document knowledge base
    • Overview course = eLearning course
    • Illuminate = their podcast
    • The Stream = video materials
    • The Bridge = their communities of practice
    • Experts Explain = another online training opportunity
    • Practitioner course = online class
    • Supportive champions / mentors
  • The speakers gave the example of their Inclusive Leadership / Unconscious Bias Learning Plan. They were able to push learning and knowledge resources through:
    • Setting the stage: Podcast with a senior executive + external resources (relevant articles and TED talks)
    • eLearning produced by the company
    • self-awareness assessment
    • understanding impact on others (using LinkedIn Learning and TED talks)
    • Engage with Technip FMC leaders in live webinars
    • Continuous Learning through additional resources coupled with self-assessments