General Stanley McChrystal famously said, “Knowledge is not power. Sharing knowledge is power.”

He couldn’t be more right. And when it comes to business organizations, sharing knowledge has to be done on purpose. There have to be systems in place, implemented by organizational leaders who encourage transparent and open knowledge sharing.

But most of the time, knowledge is not shared. It remains inside the head of the owner, who is the sole source of information for the team members. This can be devastating in so many different ways. What happens if the founder dies suddenly? All of that intelligence goes with him or her. Or, perhaps someone wants to buy the company. If there’s no single, accessible repository of company intelligence, then the founder won’t be able to walk away when the sale is completed. He or she will need to stick around until their expertise has been passed on to the new owners.

That could turn into years.

Here’s the good news: This is completely fixable. It will take time and effort, but it’s worth it. So how do you do it?

On the same page

As with so many succession strategies, the key for transferring institutional knowledge starts with a solid business practice that serves any operation: Setting up the company to speak with one voice.

You know how kids usually know which parent to approach to get the answer they want? Well, if your team doesn’t speak with a common voice — drawing on the same information, objectives, processes and procedures — your customers also will know whom to contact to get what they want. That’s not necessarily in the best interest of your company, so it should be remedied.

In the design industry, much of the company intelligence revolves around preparing deliverables for clients. That would include specifications and other delivery items. At Counsilman-Hunsaker, the aquatics firm that I used to own, we designed a system that allowed us to use those specifications as the stake that we put into the ground to speak as one voice. Before, it was as if we had three companies inside of one: Each team had its own way of doing things. Contractors could literally look at documents and determine who created them.

We called our solution The Master Specification Challenge. We got together, discussed best practices, and determined the single best way to create our deliverables.

We put a financial bounty on each project. When it was completed, the team determined who had the most influence in managing change. Then we paid that individual and the team accordingly.

Here was the outcome: We went from five days to one day to complete a project. In the short term, we made a significant investment of time and money, but in the long term we were able to do more with less. We became more efficient, delivered higher quality, and became outcome-driven.

The concept is to create a common vocabulary, or master tool box, that helps every individual work from the same starting point. What tools do you use in your business, and what do your people need to agree on and work together on to speak with one voice? In the service business, it might be chemical usage or your process for servicing a pool. No matter who shows up, the same outcome or experience should be delivered to the client.

If you speak with one voice, your company will have greater value and be more sellable to a third party because they would be buying a company, not a group of people all doing their own thing. And, I would submit that employees would be more comfortable investing their time and money to carry on your legacy, whether by purchasing the company or continuing to work for new owners.

With this common voice, we all have access to the same pool of information.

Sharing knowledge

Founding owners have a great deal of experience that would be hugely valuable for the next generation of leaders and owners. How are you transferring that?

Of course, oftentimes this is done verbally. That’s how I learned about what happens when a swimming pool floats out of the ground. We all know that’s a really bad day when it happens. My father and founder of my aquatics firm, Joe Hunsaker, explained to me the physics of why it happened, but he didn’t stop there. He also talked to me about the art of handling these situations — how you work with the owner, deal with the insurance companies, and select from the remediation options.

In doing this, he also was helping me learn how you work through and solve problems. And probably his biggest gift was to explain that we were going to survive these instances. That proves invaluable for new managers and owners. When new company owners experience a major problem with a client, they may lose their executive function, because they’re so overwhelmed by the challenge facing them that they lose their ability to think clearly. Hearing that steadying voice helps immensely in those situations.

My dad also kept what he called “Joe’s Book,” a journal of sorts that served as a repository of knowledge that he gleaned over his many years in the business. He wrote about a lot of things: what kept him up at night and sayings that boiled down how we did business into a sentence or two. Sometimes, it was just a phrase, but it meant something and there was helpful wisdom in it.

For example, he would say, “Don’t trade one problem for another.” You know exactly what he’s talking about right? We’ve all done it.

“Information is your friend. Knowledge is your partner.” So true.

And one of my personal favorites: “The ability to adjust is a sign of leadership. You can delegate authority, but not responsibility.”

His sayings weren’t all inspirational. He encapsulated our entire accounts receivable protocol into one sentence: “When the client doesn’t pay, wait for a choke point … then choke.”

Those of us who were lucky enough to know and work with Joe learned a great deal from him. His company was successful. When I ran it, we improved upon what he had done. But, in business, you’re never done. I knew when I ran the company that it could get even better with the next generation of leaders.

There were other “Joes” on my team, and sharing the information with them allowed those next-generation leaders to rise up and be seen.

Documenting for the next hire

But the idea of documenting knowledge extends past the company founders and owners.

For instance, not only do we have our own database that we’re trying to capture for the next leadership change, but we also have plenty of third-party participants who teach us.

For example, you might go to trade shows, attend talks, or invite suppliers to come in and present to your staff. But how many times do we see our staff participate in these opportunities, only to see that knowledge dissipate within a year?

Look at ways to capture that information for future participants. When a new employee joins your company, how can they access the information from that presentation or lunch-and-learn? How are you collecting that information and making it available to employees who don’t even work there today?

You could have the instructor or presenter write down a summary of learning outcomes. You also could capture all their handouts and power point slides, and even record the presentation, with their permission, of course.

Then put that information in a base where everybody in the organization can access it. Now you’re not only relying on tribal knowledge that is shared verbally.

On a side note, I would submit that this is more appropriate for the new generation of leaders. Millennials don’t particularly want to walk into your offices and hear managers pontificate — they want the resources to find that information themselves. So if you offer these types of resources, I think it will make your company that much more attractive to prospective employees, so you can hire the best of the best.