CHAPTER 13

The Knowledge Gap Is the Black Hole of Greatness

I was catching up with a former client who had taken a job at another company a few months prior. When we last spoke, he and the other senior leaders had been sent to a training on a new database management system the company said would transform the business. It sounded like a good tool, and I knew he and the other leaders had been looking forward to learning it. But I pretty much knew what would happen next.

So, did you do that training you told me about a few months ago?

“Yeah, Nathan, it was good!”

Did you implement what you learned?

“Yeah, man, right away. It changed our business immediately!”

Do you still do it?

“Nah.”

When I tell this story from the stage, everyone laughs. They all say it sounds like their companies. Then, they start to cry. Because it sounds like their companies. In fact, the number one complaint of my clients is their inability to execute on and sustain knowledge they have learned: “It's one and done.” “We do the training and then we never hear about it again.” “The training is just an act of compliance that everyone forgets when the leaders stop caring about it.”

I experienced this when I became a director at a Fortune 100 company and the president rolled out a new employee ranking system. I had no idea how this was going to work, so I sought out a more senior peer and asked. He looked at me with a wide grin and said, “Kid, don't worry about it. In couple of weeks, this idea will fade and go away like all the other great ideas we were going to implement.” He was right; within six months the new employee ranking system was never spoken about again.

So how do we keep the systems or processes we implemented from going away in months or even weeks? The answer is to bridge the knowledge gap and make what you learned a sustainable part or principle of your business, which is a lot easier to say than do. Most people in business today know what they should do to be successful, but they fail to actually do it. That's the bad news: Everyone has this problem. The good news is that leaders in the middle can completely own this problem by serving up and coaching down. But they must understand the root cause of the gap—in others and themselves—before trying to bridge it. And that starts with one question: Does the knowledge gap exist because of a lack of will or a lack of skill or both?

Lack of Will or Lack of Skill?

Simply put, if leaders in the middle and their people don't have the will and skill to bridge the gap, then they are going to fall into it time and again. With the serve up/coach down mindset in place, however, they accept responsibility to understand this and focus on what the problem is: As a leader in the middle, your job is to understand that lack of will is when someone knows they should do something and has the skill to do it but chooses not to execute. Although this is a choice, it's not necessarily an act of defiance. It may be a perceived lack of benefit (conveyed by the actions of the leaders' bosses) versus the effort required to execute.

As a leader in the middle, your job is to understand that lack of skill is when someone executes on the knowledge—that is, has the will—but fails, because of experience, lack of practice, or just being in the wrong job.

But before leaders in the middle determine which area (or both) their employees fall into, they must first find out which one they themselves fall into. This step toward self-awareness is humbling but awesome for growth as a leader. I know it is always easier to turn the spotlight on our people, but put on your big girl or boy pants and ask yourself: Do I have the will I demand of my people, coach them on the skills they need to develop, and hold all of us accountable to sustaining the changes we are making? Most leaders will discover the answer is “no,” and they have failed to realize that they may be the cause of the problems.

Remember: As is the case with any change, sustaining it requires taking the time to coach and keep getting better. And the change starts with determining if there is a lack of will.