Why is this so important? Because most people in skill positions across the country are baby boomers. Right now, those boomers are thinking about retiring. Once they retire, their wisdom and expertise will be lost – forever. Some firms are interviewing those boomers, but for the most part, all they're capturing is memoir material – not best practices, and certainly not the How of success.

Let's look at an example. We can use me as the example here, if only because I understand the concepts involved, and I also have a unique ability that comes to life when I'm writing. I have an ability to see connections between words and concepts. In my mind's eye, I literally see rubber bands connecting them. If the connection is weak, the rubber band is pulled tight. That tells me to edit and make the connection stronger. Since I'm aware of that, I could actually teach you how to do it, too. But, most people simply do not know what they do that makes them good at something.

The categories of know-how that are normally consider "best practices" include skills and processes. Those are vital, and are easily taught to other people. Let's say the skill is catching a football. Common teaching is to put your hands out and let the ball land in them. But, how do you know where to place your hands? That's a simple example of the difference between What and How.

The real gems are a different category altogether. They are micro-skills and micro-processes. They are below the level of most people's consciousness, so we call them "unconscious competence." In other words, they're the things you do but you don't yet realize how you know to do them. For example, the actual How in the football example is to move your body so the ball grows increasingly larger in your field of vision. That puts you in position to catch it. If the ball grows smaller, you're moving away from it.

Best Practices Example for Selling. Nearly every sales person will tell you that building rapport is an important first step in making a sale. That's the What. But, very few of them can tell you exactly How they build rapport, other than engage in small talk. If you could go into your mind during a sales meeting, you'd discover that you naturally begin to match the other person's body language, verbal language and non-verbal language. If you then, go even deeper, you'd realize that there are multiple sub-categories of those behaviors. Those include facial expressions, sound of voice, speed of speech, dialect, torso lean, head nods and utterings (such as "uh huh").

Point is, where most sales people can name the highly general activity, they cannot tell you the specific behaviors. Thus, they cannot teach you How to do what they do.

Thus, if you're the sales manager, and the person is your top producer who's about to retire, you will most likely NOT be able to capture his best practices. In order to capture the true best practices, you need the help of someone who understands the "knowledge capture" process.

Best Practices Example for Marketing. You can experiment with this on your own. Ask your colleagues to tell you how they create a successful marketing piece. The answers you get will be all over the map: keep it simple; focus on benefits instead of features; start with your goal in mind. However, if you try to get deeper and learn how they do it, you'll probably slam into a wall. They rarely ever know. Most marketing writers don't understand how they do what they do. Why? Because the real know-how is below their consciousness. Remember, it's unconscious competence.

If they could tell you what makes the difference in marketing, they would tell you it lies inside the mind of the target market. Why? Because only when you can get inside the reader's mind, can you answer this question, "What does the target market want to know about what you have to sell?"

In Conclusion

In my next article, I'll explain a "knowledge capture" tool we use called the "Levels of Abstraction." It is an essential tool for getting to the real meat of someone's expertise. If you're in management – or aspire to it – this tool will become a vital component in your effort to gather best practices.

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