As baby boomers start the process of exiting the business stage, they take with them a tremendous amount of institutional knowledge and smarts. Are you prepared to preserve your past so you don't destroy your future?

I recently worked with a client who told me that over the next five years, 86% of their workforce would be eligible to retire. This is a startling number and caused this organization to pause and take note. The "veterans" hold incredible knowledge that can't just be transferred via Dropbox or Evernote (if you don't know what these are, it's time to catch up). We worked on creating a leadership development program that will systematically transfer that experience-based knowledge through a professionally based mentoring model. Regardless of the size, scope, or industry of your business, you will benefit from instituting a thoughtful, intentional mentoring model in your business.

Otherwise, you may end up suffering from institutional amnesia. Consider these four points...

• Employees leave either due to retiring, finding a new job, or dismissal. If they've spent any time in your organization, they have knowledge that's valuable - operations, technology, human resources, sales, and administrative. What's that worth to you?
• In many cases, you will have set up protections for sharing vital information and proprietary property. However, what you may not have thought of are the shortcuts, efficiencies, contacts, and operational processes attained over the course of years that improves productivity and saves valuable time.
• If it's not broken, don't fix it. Without gleaning organizational "secrets of success," you're bound to actually break what might be a smooth running machine. How long does it take to fix that?
• Preserving instructional memory is a business strategy that most businesses haven't even considered, but will be a huge topic in the future. Who is better capable of teaching than those valued employees who made your success possible? Why not keep them engaged and motivated by offering them this challenge? You will find that they are more valuable as a teacher than potentially just playing out the string.

But all is not lost. You have the opportunity to retain your memory with a few easy and relatively painless steps...

• Institute a formal mentoring program. Train your veterans on how to show the young guns the ropes. Create joint accountabilities and engage all sides by showing them why it's important to the organization and to them individually.

The best way to accomplish this is to hire a professional to come in and train your administrative team and your mentors. Once you have the process and training in place, you can effectively run an internal mentoring program. Invest in your business by doing it right from the beginning, or you are more likely to see frustration and failure. This is too important an issue to skimp on.

• Create redundancies for critical organizational information like passwords, client relationships, and crisis management. Businesses spend countless hours and money to design high tech redundancies for data. They spend less time establishing human redundancies that are caused by illness, injury, termination, retirement, or any other loss of services. Why would you leave your most valuable asset - the smarts inside your employees'' heads - to chance?
• Avoid gravitational pull. On the road to any desired future state there lies many speed bumps and traps. The biggest one I call gravitational pull. It's basically the default position; the crutch of sameness and safety. It's easy to go back to that place when time and patience are short; money is tight; or supervisors stop holding employees accountable. Avoiding the crisis of gravitational pull requires patience, awareness, discipline, and culture. This may be the toughest part of the entire process. You can invest time, money, and resources on training and processes. Everyone can walk away excited and ready to roll. But if six months later you are back to where you were, you've wasted all that you've invested. This final step is the most critical point.  

Bonus Bullet - Institutional smarts grows and changes. In this fast-paced, technological world, the change is even more mercurial. You need to be prepared to change with it.

Bottom line - if you have employees who hold institutional knowledge, or as I like to call it, "smarts," then you are in danger of getting amnesia. The results of institutional amnesia include institutional death. The scary thing is it may be happening and you don't know it until it's too late.

What have you done to avoid being hit with "amnesia?" What are you prepared to do to retain your institutional "smarts?"

Join us for an information-packed workshop created just for consultants, entrepreneurs, and professional service providers of any industry.

On June 21st, 2012, Libby Wagner and Dan Weedin will combine to host a full-day event made to take your business to the next level.  

Both Libby and Dan are Master Mentors in the Alan Weiss global consulting community. Both Dan and Libby attribute their accelerated success to their close work with Alan and his elite group of world-class consultants from around the planet. Alan is the author of Million Dollar Consulting and has personally trained both Dan and Libby to help others to grow in their business and practice.

Here are a few things you will walk away with...

• Creating great client relationships
• Value-based fees: The art and science  
• Life balance: Creating the time of your life for busy professionals
• Social media: Avoiding the traps and leveraging technology for consultants
• Self confidence and self-esteem: The differentiators  

The location is the beautiful Washington Athletic Club located in downtown Seattle, WA. Your investment is only $99. We will even buy you lunch!

Bottom line - Libby and Dan are serious about helping you grow in your business. Don't miss out on this almost free event.  It will be the best decision you make in 2012!      

Rave Reviews from February's event...

"This was a fantastic workshop and everyone took away far more value than the cost of admission.  I won't miss Dan and Libby's next event."    

Mark Walters, Bellevue

"The information and your expertise was priceless!"
Diane Zakrajsek, Seattle