Knowledge Base · Pitfalls
What is the knowledge gap in continuous improvement, and how do I close it?
The knowledge gap is expecting improvement results without investing in the skills to produce them: training reduced to a webinar and a PDF while workloads stay unchanged. Chapter 7 of the book calls it demanding the destination while ignoring the road, and shows a bank whose new CRM died of exactly that.
The knowledge gap is the fourth of the ten barriers in Chapter 7 of the book: leaders demanding the results of improvement without equipping people for the journey. Its classic form is a destination announced with fanfare and a road nobody builds: results expected, training treated as an optional expense.
The book's case study is a regional bank that bought a powerful new CRM system to fix inconsistent client follow-up. The entire training programme was a single one-hour webinar and a 40-page PDF on a shared drive, with the system mandatory from the following Monday and no adjustment to the bankers' existing targets. Within a week the bankers were back on their personal spreadsheets and paper notebooks, entering just enough into the CRM to appear compliant. The system became an empty shell, and the tool took the blame for a failure of investment in people.
Closing the gap is unglamorous, which is why it gets skipped. Budget for the learning curve in time, not just money. Train hands-on with realistic scenarios from the team's actual work, not feature tours. Designate super-users, people in each team who learn first and coach peers. And adjust workloads and targets while people are beginners, so learning does not have to compete with the full weight of the day job.
The book frames the leader's duty with an unexpected example: before Jesus sent out the twelve, he briefed them in detail, told them what to expect, and equipped them for the task. Demanding changed behaviour without providing training, coaching and time is not leadership, the book concludes. It is abdication.
Related questions
- What are the most common reasons continuous improvement fails?
- What do I do when a new tool flops with my team?
- How do I get people to actually use a new tool after launch?
Source: Continuous Improvement in the Workplace, Ch. 7 (Pitfalls to Avoid in Continuous Improvement Initiatives).