Secret family recipes
What do secret family recipes and “tribal knowledge” have in common? They are both undocumented. Unfortunately for most businesses, unlike your great grandmothers biscuit recipe, people in the corporate world aren’t always so willing to pass their knowledge along.
These biscuits were made from scratch by my mom and my daughter for a school project about family traditions in heritage. My daughter came home from school knowing exactly what she wanted to do for her project - she wanted to make biscuits from scratch with her grandmother using her great grandmother’s recipe like they do on random weekends throughout the year.
Her project made me stop to think about how knowledge is passed down in families. It’s through hand-scratched notes, hours together working side-by-side, and a desire to keep the tradition alive.
In business, we also have knowledge that needs to be passed down - it’s the undocumented wisdom necessary to ensure a seamless transition from one person to another. Just like a family recipe, it might be scratched down at a workstation, on a post-it note, or saved in a shared drive, or it might be something so intuitive at this point that only by working side-by-side can you really understand the nuance.
Wouldn’t it be easier if people took the time to actually document it? Wouldn’t it ensure that it didn’t get lost if we had a safe place to keep all that information? Wouldn’t we have a better chance of long-term success if we proactively and strategically worked to create system and process to capture all of this information?
I don’t just think the answer is yes, I know the answer is yes. And I know the answer is yes, because in the homemade cookbook that my daughter has been compiling for most of her life, there is a little piece of paper taped inside that holds her great grandmother‘s recipe for homemade biscuits. She pulls it out even though she probably doesn’t need it at this point, but she has it so she can pass the recipe down.
When you write down your tribal knowledge, it is about being generous enough to think in advance of what those that go after you might need. It is a selfless act that takes time and effort. It is a gift to those who follow.
In her middle school reading class, every biscuit was eaten. Everyone’s tummy (and hopeful soul) was filled with her great grandmother’s love.
What I didn’t tell you about that little piece of paper taped in my daughter’s homemade cookbook is that it isn’t a hand scratched note, or a secret family recipe, it is the recipe printed on the back of every package of White Lily Flower.
Now who’s going go make some biscuits?