How Do Businesses and Generations Maintain Its Legacy?: A Case of Social Interaction and Knowledge Transfer

By Krakrafaa Thompson Tenent Bestman

Employees exit an organization with 80% of the knowledge they have acquired without transferring it to others. This colossal loss of intellectual assets is even more in terms of parent to child legacy transfer. Several factors may have contributed to this immense generational memory loss. First, the knowledge seekers do not know what to do on how to influence the knowledge sources to share their skills and experiences and may not even understand the characteristics of the knowledge they intend to access from the knowledge sources. Second, these intellectual assets such as skills and experiences they intend to access give the knowledge sources their comparative advantage in the society and worst still, they are not on the pages of procedures or other documented format, but mainly domicile in the heads of the possessors and hence not visible to others. Third, people also regard their skills and experiences as invaluable intellectual assets and hence do not want to easily share it with others. These are some of the constraints knowledge seekers face, whether in an organization or the society while trying to access the information they require in creating value in their respective domains. Eventually, the legacies transferred to the knowledge seekers fall short of what would have been transferred if the knowledge seeker knows otherwise.

This book bridges this gap by providing a strategic and systematic approach on how a knowledge seeker may apply social interaction variables and its hierarchical effect on knowledge transfer to influence a knowledge source to share his or her intellectual assets that he or she might not ordinarily be willing to share with any knowledge seeker.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Africa
• Release date: Feb 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781482876604

Krakrafaa Thompson Tenent Bestman

He is a leader in his community and industry, he holds a bachelor of engineering degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the University of Benin, Nigeria; a master degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Lagos, Nigeria; an MBA from University of Phoenix, Arizona, USA; and a Doctoral in Organizational Leadership from the Northcentral University, Arizona, USA. He has over two decades of experience in the oil and gas industry, with working experience in consultancy, project management, engineering, procurement, and construction in many countries such as Nigeria, Canada, Britain, France, Romania, and the United States of America in pursuit of technology transfer initiatives. Being conversant with diverse environment and work processes, he has a first-hand experience on how social interaction facilitates knowledge transfer among employees, even technology transfer, which in most cases is patented, and often challenging for a knowledge source to share with a knowledge seeker. He is currently working with NAPIMS, a unit of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. He can be contacted on [e-mail].

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Copyright © 2018 by Krakrafaa Thompson Tenent Bestman.

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CONTENTS

PART I

The Quality of Social Interaction and Legacy Transfer

Chapter 1   Introduction

Knowledge Transfer Practices and the Dynamics of the Environment

Deficiencies in Knowledge Transfer Strategies

Theoretical Framework-Social Learning theory

How this Book was Research

Chapter 2   Historical Perspective of Leadership and Legacies

Transfer

Governments, Monarchies and Legacy

Organizational Leadership and Stakeholders’ Mandates

Chapter 3   Knowledge and Organizational Memory

Types of Knowledge

The Knowledge Spectrum

Knowledge Flow in Knowledge Spectrum

Importance of Legacies to the Knowledge Source

Why Legacies are not Easily Shared

Knowledge Transfer Mechanisms

Succession Planning Processes

Factors Affecting Knowledge Transfer

Chapter 4   Why Social Interaction is Important

What is Social Interaction and Social Activity?

Qualities of Social Interaction and Legacies Transfer

Informative Support, Emotional Support and Legacies Transfer

Impact of Informative Support on Legacies Transfer

What Emotional Support Does to Legacy Transfer

Frequency of Social Interaction and Legacy Transfer

Trust in Competence and Legacy Transfer

Social Networking Skills and Transfer of Legacies

Chapter 5   Complexity of Social Interaction Qualities on Legacy Transfer

The Intricate Nature of Social Interaction and Legacy Transfer

Informative Support, Frequency of Social Interaction and

Legacy Transfer

Emotional Support, Frequency of Social Interaction and Legacy Transfer

Frequency of Social Interaction, Trust in Competence and Legacy Transfer

PART II

An Evaluation of Society Legacy Transfer Practices

Chapter 6   Organizational Processes and Legacies Transfer

Training Programs

Training and Social Interaction

Meetings and Brainstorming Activities

Procedures, Work Processes, and Manuals

Emails and Telephone Conversation

Lessons Learnt

Lessons Learnt Improvement Practices

On The Job Training (OJT)

Reasons Why Organizations Implement OJT

Factors Affecting the Effectiveness of Knowledge Transfer in OJTE

Organizational Culture

Importance of the Expertise

Relationship between the Organizations

Motivation

Integrating into the Social Network

OJT Program Structure

Social Activities and Socialization

Chapter 7   Generational Implication of Legacy Transfer

Environmental Influence and Legacy Transfer

Internet

Influence of Caregivers and Smart Devices

Strategies for Preservation of Legacies in Families

What to Externalize and the Way Forward

PART III

Practical Approach to Legacies Transfer and Way Forward

Chapter 8   Knowledge Transfer Loop

Exploration Phase

Bonding Phase

Inter-Exchange Phase

Internalization and Value Creation Phase

Chapter 9   Epilogue: The Way Forward

Issues with Legacy Transfer

How Legacies Transfer Occurs

Hierarchical Structure of Legacy Transfer

Legacy Transfer: A Complex Process

Future of Legacies Transfer

APPENDIXES

Appendix A: Tables

Appendix B: Permission to use Frequency of Social Interaction

Measures

Appendix C: Permission to use Emotional Support Instrument

Appendix D: Permission to use Informative Support Measures

Appendix E: Permission to use Trust in Competence

Appendix F: Permission to use Social Networking Skills

Appendix G: Permission to use Knowledge Transfer Measures

Appendix H: Histogram of Standardized Residue

Appendix I: Normal P-P Plot

Prologue

L IFE CAN BE likened to an expedition in which knowledge is the navigational tool. As it is, the extents to which an individual can navigate through the journey obviously depends on the extent of knowledge the individual has about the expedition. In other words, the more knowledge the individual has about the expedition, the more likely he or she is able to achieve the goal. This logic suggests that, the individuals that have more knowledge about the expedition will definitely be the active players in the expedition. In contemporary terms, they are the experts. Considering the importance of the expedition and the associated benefits, the experts might not be willing to share their knowledge about the expedition to others. They know that their influence in the society is because of their knowledge and that losing it may result to losing their controlling influence; this influence has both economic and social values. It is obvious that only those who are able to extract information from the experts or those that the experts pass on legacies to might have the necessary tools to navigate through the expedition. Accordingly, a generation that has more information about the expedition might travel farther than a generation with less information. As Benjamin Disraeli, a former British Prime Minister once said, " the more extensive a man’s knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what t o do ."

Preface

I N 1994, WHILE working on a highly skilled project, I observed for the first time—how difficult it is for an expert to share his or her knowledge with others, more especially, if the knowledge is what makes the individual influential in the society. At that point, I thought there is no way to influence such an individual to share his or her expertise. In the same vein, most knowledge seekers are of the opinion that knowledge sources will not easily share their expertise with others. Yes, it might be true, but the ineptness of the knowledge seeker mostly contributes to the unwillingness of the knowledge source to share his or her competences. As an illustration, when a knowledge seeker interacts with potential knowledge source, the seekers rarely know what to do in order to access the expertise of the knowledge source. Worst still, most knowledge seekers do not even understand the nature of the knowledge they seek and its relevance to the source, more especially when it has to do with legacies. This is because most knowledge seekers do not know that legacies are skills and experiences gathered over the years through education, training, work, and life’s experience, and that it has social and economic values to its possessor. Since it is an intellectual asset with economic and social value, its possessor rarely shares it with others. However, there is a way around it, but the average knowledge seeker does not know it. If you desire to know how to influence an individual to share his or her expertise that he or she will not ordinarily share with you, then you have to read this book.

What is the Book About?

A portion of the content of this book first appeared as a PhD dissertation at Northcentral University, Arizona, USA in 2015: The Relationship Between Social Interaction and Tacit Knowledge Transfer. This book addresses the issues why people are unwilling to share their legacies (core competences). Thereafter, it introduces a systematic approach of what a knowledge seeker should do to motivate the knowledge source to share his or her expertise with the knowledge seeker. In other relevant literature, proponents of social learning theory suggest that, when a knowledge source and a knowledge seeker interact through the concept of observational learning, the knowledge seeker observes and models legacies by interacting with the knowledge source. Going by the concept of observational learning, it only explains the legacies transfer to the knowledge seeker from the perspective of non-verbal communication. Does that mean that during the interaction between the knowledge seeker and the knowledge source, the knowledge source cannot pass on legacies to the knowledge seeker through verbal communication? This book addresses these fundamental issues. It guides the reader on how to motivate knowledge source to share the expertise that they would ordinarily not share with others. The book also unveils the legacies potentially imbedded in the various learning initiatives in organizations and the strategies on how to institutionalize these legacies that determine the organizational comparative advantage. Furthermore, in order to distinguish the knowledge requirement for families and organizations, I have also included a concept to bring to the fore, the two distinctive sources of knowledge and how parents have deprived their children from vital life experiences and a strategy to close this gap. Thus, the purpose of this book is to reveal how businesses and generations can maintain their legacies despite the dynamics in the society. Adopting this framework will not only facilitate businesses and generations to pass on legacies from one generation to another, but also maintain their comparative advantage in the society, irrespective of the turbulence in the environment. To realize this, the knowledge seeker needs to understand how legacies are developed, where it resides, its characteristics and how it influences the possessor before the knowledge seeker can have a clearer perspective of why knowledge sources value and protect their legacies. Accordingly, in this era of employee mobility and uncertainties in the business environment, it becomes imperative for leaders to develop a scheme that will encourage predecessors to pass on legacies to the next generation, if maintaining dominance is a crucial goal as the society evolves.

Why I wrote the Book

Organizational leaders annually spend thousands of dollars to train their employees, and when the employees put to test what they have learnt from the training, they develop core competence. Surprisingly, the developmental strategies of organizations do not give preferences on how to institutionalize the expertise that resides in the heads of its employees. Rather, organizational leaders are more interested in retraining the employees on new concepts. This type of developmental strategy neglects the need to pass on the existing legacies (validated expertise) in the organization. Furthermore, we should know that legacies are validated learning experiences that reside in the heads of the employees, and that the employees can exit the organization at any time with all the legacies they have acquired while in the organization without passing it on. Worse still, when a successor (knowledge seeker) interacts with the predecessor (knowledge source) for the purposes of legacy transfer, most successors do not even know what to do as they interact with these knowledge sources. In most cases, the successor assumes that once he or she meets with the predecessor, the flow of legacy will be seamless; definitely not often. Experience shows that, as the knowledge transfer process differs, so also the content transferred. Organizations are not alone in this misaligned knowledge retention strategy. Parents are also guilty of it because their investment on their children is skewed towards educating the children, while ignoring the need to pass on legacies to them. This leads to a colossal loss of legacies as the predecessors exit the organization or the society without possibly passing on the legacies that they have gained to others. To avoid such continuous colossal loss of legacies in the society, I thought it necessary to provide a model that a knowledge seeker would apply to access the core competences or legacies of a potential knowledge source in order to minimize the generational memory loss that is prevalent in the society.

Importance of the book

Certainly, this book will awaken the consciousness of parents to pass on legacies to their children. Likewise, organizational leaders can learn to implement knowledge transfer strategy that will motivate their employees to pass on the legacies they have acquired while in the organization. This is because the total memory of an organization is the summation of the memories of the employees, and that, which resides in the organizational knowledge management system. Organizational leaders must be reminded that, most of the legacies, which give the organization its competitive advantage in the industry, reside in the heads of the employees. It becomes imperative for leaders to be cognizant of how knowledge transforms into becoming a legacy, where it resides, and the need to maintain these legacies through the life cycle of the organization. To this end, this book is written to enable organizational leaders and parents achieve the goal of maintaining legacies.

This book will achieve this objective because its content is more of a knowledge seeker’s manual. It unveils the nature of legacies, its potential sources, why it is difficult to share and how to influence those that possess it to share it with others. It also serves as a strategic document to implement knowledge transfers initiative with the intention to turn learning initiatives acquired from training to core competence. If you are a knowledge seeker, whether in an organization or in the society, the systematic approach of the knowledge transfer loop espoused in this book will enable you understand what to do to influence others to share their core competences with you. This becomes very helpful, knowing that most successors or knowledge seekers do not know what to do when they interact with a potential knowledge source or predecessor. In such interaction, most knowledge seekers or successors assume that they do not have any responsibility in the interaction, while, in effect, a lot may be required from them to influence the predecessor to share his or her legacies with them.

In terms of its practicability, studying the knowledge transfer loop and applying it will be very useful to several strata of the society that require maintaining their legacies. Most of the entities, organizations, monarchies, teaching complex concepts, relationship management, crime control, predecessor / successor, and parent to child relationship management can benefit from the principles shared here. This book is different from most books on knowledge transfer because its content is not only theoretical but empirically validated evidence abound as the foundation of the knowledge transfer models.

How the Book came about

I became interested in knowledge transfer, more especially core competences, over two decades ago while working as an engineer. I had challenges influencing a colleague to share specific project design requirement with me. Then, I thought the experience was specific to that project environment, but as I continued in my career, working on projects, I realized that irrespective of the organization or the knowledge source, as long as the knowledge is important to its possessor, the individual would not willingly share it with others. The need to motivate people to share their expertise with me triggered the urge to investigate how to motivate an individual to share what he or she will ordinarily not share with others. With that in mind, over the years, while working on project assignments in several countries (Nigeria, Britain, Canada, Romania, France, and the United States) with diverse work processes, I started investigating how to motivate an expert to share his or her core competences. Not yet satisfied with the evidence collated over the years, when it was time for my Ph.D. dissertation, it dawned on me to use the Ph.D. dissertation as a platform to find empirical evidence on the phenomenon of sharing expertise. To achieve this objective, I researched on The relationship between social interaction and tacit knowledge transfer in a leadership succession as my Ph.D. dissertation. Presenting the dissertation findings in a format that most knowledge seekers will understand, necessitated the writing of this book. My initial challenge was how to present the dissertation findings in a perspective that a wider audience would understand. Thus, I conducted further investigation on how to turn the dissertation manuscript into a book. With months of researching, I got a clear direction, which enabled me to edit the dissertation manuscript, removed irrelevant sections, and added new topics based on my two decades of investigating knowledge transfer in the society. At about 60% of the completion of the writing process, my external hard drive crashed. Unfortunately, I did not have a backup, so I lost all the information except a printed copy of an older version. Worse still, I had mutilated the older revision with ink in the process of editing. I tried all I could to retrieve the files through a forensic laboratory, but months went by without any visible difference. That was a huge set back. At that point, I knew that whatever decision I took would determine whether this book would be in the hands of the intended audience or continually remain in my memory as a depositional knowledge. Despite the challenges, I was able to bring the book to you because I knew that my success depended on my ability to overcome the challenges on my path. It took more than a year to put the details of the book together, which excludes the previous works on the Ph.D. dissertation.

Overview of the Book Content

This book is in three parts. Part I, is the pivot of this book and consist of chapters 1 to 5. It discusses the published results of my Ph.D. dissertation the relationship between social interaction and knowledge transfer in a way a wider audience will understand it. It contains an overview of knowledge structure, the various types of knowledge, how it metamorphoses into legacies (core competences), and how it influences the organizational memory. It describes the issues affecting the average knowledge seeker in terms of legacy transfer and the complexity of social interaction in influencing legacy transfer. Note that chapters 4 and 5 contain some statistical analysis, however, even if you are not inclined to statistical analysis; there would be no reason to worry because I also explained the statistical terms in a manner for a non-statistician to understand the theoretical framework that guides the study. Part II of the book comprises chapters 6 to 7. Chapter 6 focuses on the knowledge transfer mechanisms of organizations in addition to enumerating how the schemes do not have the capacity to influence the passing on of skills and experiences. It also espouses how the learning experiences from various training initiative matures into core competences of an organization and the practices to improve its transfer. Chapter 7 discusses legacies transfer from the perspective of parents to children and the need to balance the investment strategy on children. Part III facilitates the understanding and application of the concepts developed in part one. It comprises chapters 8 and 9. Chapter 8 transforms the works in part one into a model called the knowledge transfer loop. The knowledge transfer loop discusses the systematic approach of what a knowledge seeker should do to influence a knowledge source to share what he or she will not ordinarily share with others. It presents to the reader, the effective approach to transfer legacy in addition to how to create values from the legacy to align with the dynamism in the society. Chapter 9 is where I end the book. This is what I consider as the way forward. It is the futuristic perspective brought to the fore, in which I foresee what would happen when the society applies the knowledge transfer loop and the content of the rest of the chapters. This part discusses what I consider as a scenario in which the society institutionalizes legacy transfer.

Acknowledgement

F IRST, MY SINCERE gratitude goes to God who gave me knowledge freely and guided me from the conception of this study to the completion of its final pages. Indeed, His grace and mercy led me through these study milestones. He made a way even though there seemed to be no way. When I had a life threatening illness, the doctors informed me to stop the program, but God gave a different report that all is well. To mention a few, the source of the critical thinking skills to connect the concepts in this book together. The thoughts and the analyses—all are from Him, the infinite source of all knowl edge.

The journey of this book is not complete without appreciating the contributions of distinctive individuals, who provided guidance throughout this marathon race called study. Big thanks to the Chairman of my study committee, Dr. Patrick McNamara. His constructive criticism and feedback enabled me to externalize my experiences, thoughts, and indeed, align them to the problem under investigation. Besides providing guidance, his continual words of encouragement provided the cementing properties that enabled me to bond firmly with the study journey. At this point, I would like to thank my study committee member, Dr. Charlemagne Kuekam (subject matter expert); his criticism streamlined the flow and logical sequence of the materials in this study. His suggestions challenged my thought process and, in effect, were instrumental to my ability to evaluate my assumptions.

Again, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to my friends and colleagues who offered their time, resources, and advise just to ensure that I complete this study process, some of whom I have known for over two decades in the oil and gas industry. Obviously, there is no way I would have completed this journey without mentioning your contributions. Just to let you know that your contributions gave me the advantage I needed to succeed. You are an amazing group of people and a lighthouse to my path. I wish to express my most heartfelt gratitude to my wife, Doris Bestman, and my daughter, Owanaemi Katherine Bestman, for the sacrifices they made. Obviously, it would have been very challenging to complete this book without their support. How about when the journey became discouraging and frustrating, their emotional supports and encouragement gave me the impetus to move on, even though the journey was rough and uncertain. In addition, I sincerely appreciate all those who have contributed in one way or the other to the success of this study. Although, I did not specifically mention your names, it does not signify less importance. Truly, I wish to use this forum to let you know that your efforts and prayers still rest within my heart. All I can say is thank you, and God bless you all. Finally, I dedicate this work to the Almighty God, who gave me the grace to complete this study.

PART I

The Quality of Social Interaction and Legacy Transfer

Chapter 1

Introduction

K NOWLEDGE IS A critical ingredient people apply daily in their transactions whether in an organization or the society. When it is transferred, it provides a means of maintaining values and legacies in the society whether in families, governments, monarchies, organization or the society in general. Specifically, in an organization, knowledge determines the competitive advantage of the organization, which makes its transfer a critical success factor if the organization intends to survive in a dynamic market condition. It also provides the means to structure the resources of an organization. This suggests that if an organization does not have a means to transfer its core competence from the knowledgeable employees to others, more especially from a departing leader to an incoming leader, the tendencies for the organization to lose its comparative advantage or longevity will be likely. In concurrence, Rothwell (2010a) noted that an organization that is without an efficacious scheme for knowledge transfer amongst its employees stands the risk of liquidation and extinction when sudden disaster affects its human resources. Obviously, understanding the factors that influence knowledge transfer amongst the members of an organization would also enhance the organizational competitive advantage and its business longevity. Put differently, knowledge retention is indeed crucial to an organization as it is to the society, more especially, during a leadership succession process, where a predecessor is required to pass his or her legacies to a successor. In situations where legacies are not passed on from one leader to another, the organization stands the risk of losing its core competences and that may lead to loss of the organizational memory. Correspondingly, in our contemporary society when parents do not pass on their core values and legacies to the succeeding generation, it leads to generational memory loss. Generally, when these legacies are not passed on, it becomes a memory loss to the organization or the society because the legacies reside in the heads of the people whether in an organization or the society. From the reasoning above, it is evident that when employees leave an organization without transferring part of their core competence, the organizational memory becomes less of its original state since the organizational memory is the total sum of all the memories of the employee in the organization. Similarly, in the society, where parents do not pass their legacies or life experiences to their children, this causes a generational memory loss because the children would not leverage on their parents’ legacies. In other words, without legacies transfer, it becomes challenging for an entity to have longevity while remaining relevant in the soc iety.

Knowledge Transfer Practices and the Dynamics of the Environment

The transfer of skills and experiences (tacit knowledge) from one organizational leader (predecessor) to another (successor) is not only challenging to both the predecessor and the successor, but also for those planning the knowledge transfer initiatives. The phrase from one leader to another suggests that the skills and experiences are neither a documented knowledge nor a knowledge that may be transferred through training by an external source or any other person within the organization. As if the challenge of transferring knowledge from one leader to another is not enough, the factors in the business environment are also volatile, for example, to enhance the flow of knowledge from one leader to another during leadership succession, researchers and practitioners have suggested performance review, creation of talent pool, job rotation, and so on, as an effective means of supporting the organizational memory (Brull, 2007: Kleinsorge, 2010; Thakkar, 2012). Nevertheless, these leadership succession practices are rather succession processes and do not enhance effective knowledge transfer from a departing leader to an incoming leader during leadership succession. It is even more obvious, when the knowledge transfer involves the transfer of skills and experiences from a departing leader to the incoming leader. In fact, the design of these protocols does not consider the knowledge (skills and experiences) of the predecessor as key to what is to be transferred to the successor. The continued application of these ineffective knowledge transfer protocol in leadership succession is associated with colossal loss of organizational memory. This is evident in the suggestion of Lamourex, Campbell, and Smith (2009) that executives take away 80% of the knowledge they have acquired in the organization. What do these statistics suggest? It means that despite the thousands of dollars spent on developing employees, organizational leaders have not been able to device a scheme to motivate the employees to share their skills and experiences with other employees while they are still in the organization. Furthermore, the statistics also suggest that because of the ineffectiveness of the knowledge transfer schemes, organizational leaders, at the point of exit will most likely transfer only 20% of the expertise to their successors while the predecessors exit the organization with 80% of expertise acquired while in the organization. What a colossal loss to the organization! This proposes that most of the leadership succession practices do not necessarily yield the required knowledge retention. Rather, it is often about replacing one leader with another leader and not necessarily replacing the talent. In concurrence, Dean and Carol (2006) observed that many organizations that have adopted leadership succession practices still suffer from poor leadership because they lack an effective knowledge transfer process for the succession. To quantize the magnitude of the leadership deficiency, Cheese, Thomas, and Craig (2008) observed that the 24% to 74% leadership deficiency in organizations is due to the lack of effective knowledge transfer between the predecessor and successor. The above statistic is consistent with the observation that, the literature on succession planning focuses on the succession process, rather than how to transfer skills and experiences from predecessor to successor.

Since these knowledge transfer initiative in leadership succession are not effective, it cannot hedge the effect caused by the volatility in the business environment, thereby causing continuous organizational memory drain each time an employee, especially a leader departs. Eaton (2010) explained that the changes in the business environment have consistently increased the difficulty of retaining leadership talent in an organization. For example, in recent years, the volatility of the business environment such as rapid technological change, globalization, aging of the workforce, workforce mobility, and increased competition have further increased the difficulty of retaining leadership talent in several ways. First, uncertainty in the business environment such as globalization and competition has increased the leadership deficit in organizations. According to Mbekeani (2007), globalization has encouraged workforce mobility by removing the barrier to mobility; consequently, it has increased the attrition rate in most organizations. For instance, globalization has opened up new frontiers for entrepreneurs and employees in terms of business and job opportunities that were previously not accessible. As the restrictions to trade become weaker, entrepreneurs, investors, and employees alike can now transact business with less boundary and trade restrictions. This has made the world a global marketplace. Consequently, organizations now have the opportunity to source for talents without boundary. ‘Without boundary’ implies that employees now have several opportunities that were previously not available. This has definitely exposed most organizations to the effect of workforce mobility due to competition. In this case, as the employees move from one organization to another, they also leave with the core competences they have acquired from the organization, which further widens the organizational memory loss. Ultimately, if the organization does not have an effective knowledge transfer scheme for sharing of skills and experiences, the organizational memory loss becomes visible. In accordance, Henderson (n. d) asserts that globalization has made it challenging to retain leadership talents in an organization, particularly when increased competition leads to the loss of critical employees. This further buttresses the need for an effective knowledge transfer scheme that will motivate employees to share their skills and experiences without which most organizations will lose its critical employees to the whims and caprices of its competitors as globalization further opens-up new frontiers.

Also, in terms of how sudden exist of an employee affects the organizational memory, Rothwell (2010a) warned that an organization would experience difficulty surviving, if a successor does not have the required expertise to meet the demand of the volatile market when the time comes for a leadership transition. He cited the case of the tragedy at the World Trade Center, where 172 corporate vice presidents lost their lives unexpectedly on September 11, 2001. His analysis reveals that an organization is vulnerable to unexpectedly losing its leadership talents. This is in concurrence with Halter’s (2009) warning that no one can live forever. Hence, leaders must understand that they have a fixed tenure in an organization and that uncertainty could make it shorter. Such unforeseen circumstances have further increased the talent deficit in