Wednesday 22 September 2021

Sharing knowledge is for everyone - inspiring story

 I read this story on Linked-In with real enjoyment, and have the author's permission to share it with you. 


This is the image Tabarak used to illustrate her story
It's an inspiring story of how anyone in an organisation, even those very new in their post, may have valuable knowledge to share with their colleagues. 

The story is told by Tabarak Ali Al-Lami, who very recently became a Reservoir Engineer at Schlumberger in Qatar (Schlumberger is one of the world's leading companies as far as Knowledge Management is concerned). Here is her story.


As I type this post, I’m reminded of a time when a part of me had thought that the act of sharing knowledge (be it lessons learned, newly developed models, continuous improvement techniques etc.) would be limited or cease to be of great importance upon entering the industry and after my years in academia. To my pleasant surprise however - at Schlumberger and through different shared forums uniting technical professionals, otherwise known as Special Interest Groups (SIGs) - I quickly came to the realization that what I had previously envisaged couldn’t be further from the truth.

Part of my training process within the #Digital and #Integration sub-entity is to review the material that I learn and communicate it with my team including my mentor - whom upon conducting such reflection with - encouraged me to internally share those learnings, despite it being my first month as a Reservoir Engineer!

As excited as I was about the prospect of sharing what I had learned with SLB’s technical community, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t daunted by the proposition of having to speak to it intelligently at a venue that hosted members of substantially higher competency and expertise than what I’ve managed to acquire at this stage of my development – some with experience years that surpassed my age, let alone my time as a young professional! I remember how I kept thinking to myself: Why would such crowd listen to a junior RE? Surely, they must all know and be fully aware of what it is I’ll be presenting on.

But with a slight nudge from my mentor to see it from another angle and apply a perspective on things, I was able to develop appreciation towards the fact that it is not about the number of years, rather the richness of your experience 😊 and having heard a three-dimensional feedback from my webinar, it’s fair to say that it fully reaffirmed that thought in my mind and served as a true highlight of my first three months at D&I.

Suffice to say, it felt extremely fulfilling and enriching to present to our wider blue family!

The moral of the story is clear in the 4th paragraph - It's not about the number of years, rather the richness of your experience. And experience, when shared, enriches your colleagues as well. 

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