Steve Trautman
Steve Trautman is the author of the Knowledge Transfer Workshop, which for 15 years has helped thousands of employees, business leaders, and managers improve the way they communicate, transfer knowledge and deliver on-the-job training. Steve is also co-author of Executive Guide to High-Impact Talent Management: Powerful Tools for Leveraging a Changing Workforce (McGraw Hill, 2011). He has advised executives on practical ways to hire, train, motivate, and measure employees to ensure high-impact performance—and profitable outcomes—for more than two decades. His pioneering work on knowledge transfer is now the nationally recognized gold standard used by companies ranging from Microsoft and Boeing to Nike and Zynga, as well as many organizations in the public sector. Trautman’s tested approach combines humor, street smarts, and boardroom wisdom to give today’s executives what they need to become practical leaders.

Steve’s expertise in knowledge transfer developed during his years at Microsoft in the early 90s, where he started out as a project manager on the early versions of Word. He initially developed this workshop as a solution to the immediate needs of the team he led. Steve later founded one of the earliest training departments at Microsoft (supporting the one-third of the company shipping software) and continued to hone the Knowledge Transfer tools there. That work was the foundation for the program that Steve has since delivered for companies like Electronic Arts (EA), Boeing, Nordstrom, Nike, Intel, U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force, Southern Company, Nordstrom and Food Services of America.

While with Microsoft and, later as the General Manager for the Advertising Business Unit at Expedia.com, Steve was walking in his clients’ shoes. As a result, he understands first-hand the everyday realities of leading, teaching and learning on the job. His subsequent consulting work, which exposed him to many industries, has allowed Steve to see and understand the challenges faced by employees from the front lines and factory floor, to the sales desk and on up to the chief executive’s office. In addition, Steve wrote Teach What You Know: A Practical Leader’s Guide to Knowledge Transfer and Peer Mentoring to reach organizations at every level.

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