Steve Trautman is the principle in The Steve Trautman Company, and author of the Peer Mentoring Workshop, which for 15 years has helped thousands of employees, business leaders, and managers, improve how they communicate, transfer knowledge and deliver on-the-job training. Steve is also the author of the book, Teach What You Know: A Practical Leader’s Guide to Knowledge Transfer and co-author of The Executive Guide to High-impact Talent Management: Powerful Tools for Leveraging a Changing Workforce.
Steve’s expertise in the issue of knowledge transfer and talent management was born from 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 Peer Mentoring 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 Peer Mentoring 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.