FIVE
REASONS PEOPLE DON'T TELL WHAT THEY KNOW
by Carol Kinsey Goman
And yet, when I looked through the research, most of the literature was on technology; some of it was on corporate culture; but none of it was on individual inhibitors and motivators to sharing. There is a huge amount of knowledge at all levels of an organization: about what customers need, how processes could be improved, or what new products and services could be developed. In trying to capture and communicate this cumulative wisdom, corporations have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate portals, collaborative software and KM-oriented intranets. But knowledge sharing is more than the technology that supports it, more than a business strategy aimed at optimizing a company's experience and expertise, and even more than a cultural shift from the industrial to the information age. Knowledge sharing is, first and foremost, about people. "Getting people to really share what they know is required now if you going to start letting the Net modernize the organization," says Laurence Prusak, IBM's top knowledge guru. In
the perfect knowledge-sharing model, managers are valued not because
they know more than their staffs, but because they can quickly communicate
to their staffs what they know and get staff members to do the same
with each other. Leaders build environments of trust and mutual
respect where creative contribution is nurtured, and employees at
all levels understand That's
the ideal. The reality is somewhat different. I have recently These human barriers underscore the importance of tackling the people issues in knowledge management before relying on technology to improve communication. This
is becoming an extremely expensive reality. International Data In addition to that, best practices and lessons learned have the potential to save companies billions of dollars more. Kenneth Derr, the former Chief Executive Officer of Chevron, saw the situation this way: "Every day that a better idea goes unused is a lost opportunity. We have to share more, and we have to share faster. I tell employees that sharing and using best practices is the single most important thing they can do." Easier said than done. There are many reasons why people are reluctant to share what they know. They are busy and don't have time to share. They forget to share. They don't want the additional work and responsibility that goes with sharing. They are assigned to projects they feel are unworthy of their contribution (a derisive term for this kind of project is WOMBAT--waste of money, brains and time). But, as common as these conditions may be, they were not the responses I found most often in my research. Here are the top five reasons why people don't tell what they know: 1. People believe that knowledge is power "If I know something you don't know, I have something over you." (These quotes are from managers in my study.) Educational systems are designed to discourage information sharing. If I give you an answer to a question on a test, and we are graded on a curve, I have put myself at a disadvantage. Most people still struggle with the idea that "if I tell you what I know, I lose something." When a company's evaluation, promotion and compensation are based on relative numbers, the perception is that sharing knowledge will (always) reduce the chance of personal success. Therefore,
the first obvious solution is to change the reward system. Find
ways to reinforce and reward knowledge sharing. Recognize and promote
people who learn, teach and share. And penalize those who do not.
In all best-practices companies, hoarding knowledge and failing
to build on ideas of others have visible and sometimes serious career
consequences. At American Management Systems, "leveraging"
what you know by educating Second, understand that there are more powerful motivators than money. For 25,000 Xerox field service technicians around the world, contributing to the Eureka database of maintenance tips is an opportunity to become known as a thought leader. To be personally identified with the solution to a difficult problem, in front of Xerox service reps all over the world, is the biggest incentive in getting people to contribute. At Xerox, they demonstrate that knowledge hoarding is no longer power, but a reputation for knowledge sharing is. 2. People are insecure about the value of their knowledge "I feel that people tend to underestimate life experience, that intellect has been so over praised, and for some people without a formal education, that it is hard for them to believe that they can add value in a very different way." My latest book, Ghost Story: A Modern Business Fable, features a character who doesn't share knowledge because she believes she has nothing to contribute. Dot (the book's heroine) is an example of what educators refer to as "unconscious competence." Simply put, she doesn't know what she knows. And, because she is outranked and intimidated in all team discussions, she believes her input has no value. (In the end, of course, it is her courage, strength, and innate wisdom that save the day.) There
are mini-cultures in every organization. Regardless of the overall
corporate culture, individual managers and team leaders can nurture
a climate for collaboration within their own work group or staff.
And the best of these leaders do so by taking the time and effort
necessary to make people feel safe and valued. They emphasize people's
strengths while encouraging the sharing of mistakes and lessons
learned. They set clear expectations for outcomes and clarify individual
roles. They help all members recognize what each of them brings
to the team. They model 3. People don't trust each other "I didn't know the other members of the team personally, so I didn't trust them." A culture for collaboration must be based on trust. Yet, too often, in the rush to get started on a new project, we get groups of people together and tell them to "get to work." This approach proves less than productive, as the group hasn't had time to discover each other's strengths and weakness nor to develop a common understanding and vision for the project. In addition, high turnover, mass layoffs and early retirements make it extremely challenging to develop the mutual trust necessary to build strong relationships throughout the organization. Even
the motivation for individuals to contribute knowledge to an Since people are naturally reluctant to share information with others when they don't know them well enough, the solution begins with creating opportunities for people to meet and interact in both formal and informal settings. And don't rush them. Give people time to develop relationships, to evaluate each other's trustworthiness, and to learn each other's strengths and weaknesses well enough to adapt constructively to them. Taking time to build this "social capital" at the beginning of a project increases the effectiveness of the team later on. Trust
is fragile. Built slowly over time, it grows as people take small 4. Employees are afraid of negative consequences "I was afraid that my idea would be ridiculed if it were slightly 'over the top,' rather than looked at as a useful brainstorming point." Years ago, on an airplane trip from San Francisco to Toronto, I sat next to two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling. When I asked him about the greatest obstacle to innovation, he replied that it was "any process--educational, scientific, or organizational--that stops the flow of ideas." Knowledge is highly contextual. It is triggered by circumstance, such as when the "right people" happen to meet at the right time and discover, in the course of conversation, that each has information needed by the other. So two things seem evident: 1) Knowledge sharing has an elusive, circumstantial quality, and 2) It is in the combination (and collision!) of ideas that creative breakthroughs most often occur. It
becomes crucial, then, to eliminate the barriers to a free flow
of 5. People work for other people who don't tell what they know "Personally, I have had more problems with managers and decision makers withholding information than I have had with colleagues or team members." In any organization, the way information is handled determines whether it becomes an obstacle to or an enabler of knowledge sharing. In the Industrial Age, information management was deliberately obstructive as a matter of policy. Employees weren't expected to contribute to decision-making or problem-solving, so the information they were given was restricted to the bare minimum management felt they needed to do their own particular jobs. Today,
informed collaboration is seen as essential for organizational
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