Knowledge Sharing: The Facts and the Myths

Copyright © 2005 Paul Chin. All rights reserved.

"Share everything." So says Robert Fulghum in his book "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten." Sadly, for many, it's a concept that hasn't translated well into adulthood.

Parents have always tried to teach their children to share things with siblings and schoolyard chums. They try to remain patient when their kids pull a tantrum, declaring with all the determination of a hungry bear that their toys are, "Mine! Mine! MINE!!!" But despite all that preaching, once the kids are sent to school, the gloves come off and it's their turn to cry, "Mine! Mine! MINE!!!" At the office, large amounts of professional knowledge are squirreled away even though this information will be beneficial to a wider audience — perhaps on the corporate intranet. However, it stays in workers' heads, on their computers, or in their desk drawers.

While the possibilities for intranet applications have grown innumerably with the advances in technology, it's still most often used as the backbone for knowledge sharing. The systems that succeed are reflections of the cooperation and willingness of an organization's staff to share their knowledge. Similarly, those that fail may reflect a shortcoming in those respects. The deathblow of many knowledge sharing intranets is not the tool itself, because that's merely a vehicle to transport and carry the knowledge and information to the masses. Rather, the coup de grâce is a lack of community, the lack of a cooperative knowledge network.

So why keep knowledge to yourself when it can benefit the organization as a whole? Is it for job security? Is it to maintain power? Is it to gain personal advantage over those not in the know?

Children may not have a natural tendency to share and may hoard things they perceive as their rightful property. But they don't do this with any malicious intent or egotistic self-promotion. They're far too young to even comprehend such motives; and this lack of sharing is something they will most likely grow out of. So why do they do it? Simple, they do it — and here's the big point — because they're children, what's your excuse?