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This is something that has been bothering me for the past few years; lack of knowledge sharing amongst a set of community. I noticed that a lot of people treat knowledge as a flat, one dimensional, equivalent thing where the whole aim of the game is to absorb. Absorb until you are full and continue keeping it to yourself. There are so many assumptions to why we do not share our knowledge to the person beside us. On top of that, I really cannot imagine how we can function as a community with the lack of knowledge sharing unless we can start describing some of the richness and positive values behind sharing.

What is the opposite of knowledge sharing?

A lot of people assumes that it is knowledge herding; a premeditated attempt to hide something away for your own future purposes. In other words, people think that knowledge sharing and knowledge hoarding are intentional acts. However, is it possible for us to simply fail to sharing our knowledge with others? Isn’t that the same as not sharing knowledge you say?

In my opinion, they are quite different. For example, some of us might not notice what you said or the simple fact that they do not know anyone in their community who could benefit from sharing your knowledge. Or maybe, it could be that the person intended to share initially but forgot to do so thereafter? Perhaps, most tend to assume that knowledge is created fair and equal where they think that if you share something with one friend, hence it will be the same for another friend. One analogy would be, sharing my email with you is the same as knowledge sharing where I teach another person how to do an ollie.

It is different for everyone. I am not going to go further into what is knowledge sharing because there is so much to it. However, I would like to share the common reasons I get on why people do not share their knowledge with others; together with my take on it.

1. Too busy to do it

There is not time for me to do so; I am up to my neck with datelines and meetings.

This is by far the most popular reason given by many. There is pressure to perform, meet datelines and the general consensus that the more knowledgeable you are, the more tasks there are for you to do so. How is it possible for you to share your knowledge or add to the knowledge database with friends or colleagues when there is simply no time to do so?

2. Job security

What I share might be misinterpreted and I could be blamed regardless of the implementation.

The fear of punishment is probably one of the more common reasons why people choose to withhold knowledge from others. Agreed that there are certain information that confidential but that does not mean that everything is. Or is it easier for us to assume that everything is the same to make it easier on us?

3. No incentive for doing so

What’s in it for me?

My personal experience is that knowledgeable people love to share their expertise with the people around them. Look at the way they talk; full of gusto. It could be that their work environment limits this natural inclination. We need to understand these barriers before we propose a change. One article that illustrates examples was written by Larry Stevens of Knowledge Magazine in October 2000. He cited seven incentives for sharing at the workplace to start:

a) Hire people who will share
b) Develop trust
c) Vary motivations
d) Show public recognition
e) Reorganize for sharing
f) Create communities
g) Develop leaders

The full article is available at KM World.

4. No one bothers the knowledge shared

No difference whether I share or don’t.

Because of an individual, we have a general tendency to assume that everyone think the same way too. Not realizing how useful the knowledge is to others who are in the same situation as the individual is a large gap we need to bridge. It may not just be that. Despite the knowledge being unrelated at the point of time it was shared, it could be helpful in a totally different context; maybe trigger an innovation as most developments come from sharing of knowledge with wide groups of people.

5. Knowledge is power

Why should we give-up our hard-won knowledge?

Knowledge back in the days refers to personal advantage over the other person in the same room but how true is that? We are beginning to see much more teamwork and collective knowledge being cultivated at work and the dwindling of people who have knowledge that they can hold their peers to ransom. Trade secrets? That’s a load of garbage to me. The more you share, the more powerful you are hence; knowledge is still powerful even if you share.

Conclusion

There are other couple of reasons to why we do not share knowledge but I figured that these are the more important ones to cultivate a discussion with the readers. So drop everything and think the next time you share something with someone. What knowledge are you interested in sharing and why? Feedbacks and comments are most welcome.

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