Sharing your skills and knowledge with others is not just kind and helpful. It says something about who you are, what you value and how you like to work.
Human qualities
Although often facilitated and driven by technology, at its core, knowledge sharing is quintessentially a human activity.
It displays a spirit of generosity and embraces human qualities that go way beyond the knowledge sharing itself and include:
• Kindness
• Curiosity
• Collaboration
• Networking
• Leadership
• Empathy
• Rapport
• Emotional Intelligence.
A genuine desire to help others underpins most knowledge sharing and has hugely beneficial repercussions for the knowledge giver as well as the recipient. And a collaborative, knowledge-sharing organisational culture results in positive attitudes and tangible business benefits.
Knowledge silos
Conversely, organisations which foster a culture in which ‘knowledge is power’ perpetrate a secretive work environment where information is guarded jealously and revealed only on a strict ‘need to know’ basis. Working silos flourish in this context and departments can become segregated operations instead of contributing to an effective whole, with common overarching objectives.
It’s not uncommon to find that IT developers protect their ‘hold’ over the systems upon which everyone else relies, implementing their own priorities and solutions to the exclusion of others’. And it’s surprising how often sales teams don’t share vital customer insights with their marketing colleagues. Have you ever been astonished – and annoyed – to realise that someone in your organisation has valuable, relevant information that they haven’t bothered to share with you?
In places where managers enjoy a sense of ‘power’ over their people by withholding key information, teams lack trust and team members work in competition with one another instead of collaboratively. People seek ways to outwit their managers and out-do one another.
Why do individuals or teams seek to keep things from other colleagues in the same organisation?
Sometimes this absence of knowledge sharing is encouraged by an insidious, unspoken understanding that to prosper and do well you need to out-perform your colleague rivals. In these circumstances, knowledge sharing is not in your interests and nor is it expected. In this dog-eat-dog scenario, no-one is going to help you, so why should you help them? Ultimately, this kind of selfish culture stems from senior leadership and it won’t change unless there is a change at the top - or the organisation fails. Leadership style is contagious and it’s the people at the helm of an organisation that set the tone.
Doing without thinking
But this nasty, anti-sharing culture is not that common in my experience. Much more typical is a workplace where people are just so busy doing whatever they are doing, that they don’t stop to think about the needs of others or consider seeking help themselves. Working From Home can exacerbate this because simply having access to online knowledge and information doesn’t automatically make it useful. Or used. It’s how we interact and use that information - in a human way - that makes it valuable. And often that requires interaction with others; accessing knowledge is less effective as a solitary activity.
It might never occur to someone that they have skills and knowledge that could be relevant to people in their department or elsewhere in their organisation. And it’s easy to become blinkered under time pressures and deadlines and not seek alternative perspectives or solutions from people outside your immediate team.
That’s where networking and curiosity play such an important role in knowledge sharing.
Being interested in others
Encouraging our innate human curiosity enables you to explore and ask questions. In our podcast ‘Being Curious’ Douglas Miller urges us to ask, ‘what great question have you asked today?’ In the context of knowledge sharing, I suggest that we ask ourselves, ‘What skills or knowledge have I shared today?’ and, ‘What have I learned from other people today?’
By proactively looking for opportunities to share what you know with others leads to all kinds of benefits. Just being interested in other people and their work helps us to network, make new connections and learn about how what we’re doing, saying and proposing impacts other people. When we understand other people’s roles and perspectives, we’re in a much better position to offer relevant support and help. And when we proactively seek knowledge sharing opportunities, that is often reciprocated. An exchange of knowledge and ideas takes place when people are open to one another.
What motivates people to share?
Sharing your knowledge with someone who can benefit from it can be extremely rewarding. It’s usually an enjoyable experience, and helping others can make you feel good and feel valued. It also builds a connection between you and your colleagues, fostering respect and friendship. The person who is generous with their time and support for others is usually well-liked and held in high esteem. Far from losing ‘advantage’ by sharing what they know, they gain hugely in kudos and positive reputation.
Some people are naturally inclined to share what they know and do so easily and without even trying. Others may need to consciously make time for it. But knowledge sharing doesn’t have to be solely motivated by an instinctive, altruistic desire to help others. It has tangible benefits to the giver, the receiver and the organisation, when people work together for the good of a common goal. When tasks are achieved more quickly or more effectively thanks to knowledge sharing, everyone gains. Promoting a knowledge sharing organisational culture creates a positive work environment of trust, collaboration and achievement, which in turn results in reduced staff turnover, motivated and unselfish teams, and greater work satisfaction.
Facilitating knowledge sharing
Whilst knowledge sharing is ultimately a human activity it is facilitated and enhanced massively by the availability and application of systems, and AI-powered data.
With the advent of Artificial Intelligence in all aspects of collating, suggesting and providing information, it’s tempting to downplay the human aspects of knowledge sharing. Not all human beings find it easy to network or discuss ideas with their peers and our systems make it possible for us to exchange and use information asynchronously, without the human connection.
How easily are your experts able to distribute their skills and knowledge to others throughout your organisation? Different locations, time zones and personality traits may mean that it’s easier to disseminate information via your internal systems. And external systems and services also increasingly play an important role in influencing our knowledge content and creation.
Ease and speed of access is often crucial in our use of knowledge, and our systems are vital in that respect. But skills are human. And it’s the use of our human skills alongside the benefits of our AI-powered systems which augment the best knowledge sharing. The human powers of critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration and creativity are essential.
What can you share today?
Make good use of your systems to augment the benefits of your knowledge sharing and knowledge seeking. But draw too on your human qualities, those wonderful people skills that make knowledge sharing so appealing and rewarding. And remember to ask yourself, ‘What can I share today?’
Catherine de Salvo
1 November 2024
You can contact Catherine at catherine@scottbradbury.co.uk or via LinkedIn
For a free trial of WATCH & GO® resources on communication skills and much more, please go to: https://www.scottbradbury.co.uk/free-trial/
Scott Bradbury WATCH & GO® resources that are relevant to this article:
What to Say When You Need Someone to Help You