Lately I’ve come to the realization that the problem of under-use and misuse of information has little to do with technology or ‘knowledge management’ and a great deal to do with human nature and culture.
I use the definitions of data, information and knowledge shown at right. Information means literally “to put form to” and knowledge comes from the same root as the word “cunning” which suggests application, not collection. So, for example, laboratory sample results are data, a theory of the cause of a disease stemming from that data is information, and a vaccine for the disease is knowledge. Another example: Test scores of grade three students are data, an analysis of the learning needs of those students is information, and the resultant learning curriculum is knowledge. For the most part science and art are in the ‘sense-making’ business and their product is models, information, representations of reality, yielding products that are interesting and sometime useful. Most modern organizations are in the ‘application’ business, using information to create technologies (in the broad sense of the term) designed to improve people’s lives. Whether most technologies actually do make the lives of people better (other than their owners’ management and shareholders) is of course open to debate. I spent much of my last year, as global Knowledge Innovation leader at a major professional services firm, looking at what I call ‘information behaviours’, and I concluded that what impedes the sharing of information in most organizations is our personal and shared culture, rather than inadequacies in technology, knowledge management, or learning programs. Here are the cultural factors that, I would hypothesize, cause most ‘knowledge failures’:
What have I missed? What other ‘information behaviours’ are at work making it easier, or harder, for people to share what they know with others? With all these psychological barriers to the sharing of information, sometimes it’s surprising that the people, especially in large organizations, are able to communicate with each other at all. So what can we do? In a follow-up to this post I will explore some of the techniques that are, or might be, used by organizations to ‘work around’ these impediments to learning and sharing of knowledge. But we can’t expect technology to do the heavy lifting here. In fact, over-engineered tools can actually make the problems worse. And behaviour can be extremely difficult to change — people behave the way they do for a reason. More effective workarounds might include:
What other techniques have you found that help overcome the many behavioural obstacles to the sharing of information? |
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Wonderful post, Dave. You’ve opened my eyes to a few things I was aware of but had not considered seriously, before reading your post. Esp. #3. I guess it depends on whether the person with access to the information is logical/creative. a logical and practical person might want to reuse while a creative person might want to do it herself despite the perceived loss of time and effort… I have a related post on my blog….http://nirmala-km.blogspot.com/2005/02/km-culture.html
One of your best Dave! This was a total eye-opener and I had lots of “Aha!” moments reading the various constricts to information sharing (and gathering).I’m not sure the people part of this dilemma can be really changed par se as we all operate from positions of protecting our tribal/individual status quo – that’s just human nature: but as the sheer volume of information grows exponentially, there will be some sort of paradigm shift in company strategies to make sifting the important information from the flotsam more efficient.Some companies will become militant and extremely focused in controlling access to their knowledge (large multi-national agri-chemical companies already are) these companies will be recalcitrant about ANY knowlege sharing, charging for the “privilege” of anyone wanting to understand anything etc.Other companies will appear to break-apart into smaller and more maleable sections of the same business which will then be more able to shift and change quickly to new data,information and knowlege growth. I also see the growth of the micro-mini business. That is, businesses made up of 1-6 people. These micro-businesses will stay small deliberately, not only to keep costs down but also to keep their structures super flat and the flow of information more immediate and effective and to maintain communal integrity in their relationship with the consumer public. Information Management may also become a new career option for many as the ability to assess, collect, define and maintain information that is relevant and USEFUL to a company will be a major asset to that company’s ability to be effective.GTD as a University Degree could well be on the cards!!!Mitch
Here is a suggested reading related to the possible solutions for knowledge sharing.It’s a David Weinberger’s article about KM at the BBC.http://www.kmworld.com/publications/magazine/index.cfm?action=readarticle&article_id=2224&publication_id=142
#’s 1, 2, 10 and maybe 11 might be addressable by some sort of anonymous information gathering/sharing systems (like an internal company message board, with polls, idea posts, etc.). If the system could assure anonymity and a level of decency (no “president sucks!” posts – maybe moderated), then people would feel free to mention certain problems which could in turn be viewed by all levels of the company and maybe its customers/vendors. as far as 13, 14 and 16, maybe this anonymous system could issue some sort of ID# for posting an idea/solution, etc. If the solution/idea works, then management can credit and reward whoever owns that ID# (or maybe a collection of id#’s) with a bonus (if they are willing to come forward). Just thinking out loud here. Great post.
OK, I swear I hadn’t read that article that Vincent posted before my previous comment. So yeah, basically what the BBC is doing, but anonymous and with a reward system. You must think me a hack!
I follow these posts every morning and the constant level of investment you make in this blog is astonishing. I’m just going to make a bit of “left-field comment” with regards getting people to share. In my experience the real “deep share” only occurs where people are “realy excited”, where there is an energy and excitement that yes, we are going for innovation that changes the way things work, not just around here, but anywhere. I have worked mostly in small, innovative high-tech environments, so that must kind of atmosphere has to be the air we breath. The “how to” is captured well in the points above, I guess I’m just saying that the “why” needs to be in there as well. Keep up the good work.
You forgot to mention the instituting of a reward system for those who originate new ideas, disseminate the ideas to others, or educate others about the new ideas.”They who are in charge” of corporate America (or Canada or other Adam-Smithian societies) insist on getting rewards for their alleged “risk-taking” activities and their alleged “leadership” activities.In other words, the neo-BS men maniupulate others into always giving to “them who are in power” because they claim we live in an “ownership” society. So where is all this generous giving when the flow is the other way? An honest corporate society should instututionalize an internal patent rights and copyrights and educate-rights system that rewards those within the organization who engage in valuable originating of new ideas, disseminating of the ideas to others, and educating of others. If they refuse to do so, they are one way hypocrites.
We have an enormous problem with sharing information in the publishing industry, especially among writers. The average published author refuses to share data about income, contracts, approaches to self-promotion and publisher relations likely because they fear losing status, being dropped by a publisher or giving free advantage to the competition, which is basically every other writer out there.I’ve tried using humor and/or the direct approach to sharing info about all aspects of my seven years of experience working in the industry over the last year, and the results were a mixed bag. My candor has offended many pros and caused resentment among less-established writers, but I’ve gotten raves from unpublished writers who couldn’t find the information anywhere else.It doesn’t hurt that I’m an established writer, and my backlist gives me a certain amount of clout and protection. If you’re at a point in your career where you depend heavily on the goodwill of peers and superiors for your future success, I think it’s best to go carefully.
Great post Dave, and thanks for it. I’ll add a few observations of my own about information sharing:1) The degree to which people share information corresponds to their awareness that power can derive from sharing rather than witholding.2) People are far more likely to act on conclusions that they draw from the information they receive, rather than on someone else’s conclusions. This is why executive PowerPoint presentations usually have no effect whatsoever.3) In the abscence of information about something important to a group of people, they will make up their own story. More often than not, the story that they make up is worse than the truth.
A counterfactual to 12 “People don’t take care of shared information resources” is wikipedia.What is different about that project (which has some reputation points of Open Source projects, but none of the articles have lead authors, so it doesn’t track directly to OS projects)?There are some commons which are not tragic, and wikipeda and successful Open Source projects are an example.
Vincent, thanks much for the BBC link. There are some good and subtle things there – and it sounds very real, having had the chance to consult there a while once.Clive
Damn, another fantastic post, deserving of a blog unto itself, and yet already there’s a new essay up.
>> eliminating reward and performance evaluation processes that encourage people to hoard or fight over credit for information and ideas, or interfere with collaborationWhat do you find makes a good reward process?
This is an excellent article. Many times we confuse information with power, power in the sense that if we hold onto it, we’ll have greater power. Unfortunately, it is the sharing of information that leads to a greater influence on the world. One other interesting caveat of this is the fact that we’re living in a “remix” period. People are taking old things (even information) and remixing it with new ideas and new forms of communication. Within this period, the lines of information ownership are becoming blurred.
This is a great article that really defines what I was talking through in my latest blog post on <ahref=”http://blog.brettmoller.com/?p=44″> CMS V Blogging and the sharing of good information in relation to effective teaching practice. Thanks for the great insight into information sharing and colaboration!! Great stuff…..
Thanks for your excellent post Dave. All your behaviours resonated with my experience. Your list prompted me to think of a few others you might like to consider:- people have no idea that someone else might be interested in what they know (they don’t value their own knowledge) and conversely they have no idea of what other people know that might interest them.- people feel busy and don’t feel they have the time to share their knowledge- people only absorb information which they need now while most information arrives when it is not needed.- information is typically only packaged in one way and the way it’s packaged don’t resonate with the receiver.- people stay in their discipline and just reinforce their current thinking.
Thanks, everyone. This post has generated a lot more buzz than I expected. Since I’m giving a speech on this next week, I really appreciate the feedback, additional ideas and links. More to come on this soon.
you forgot the money dimension. turns out people will go with information they paid for even if they can get better information from their own people. tthus the existence of the consulting industry.
doh – i need to include this link:http://www.bazaarz.com/archives/2005/09/the_consulting.php
This is an extremely well-thought out article. I’d just like to add the notion that people are more receptive to information if that information helps to confirm their belief in a predictable world. It’s extremely threatening to perceive the world as anything but predictable, which I tried to say in a succinct way in this song:Predictabilitywords and music by Dr. Bruce L. Thiessen, aka Dr. BLT (c)2006http://www.drblt.net/music/predict.mp3Bruceaka Dr. BLTThe World’s First Blog n Roll Artist