A knowledge sharing culture

One of the major challenges faced by colleagues is the lack of access to information and know-how to perform their jobs well. 

Restricting information in silos limits the flow of knowledge in an organisation, and increases the risk of losing important information, or at least, not having it easily available. 

This reduces employee productivity and affects overall growth in the long term.

Moreover, it is likely that the knowledge we have organisationally captured to date is probably a result of someone deciding what colleagues need to know, and then giving them access to information or documents according to perceived relevance and to their authority to view such information. 

As such, knowledge spreads only through predetermined channels, or becomes a rumour shared at the water fountain. It also results in middle-management being almost overwhelmed in passing on information, feeding back comments, and fielding questions.

A better solution might be to put knowledge sharing in the hands of those actually doing the job. Those performing the activities are best placed to know what information is wanted to want to consume, share and record

This latter approach allows the recipient to decide if the information is relevant or of value to themselves or others, or relevant to the service that they are providing to their customers.

There is so much knowledge in every organisation, yet the greater part is stuck in people's heads, and worse, walks out of the door when they leave. 

In a hierarchical organisation knowledge is power; in a cross-functional customer-centric organisation such as we aspire to, knowledge creates shared-value.

A knowledge-sharing culture is a workplace culture that encourages free exchange of knowledge and expertise. 

It creates an environment where employees work together and share ideas and feedback to achieve their overall business objective.  We all do this of course, but rarely do we capture anything other than the standard operating procedures.

While explicit knowledge is often formally documented and shared, tacit knowledge exists inside our heads. It comes from experience learned on the job and can be difficult to articulate or express. It takes the form of personal wisdom, intuition and insights.  

The challenge is how can we access this personal and organisational resource – which is where a knowledge-sharing culture is so beneficial.

The main benefits are:

• It captures tacit knowledge, the essential understanding of how something is done. Often the variation to the norm, or how to solve for when activity has a particular challenge.
• It increases employee engagement and retention – we take satisfaction in sharing what we know, and having that acknowledged by others, and we are less frustrated when we are able to more quickly find that knowledge nugget we need to perfect or complete a task.
• It promotes learning culture – how many times have you searched for some information on Wikipedia and then followed links down and then down again, like the dreams within dreams in the Christopher Nolan movie Inception? Once you have found a knowledge nugget your natural curiosity leads you to want to know more.
• It improves overall productivity – being able to find out what we need to know quickly, or being able to contact the acknowledged expert in the subject will help us do more, more quickly.
• It encourages innovation - creativity and innovation are true assets for businesses who know to cultivate them. They are generated by a free flow of discussions, by documenting and sharing the realisations which result and by the enthusiastic adoption of a culture of knowledge at every level of the organisation.

So… how should we create a knowledge sharing culture? 

Building a knowledge-sharing culture is a continuous process. Some things to consider:

• Implementing a knowledge-sharing tool (perhaps choose one which integrates tightly with MS Teams).
• Devolve decision making, and share feedback on how making decisions close to the customer improves engagement.
• Motivate employees to share their existing an acquired knowledge.
• Work harder on our openness - trust and mutual understanding is better than ‘knowledge is power’.
• Reward employees who contribute regularly to capturing or verifying knowledge nuggets.
• Provide training on knowledge sharing where it is needed.

Let’s recap and conclude - how can capturing tacit knowledge be used to improve organisational culture?

Knowledge, and our management of it, plays a crucial role in shaping and enhancing organisational culture.  

Culture is that ethereal something that hangs in the air and influences how work gets done, it critically affects our ways of working, says who fits in and who doesn't, and determines the overall mood of the company. If capturing how things get done becomes a behavioural norm then, the act of capturing  - and what is captured -  create a virtuous circle of reinforcement.

Providing appropriate tooling allows colleagues to discuss the challenge, then capture the essence of the solution, quickly and in context. 

Participation in and access to this knowledge, usually perpetuates and enhances employee engagement but it also provides colleagues with a ready point of reference, reducing ambiguity and uncertainty.

The culture evolves with enabling and encouragement, to the benefit of the sharing of ideas, collaboration, and access to the latest information. It also allows individuals to stimulate innovation and the further cultural changes needed to evolve the organization and meet changing business needs.

Afterthought

In most organisations, capturing and making available knowledge to date is effectively controlled centrally, and someone random decides who can see it.

If we move to a more democratic way to sharing the knowledge we want to share and using the knowledge we want to use, how will we ensure that this knowledge can be relied upon?

This is all about creating a knowledge sharing culture, one where we all take time out to record how we do things, the tips and tricks for getting on top of the job.  

It is also about accepting that there is likely to be some sort of peer-review – a validation by colleagues that the knowledge nugget created is a reasonable representation of fact. The acceptance of this validation and the willingness to validate others’ knowledge offerings is a key cultural maturity matter.