Monday, January 13, 2014

Culture of Knowledge-Sharing

Culture of Knowledge-Sharing is to Improve Organization's Learning Capability. 


Knowledge is Power”, in the organization domain, knowledge is the context to make work well done, thus, if the success of others is the value and cooperation is the expectation, then "Knowledge-Sharing" culture needs to be cultivated, as people need a common goal to be willing to share knowledge. What’s a more systematic understanding upon building a culture of knowledge sharing?



"Knowledge sharing culture" as a goal for leadership is to encourage & recognize talent, and make it practical for the members to help them do their work. Perhaps the thing to focus on is the three-step knowledge-sharing behaviors: Learning before each event, and sharing learning after each event, and then co-creating the new knowledge and insight. it is often easier to have people sharing what they know, but more difficult to see people reusing what others have developed. To promote the "knowledge sharing culture" in any enterprise organization, a reward motivation program shall be applied along with KPI measurements exercise. 

Knowledge management is very related to the culture of organization: It's important to create the right culture that fits both the organization and the employees is hence important. There are several elements that make the process faster, such as; trust, mutual respect, sense of unity, and mutual gain. Employees should think of knowledge sharing as something they gain, rather than lose. Knowledge is more like a commodity, only a couple of clicks away at today’s information abundance, only through sharing and updating, it can be refreshed and refined into insight and wisdom.

 "Knowledge is power" could be seen as a part of "Intrinsic Motivation": Knowledge workers with intrinsic motivation like to share their knowledge to learn more by themselves. Most of the times knowledge workers are perfectly able to find a balance between sharing knowledge and ensuring sharing knowledge will not become a goal in itself. One’s knowledge is the other one’s information only, the ultimate business goal is to improve productivity and encourage innovation.

What about cognitive, psychomotor, and affective knowledge? Knowledge is dynamic and multidimensional it’s not just spoken or transferred in hard-copy, it’s also transferred visually and through emotions /feelings. There’s a very wide range of knowledge to be considered. Traditionally you have look at knowledge transfer in three formats listed as follows:
• Cognitive; intellectual outcomes
• Psychomotor; new physical skills
• Affective; attitudes, values, beliefs

The success of KM is mainly tied to Culture. KM-Knowledge Management is the overarching umbrella, which can include culture as soft, but key success factor –it’s a management domain upon how information flows in the organization ... People's beliefs and values are normally distilled through a long process of cultural cumulating, socio-culturally and organizationally. If knowledge is not flowing smoothly in the organization, figuring out the causes is a significant contribution to KM. Knowledge sharing is embedded in the work styles, and well-placed KM systems, KM methodologies/tools do play a major role. Knowledge sharing becomes an effortless activity, it is not a separate exercise- one does it because every bit of information in the organization is tagged and flows through KM channels

Take holistic KM approaches. An effective KM platform or tools are efficient, however, many other aspects of knowledge management cannot be solved by technology only. KM needs to look at all the present collaborative processes already being used to evaluate them for improvements to enhance knowledge sharing, decision making, and follow on actions based on the decisions made. Innovation and knowledge creation, access and knowledge usage appear to be linked. And now at the age of information explosion, it is about managing knowledge to create new knowledge with vast knowledge repositories available for talent to work with. The knowledge sharing culture is strongly influenced by both corporate/organizational and social structures, KM  is not only about sharing knowledge. It is better to talk about the knowledge you need to do your job. Then you can determine what you need to do to get the right information or experience at the right time.

Keep the end-the ultimate business goals in mind, If everyone already agrees that it is good to satisfy the customer, and they come to understand that by sharing knowledge, you help coworkers to succeed and so better satisfy the customer, then the culture will begin to value sharing knowledge and the organizatons move towards an "Knowledge-Sharing culture.

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