Why people don't share knowledge

Looking back in my (this) blog archive I'm surprised that I never blogged about barriers for knowledge sharing, while this was a topic that we studied in a project long time ago. Or maybe I didn't search well enough, but since it's a topic that still interests me, it's about time I write about it! I saw an article posted "Why people fail to share knowledge", which triggered my search. It's a topic that keeps coming back and I don't think much has changed over the years. I bet people have the same reasons why they don't share their knowledge as they had say 10 years ago.

The author of the article (Zach Wahl) mentions three main reasons why people fail to share knowledge: lack of priority, worry about being replaced and fear of getting in trouble. The first two are reasons I often hear, I'm curious about the third (getting in trouble) - I'm wondering why this is a big one according to Wahl, and if it's dependent on the culture of the company.

Lack of priority: we've heard this often, "I don't have time.." (to share, to contribute). The finger points to management, who is not clear about the value and importance of sharing. I agree that this might be the case, I've also seen that knowledge workers sometimes have a different interpretation of what is important or think that they are measured only by the "real work", whether this is true or not. If this were true for many years, it will be hard to change.

Worry about being replaced: many organizations went through changes, reorganizations, having to let go of people. Then it's understandable that it worries people to share what they know, it can make them replaceable. And they feel they're still in the company because of the expertise they have. As well, if they are the go-to person for a lot of questions, that's not a position they want to give up!

Fear of getting in trouble: as I suspected, Wahl refers to a culture of fear where people keep their heads down and just do the work. As well, social media got people in trouble, this can be an issue especially in regulated envirionments. I get what Wahl means with this third reason, still I think the first two are more important. I haven't heard many people about the third one, but variations, like: fear of feeling stupid, the thought that someone else is better in answering.

Steve Dale posted a blog post about knowledge sharing barriers in which he lists individual, organisational and technological knowledge sharing barriers. This is quite a comprehensive list. Here again, the top barrier (first mentioned) is lack of time. So if there is something we need to tackle first, it's this barrier - or the impression of knowledge workers that they don't have time to share!