Knowledge hiding between co-workers
I'm catching up on a bunch of long-idled feeds and came upon this find at Smart Lemming, Knowledge Hiding is the Norm between Co-workers?
New Research Finds Co-workers Hide their Ideas
McMaster University's May 1st press release titled "Co-workers hoard their best ideas: Silence not sharing is the norm" provides some interesting insights into how knowledge workers work together. "Have you ever asked a colleague for information, only to have them ignore your request? Did you feel they were purposely avoiding you or only pretending to be ignorant? You may have been right. Catherine Connelly, assistant professor of human resources & management at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University, has found that employees often protect their knowledge and will even take steps to hide it from co-workers.”
Knowledge hiding and knowledge hoarding seem to be essentially the same. The idea of hiding as described here is the more active decision to NOT share something we know for fear or uncertainty about what it implies. Hoarding is usually done from a perspective of "knowledge is power." I'm curious to see the deeper article on this topic.
Several months ago, I had a conversation with a friend who had spent several years at a government agency in DC. Without getting into the details of that discussion, the upshot was that any government worker's value was a function of not 'What' the person knew but 'Who' else would know something that the indivdual could refer someone else to. Apparently, the function of government work is not to actually DO something that gets an issue resolved but to refer people who are seeking information or resolution to someone else who CAN get it done. Whoever becomes known as a 'matchmaker' this way becomes a more valuable commodity. So, the hoarding of information (in this agency, anyway) was not so much a matter of usable information but of referrals.
At least, that's how I think I remember it. In any event, the conversation revalidated for me why I never want to do government work.