Free Flow vs. Knowledge Sharing

Knowledge Sharing is a voluntary action. It fails to be a process designed for achieving specific ends, in particular understanding the internal and external environments. Thus, it may by-pass the need to work smarter: (Drucker, 1992) “The first question in raising productivity in knowledge and service work has to be: What is the task? What do we try to accomplish? Why do it at all? The easiest – but perhaps also the greatest – increases in productivity in such work comes from redefining the task, and also from eliminating what needs not to be done.” In addition to its limited focus, Sharing ignores the need to understand how one’s own actions contribute to problems. Sharing asssumes that the participant will self-organize and can surmount biases at will to pursue a well informed motive at all times. Leaders have revealed themselves to be rather avaricious and deceitful. Besides, the time and energy available to busy administrators rarely permits this approach.

The natural questioning of generalizations, assumptions and goals in free flow of knowledge reveals the defensive reactions that protect from threat and embarrassment, and learning disabilities that confound reality. Free flow is a process that emerges the reality, aligns team thinking, opens minds, promotes application of knowledge free of personal biases and drives comprehensive thinking. It has to be organized and practiced for development of skills to stretch team members beyond their comfort zones. Only then can learning, superior definition of reality and an effective response o it progress.

Today systematic knowledge flow and the need to interact do not converge. Knowledge Sharing is the best that Knowledge Management ambitions for. This best is not enough for effective application of knowledge. It is perhaps responsible for the failure of Knowledge Management even where it has been pursued with diligence as in case of Enron.