Posted by Denham on May 09, 2000 at 09:36:13:

In Reply to: Incentives for Knowledge Sharing posted by Michael Wagner on May 09, 2000 at 07:00:06:

Greetings Michael,

I have been down this road a number of times with clients and can share some experiences here. My first 'fix-it' advice was to correct the incentives, this met with very mixed results and so I started to dig deeper. Here is where I'm at now:

Sharing knowledge is closely tied to individual identity:
Look at ways to build a 'safe space' a context and locale, 'Ba', where people are encouraged to take small steps, core participants model open communication and share without reserve. This often is best achieved within a small community of practice, what von Krogh etal call a micro-community in their new book "Enabling Knowledge Creation". This is more about reciprocity and appreciation than a place without strong critique.

Sharing is a by-product of belonging:
This I have learned from work with communities of practice and from the keen observations of Etienne Wenger. We all share in a very natural way once we can rationalize this behavior in terms of group benefits and building our own identity. So the secret is to create opportunities for membership a trajectory and gradient from periphery to core, perhaps as communities of practice, perhaps in virtual forums such as this.

Recognition rather than reward is key:
A client did not have extra budget to reward their staff who contributed content, time or who used their new 'knowledge' repository. They asked the staff to rank their peers (360 degree feedback) and then gave the top performers the new larger computer screens. These were already in the pipeline (no additional costs), a clear visible statement, it was obvious to all who was sharing and using, just check their monitor!. No fuss, no huge ceremony, just a lasting and very visible statement.

What counts is intrinsic motivation, what matters is how you couple and evaluate personal identity when you hire, how you nuture and assist folks to strengthen their identities in the workplace. Never under estimate the 'pull' of leadership example and the need to model quality sharing behavior. This works faster, gives lasting results and puts the emphasis where it matters most, NOT the push of rewards, but the pull of indentity, the support of engagement and the bonds of belonging.

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Follow Ups:

• The power of knowledge vs. the knowledge of power. Ron C. de Weijze 12:05:24 05/09/00 (1)
  • Re: The power of knowledge vs. the knowledge of power. Robert Benjamin 07:37:56 05/10/00 (0)

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