Posted by Michael Kran on June 21, 1997 at 01:36:06:

In Reply to: Re: How to Harvest your Employees' Knowledge? posted by Virginia Kleist on June 20, 1997 at 23:04:15:

Virginia,

Your point is well made. My sense is that the attitudes of knowledge workers are just as you suggest: clam fisted with knowledge that secures their job and provides them with an advantages over their co-workers.

I remember in 1991 casually observing to the leader of a regional practice that it would be possible to share a single directory for telephone numbers and fax numbers. What I had not realized is that the cooperation and friendliness did not extent to telephone numbers and faxes. Each professional was in competition with the other. (Cutthroat teammates was one graphic term used to describe the relation.)

Having known these people for five years, I was somewhat surprised with the reaction. The answer was: "No way, not my numbers." I had assumed that the telephone numbers of public officials in state taxing authorities were a matter of public record. It may be, but it was then (and still is) a preciously guarded secret to know which number to call.

There was another level to the game. If I know who you call, I may know someone in the government organization that higher up or privy to something your contact isn't. Telling others who you contact, would be like playing your cards face up, while everyone played theirs face down.

It is worth pointing out that in most cases the relationships with the government officials predated their employment with the current employer. So, in a very real sense, the knowledge was the employee's, even under the typical Intellectual Asset agreement.

Interestingly enough, this is also a place where the PBX system was used to run weekly printout of telephone calls, duration, number, point of origin. This didn't phase too many people, since it was competition with their co-workers that mattered in most cases, not secrecy from the employer. (There was no effort at "data mining" the telephine logs. Primarily, the logs were intended as a cost control and abuse prevention system.

The same thing happens with Sales Force Automation. The sales force is convinced that they own the customer relation. The sales person's loyalty is to their customer, their territory and their job security. Without either a carrot or a stick, there is little that would motivate a sales person to provide more than the minimum information to the district manager or headquarters.

In the programming companies, I know of programmers that hold on dearly to small bits of code that perform key functions. It is a form of job security.

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Follow Ups:

• Re: Three specific areas I've seen employees resist knowledge sharing Kevin Flavin 10:48:40 7/31/97 (0)

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