What is knowledge sharing?
This is the act of developing processes to help an organization provide access to important information to multiple teams. Knowledge management takes many forms; however, knowledge sharing is the specific process of disseminating information that is put in place to let your team know how to access information and share it with other team members when necessary.
There are three main types of knowledge:
- Explicit knowledge: Knowledge in its most basic form. Easy to collect and communicate, this information is easily shareable. It could be instructions for logging into a new email account, for example.
- Implicit knowledge: To summarize this knowledge in a few words, we can talk about learning by doing. This information is acquired by putting explicit knowledge into practice. For example, you can certainly obtain explicit information to learn how to drive, but you will have to get behind the wheel to have the implicit knowledge to know how to do it.
- Tacit knowledge: This information is the result of your own experience. Its often personal or cultural nature makes it difficult to share. If it does, simply sharing it will not be enough and these skills will take practice and time to evolve. For example, developing a good sales pitch will require tacit knowledge. No matter how much you practice and rehearse your script, you will not get anywhere until you learn to listen to your audience and understand all the nuances of their behavior, an exercise that takes practice and a lot of experience.
Knowledge sharing or management?
Knowledge sharing and knowledge management are two closely related processes. In truth, knowledge management encompasses knowledge sharing, which is a proactive, strategic approach to finding, retaining, and organizing information.
In short, the process works a bit like your local library: knowledge management is about collecting books and deciding how to shelve them. Knowledge sharing, on the other hand, is about creating the process for sharing those books with those who need the information they contain.
The usefulness of knowledge sharing
Knowledge sharing is at the heart of your company culture development process. It defines how you communicate and share information across your company, across all roles. Here are some of the best reasons to fully integrate this concept into your company culture.
Create a bond between your team members
Sharing knowledge with colleagues is a great way to encourage collaboration and teamwork. Key information to share includes your team’s processes, communication preferences, and strategic documents. This will break down information silos and provide your team with the essential data to collaborate effectively on projects.
Create a reference source grouping all documents
The knowledge-sharing process allows your team to establish a centralized source of reference, which brings together all key information: team processes, company code of conduct, etc. As soon as one of your employees is looking for information, they immediately know where to find it.
Breaking down the barriers of information
Storing useful information in a database and sharing it at regular intervals makes it easier for everyone to access information. Therefore, it should not be the responsibility of a single person. Indeed, it would be enough for this person to fall ill or leave the company to cut off access to the information. Knowledge sharing ensures that the rest of the team has the information they need to ensure the normal functioning of their processes in all circumstances, regardless of the employees involved.
5 tips to encourage knowledge sharing in your organization
Knowledge sharing isn’t just a matter for one person or team; the entire company needs to ensure that information is shared effectively. Here are some tips to encourage this mindset in your organization.
1. Develop a knowledge management strategy
If you’re just starting to build knowledge sharing within your organization, the first step is to adopt a knowledge management and dissemination strategy. The best way to do this is to sit down with your colleagues and decide what information you want to document. Have trouble deciding? Focus on the information your colleagues and cross-functional partners need to do their jobs.
Still can’t do it despite our advice? In this case, try answering the following questions:
- Does completing certain tasks require following a particular procedure or process?
- What is the essential information that our regular collaborators need to know to work on this project?
- In the event of an unexpected work interruption, what information would be useful to my team to get through it?
- What information is essential for the proper functioning of the company?
2. Encourage a culture of sharing
Developing a corporate culture that encourages information sharing needs to come from the top. If leaders lead by example by being transparent and sharing information about how their processes work, individual contributors will be more likely to do the same. The leadership team must therefore create opportunities for consistent and organic information sharing.
With this in mind, you can provide spaces that are naturally conducive to sharing information. For example, offering collaborative workspaces (conference rooms, open spaces, etc.) can encourage discussion. Does your team work remotely or has adopted a hybrid work mode? Organize videoconference meetings for face-to-face contact or share information later using knowledge bases and project management tools.
3. Encourage knowledge sharing across multiple channels
Your team members each have their skills and ways of communicating. One colleague may be very comfortable writing and sharing information easily by writing a concise document, while another may be a better speaker. In short, your team has several options for sharing information. No matter the channel you choose (video, step-by-step guide, etc.), all the information should be kept and accessible in one place. The best solution is to use a knowledge management platform that supports different file types.
4. Identify experts in each team
Your team will always have a small handful of experts who know how processes work, no matter how big or small your organization is. If your company is just starting, identify the people who are creating the processes and have them write down the explanations. If you are in a larger organization, work with team leaders to identify individuals who have developed strong expertise in certain areas. You need to document these procedures and information if you want your team to be able to refer to them in the future.
each person responsible for a task is also responsible for documenting the knowledge about it. Storing information and knowledge is therefore a shared responsibility. In addition, the topics covered are varied and nothing falls through the cracks.
5. Create a collaborative knowledge base
As we have seen, members of the same team will share information differently. However, the storage of this information should be done in the same place for everyone. Using a digital knowledge base can greatly facilitate the team’s task by helping them import it and, above all, modify it to support developments. Digital knowledge management will allow your team to keep up to date with relevant information, which can be updated in real-time. In this way, the team solves the problem of obsolete or useless information.
