So many organizations could thrive if their executives, managers and employees would learn to share information. So why don’t they share?
They may believe that their expertise is power—the school of ‘whoever knows the most wins.’
They may believe that if they share their knowledge, they will not get credit for solutions other people create (and they may well have had that happen).
If someone says ‘Hey could you help me with this?’ and you give them everything you’ve got, and then go to a meeting and they take your material and present it as though it were theirs, you don’t ever share with that person again. But if you give them everything you’ve got and they go to a meeting and say ‘Steve and I worked on this and he really helped me,’ you get recognized for it and you will continue to share with that person.
We have also seen this lack of sharing many times with managers of large accounts.
Account information is a strategic asset for your firm—but only if it is shared. We have many times seen what happens when that information is not shared. The account manager, for one reason or another, can leave your firm and—because she knows more about that account than anyone—take that account with her. And the lifetime revenue of that account disappears because the firm did not recognize how critical that sharing was. That is a very hard lesson for a firm.
We see sharing information as a cultural value.
- Do your firm’s leaders acknowledge people who share information?
- Do they share information themselves?
- Do your executives recognize effective collaboration?
- Do they promote it?
Our experience has been that if sharing is not promoted from the top, it’s not likely going to be done on the bottom.
