A close friend recently transitioned from an extremely large organization to a small, fast-paced and entrepreneurial startup. We met shortly after he completed his first all-hands meeting, during which the CEO said something that got his (and my) attention. Namely, that the difference between the new firm and their much larger competition was based on one absolutely critical and innovative tenet – “There will be no corporate hoarding.“
What Is Corporate Hoarding?
Information and knowledge still represent power and this is truer in today’s economy than ever before. Organizations are learning that employee interactions constantly yield new knowledge and information that can benefit their business in tangible ways. And although many companies state that knowledge sharing is important to their business and culture, in most cases, the opposite is occurring.
Corporate hoarding — where people do not want to share knowledge because they see knowledge as a source of power — is very common, and can happen for various reasons within any given business environment, including:
- People feel that an injustice has been done to them;
- People are distrustful of coworkers or management;
- People are retaliating against behavior toward them; and/or
- The organizational and operational climate encourages or reinforces secrecy, not sharing.
In her recent piece, The Fractured Foundation of Social Learning, Radian6′s Amber Naslund accurately defined the problem:
“We don’t teach people to work together – even when we encourage group work – because ultimately our reward systems are still based on individual achievement and skills. We don’t share a grade amongst our entire class. We’re held accountable for our individual contribution and effort. Working together and contributing to a group is not the same as sharing in a collective result.“
Good Ideas Come From Sharing
In his 2010 article, TechDirt’s Mike Masnick described the innovation born from random collisions and a culture of openness:
“Almost all good ideas come from people building on the works of others, with a minor tweak here or there, or a random decision based on a suggestion from someone new, after an idea percolates for months or years. The more open systems are to sharing ideas and spreading information and allowing those collisions to happen, the more likely that new good ideas and new innovations occur.“
Mike also cites the work of entrepreneur Steven Johnson, author of Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation. Johnson’s TEDTalk encourages us to overcome IP-centric thinking, instead allowing your idea’s chocolate to easily combine with your colleague’s peanut butter:
“You have half of an idea and someone else has the other half, and if you’re in the right environment, they turn into something larger than the sum of their parts. So, in a sense, we often talk about the value of protecting intellectual property. You know, building barricades, having secretive R&D labs, patenting everything that we have, so that those ideas will ‘remain valuable’ and people will be incentivized to come up with more ideas. But I think there’s a case to be made that we should spend at least as much time, if not more, valuing the premise of connecting ideas and not just protecting them.“
This Takes More Than Technology
We have tendency lately to think that “there’s an app for that” when the roots that prevent collaboration lie much deeper. Businessweek’s Evan Rosen described this situation as follows:
“When tools fail to create value, it’s usually because decision-makers adopt tools before the company’s culture and processes are collaboration-ready. Organizations even adopt tools for the wrong reasons, primarily the belief that tools will create collaboration. Tools merely offer the potential for collaboration. Unlocking the value of tools happens only when an organization fits tools into collaborative culture and processes. If the culture is hierarchical and internally competitive, it will take more than tools to shift the culture.“
A Model For Assessing Likely Behavior
Perhaps the best and most realistic study that accurately addresses these challenges can be sourced from the INSEAD Working Paper series. The author defines four models that organizations can use to assess the likelihood of sharing versus hoarding:
- The High/High: Individuals perceiving their knowledge to be high in individual value and high in corporate value will engage in selective sharing, sharing that knowledge which might bring recognition and reward to them but concealing that knowledge which might be successfully used by others with no reward for them.
- The High/Low: Individuals perceiving their knowledge to be high in individual value and low in corporate value will engage in information hoarding, choosing to avoid sharing their knowledge but attempting to learn as much as possible from others.
- The Low/High: Individuals perceiving their knowledge to be low in individual value and high in corporate value will engage in information sharing, sharing freely with others for the benefit of the organization.
- The Low/Low: Individuals perceiving their knowledge to be low in individual value and low in corporate value will engage in random sharing, sharing freely when their knowledge is requested but not consciously sharing otherwise.
Although it may seem obvious the study also cites that, “Individuals in subunits characterized by an open communication culture will view knowledge less as an individual asset whereas individuals in subunits characterized by a closed communication climate will view knowledge more as an individual asset.” A good way to assess the challenge ahead is through this simple cultural lens.
A Closing Thought
Organizations and individuals need to have a keen sense of self awareness and avoid the tendency toward aspirational values that don’t ring true to the reality of either party. So before you declare that “corporate hoarding is dead” and expect it to magically dissipate, take a cold hard look at how you communicate, motivate, incentivize and model the same behaviors you’re attempting to eradicate. What you find may surprise you.
In December of 2009 I made an
According to a February, 2011
I’ve always been an enthusiastic traveler. When my family went on vacations when I was younger, I was just as excited about the airplane and hotel room as I was about the theme parks and attractions. I loved everything from the flight attendant’s safety presentation to the seashell-shaped soaps in the hotel bathroom. Don’t even get me started on how excited I was by miniature bottles of shampoo.
My first meeting with the CEO of a Fortune 1000 firm was a complete disaster. It was fifteen years ago and despite the cool breeze that was blowing outside, I was sweating bullets. This guy was a titan of industry so my mind jumped frantically between the thrill of the opportunity and the terror of screwing it up.
On a recent flight to Chicago I happened to be seated next to the CHRO of a large manufacturing firm. After a few pleasantries, he pulled out Gordon MacKenzie’s now legendary management book,
As if transported from an era when chiseled stone memorialized common knowledge, these wide-eyed newbies approach the security process replete with wonder and ignorance. “But I don’t want to take off my shoes.” “What do you mean I need to chug my Monster energy drink?” “A seven ounce tube of lube is against what rule, exactly?” These are actual words spoken by those line-jamming plebes who can’t comprehend the endless multi-media displays and government payrolled cattle herders surrounding every airport terminal. Welcome to the modern age and get it together people.
To you self-important and overly entitled status hoarders, I have a simple observation. Although you have chosen a life in the clouds over that of terra firma, stop acting like such assholes when your super-platinum-double-premier boarding group is called. Try and realize that the two dozen passengers you steamrolled with your siamese wheelie/laptop bag might not bow to your ascension to the top of the air jockey pyramid. Desperately crying out “Premier Executive!”, “Platinum!” or “Elite!” puts a target on your back that my venti latte may be magnetically drawn to.
I hate to burst the imaginary bubble you believe surrounds you and everything within a twenty foot radius, but I can kinda sorta hear every frickin’ word you’re screaming into your cell phone. Aunt Martha’s ass is still sore from her procedure? Got it. The big M&A transaction fell apart because the investment bank screwed up the valuation (with all firm names called out)? Bingo. Your client, the one accused of rape, was wearing a condom (followed by a big “Whew!” while fifty people wish you a slow death)? Roger that. You are in public. I can hear you, have a camera on my phone and immediate access to social media. Don’t make me break you.
Ten minutes after takeoff and the little *ding* tells me it’s okay to take out electronics, and this being business travel, I need to get right to work by kicking open my trusty laptop. You, lovely person in front of me, decide that it’s your God-given American right to press that silver button and let gravity be your guide. And although I really don’t want
One of the beautiful (and occasionally nightmarish) things about modern air travel is the snapshot of Americana present on every single flight. Three of my favorites that I’ve recently encountered are lushes (including the drunk guy next to me who asked for two whiskeys and and shot of Patron, to which the flight attendant responded, “Sir, this is not a flying bar!“), the lovers (such as the couple next to me who nervously looked around while the woman pulled a blanket over her boyfriend’s crotch and they both started moaning) and the losers (like the creepy guy directly behind me who said, “It’s been years since I sat next to a pretty girl“, to which she brilliantly replied, “It’s been years since I maced someone on a plane“). By all means let your freak flag fly, just not in the friendly skies.
Despite the first six eff-ups, somehow we manage to arrive at our destination intact and without bloodshed. Taxiing into the gate, cell phones get turned on, makeup is touched up, breath mints are popped and the tension builds toward the final battle – getting off the damn plane as soon as possible. Yet despite grade school knowledge of lines and the natural order of the seating, some people leap up as if cattle prodded, drag their 8,000 pound bag from the overhead and suddenly appear next to you with their chest heaving from the rush of it all. And God forbid the flight attendant asks that “you remain seated so that those with tight connections can make their flights“. Stay calm. Be polite. Wait your turn.


5 Career Lessons From The Road
Their journey caused me to reflect on the analogy that can clearly be drawn from travel to one’s career path, and thus I present five key career lessons from the road:
1) Know Your Destination – Today’s market requires you to summon your inner GPS to discover the most expeditious path to your particular destination. The wonderful (and challenging) thing about our internet culture is that you can find virtually anything you’d like to know about your target career – leading organizations, differing strategies, the best education, critical success factors, common salary bands – it’s all out there for the taking. Just like you wouldn’t book a trip to a strange city without knowing how to get further than baggage claim, don’t manage your career strategy without a proper sense of direction. And like all travel, there’s often more than one way to get there.
2) Map It Out – Remember, first and foremost, that you always have a choice. Even if you’re attempting to arrive at a seemingly unattainable destination you’ll find that those who have achieved your goal did so through a wide variety of means. Literally map out where you are and where you’d like to be. The sheer act of writing down the beginning and end points will immediately provide you with two different means of attack – you can either draw from the end state backwards or build from your current location forward. Doing both may result in a common middle ground that allows you to break apart your journey into manageable steps and checkpoints.
3) Seek Advice And Guidance – There are so many experts offering conflicting advice on your journey that it can become quite difficult to sort through the noise. Pick through several career TripAdvisors and try and consume as much as you can from those who have been there before. Be it a friend, a neighbor, a former colleague, your alumni network or any other social or professional connection, you have a wide net from which to catch a few nuggets of wisdom. And with your wonderful social media skills you can obviously network your way toward some career travel agents who have helped individuals just like you.
4) Paint The Town – Once you’ve actually “arrived” it’s quite tempting to take a deep breath and relax. And although you’ve earned the reprieve, you need to ensure you get out and take a good, healthy look at where you are. Shake off the cobwebs and actively seek opportunities for a better view in order to see what else is in your career neighborhood. Look for adjacent opportunities that fill gaps in those skills required for ascension in the organization. Never stop learning and listening and keep a healthy curiosity for what’s just around the corner.
5) Be Safe – This is perhaps my most cautionary tale. Do not get so comfortable that you mistake this for home. Complacency leads to career narcolepsy and it’s quite common to fall into a bit of a sleepy routine. All business is personal and often the only person looking out for you is you. Keep your wits about you and don’t ignore the signs of organizational dilapidation and danger. You wouldn’t continue to stay in a hotel with stained sheets, a dripping faucet and a broken lock so do not stay in a career or company that’s leaking money and about to get outsourced or downsized.
Just before landing our couple looked at one another, took a deep breath of relief and smiled. In front of them were six pages of notes, ideas and opportunities for their future. And although they have much work ahead, they deplaned with the knowledge that they had taken those first few critical steps toward regaining control of a seemingly uncontrollable situation. I smiled in the knowledge that they were calm and collected, and I think we can all learn a little something from their journey.