The Secret to KM Success
There is an interesting premise here. Eliminate hierarchy with a flat organization be more efficient and share knowledge. In a Utopian sense I agree with it. When my two other colleagues and I are working on a project together there isn't a hierarchy. More like a triumvirate. But in a company there is a problem with this approach. Almost by law, someone has to be leader and make closed-door decisions. Here's an example close to home. When a person is hired or fired, there are many issues of confidentiality to be dealt with (especially with firing). There has to be a hierarchy, someone has to be the boss and stay…”Bill, I'm sorry but we have to let you go…”. So when there isn't a hierarchy most of the time, that is while working on projects, the some of the time you need hierarchy (hiring, firing, going to the bank for money), how does the group handle it?
I will agree though, that the biggest barrier to KM is how organizations are structured and how information, knowledge, and related tidbits are very real currency within companies. If I am the person with the all powerful knowledge about how the servers manage to keep running day by day, I might not want to share it. What if the young upstart takes my ideas and information then surpasses me. One department competes with another for a larger slice of the budget, if that department let's it's pearls of wisdom float through out the organization, will they matter.
You can almost see the paradox in these very real examples. If you share great knowledge, maybe you'll become more valuable, not less because people will see “Hey, that Bill over IT, you know I read his internal blog everyday, and man he's saved me hours of work on this spreadsheet already!”
Information, the seeds of knowledge, is currency. Knowledge is power. But if you sow your seeds widely into fertile soil, sometimes you can get a bumper crop of knowledge and well where are you then? You're Johnny Knowledge seed and your company could be more profitable because of it! Another perspective
IN THE KNOW
KM Editor Megan Santosus says Jeff Nielsen's book The Myth of Leadership makes a compelling argument that hierarchical organizations are killing knowledge management.