Building the Knowledge Management Network: Best Practices, Tools, and Techniques for Putting Conversation to Work

Chapter 5. Fostering a Knowledge-Sharing Culture

Conversational knowledge sharing can (and will) only take place in a supportive social atmosphere. Such an ongoing environment is what we have come to call "culture." An organization's culture should be aligned with its values, mission, goals, and strategy, but the culture doesn't have to be defined by them. Different subcultures can exist in alignment with each other within one organization or even across different organizations.

The knowledge network exists first within the organization's greater culture. It may grow out of a more local subculture such as an area of expertise or a functional division within the organization. And it will probably develop its own unique subculture once it goes online. An online knowledge-sharing culture requires certain conditions and nutrients just as an orchid can grow only within certain ranges of temperature, humidity, and soil conditions. Yet unlike an orchid, an online knowledge network can adapt to changing conditions through its conversations and technology.

In this chapter, we describe these ideal cultural conditions. We discuss how how to create or migrate to them. We also elaborate on the nutrients that are necessary to start and grow a healthy knowledge-sharing culture within an organization: the analysis, the motivation, the leadership, and the trust. For most organizations, deliberate knowledge sharing is a new direction, and supporting it will entail some cultural change. So we also spend ...