Truth and Knowledge Management

I have been doing some knowledge management assessment interviews recently and it was noticeable the number of times the word ‘trust’ came up in the conversations. For obvious confidentiality reasons I won’t disclose the industry or the company but ‘trust’ was very high on the personal agenda of those being interviewed.

They expressed how they needed to ‘trust’ the person before they would share with them. Equally they said that they needed to ‘trust’ someone before they would listen to any knowledge they might wish to volunteer to them. Now at one level this might seem very obvious but at another level I found myself wondering if the term ‘trust’ was being used as code to point to a cultural characteristic?

I had found on a previous occasion an organisation where it was fairly routine for management to listen to a suggestion and then comment on why it would never work (especially if it was being made by a junior member of staff). Sometime later the same idea would re-surface but as the idea of a more senior person.
Whatever the reason, trust is important to people when they are being asked to share or re-use knowledge.

Knoco Ltd