The slogan that claims that “knowledge increases when shared” is nice at an organizational level, but for an individual, it amounts to ‘giving up’ something. Something that was “in his head”, that he had worked for to acquire, is now easily owned by someone else who had to do very little effort to obtain the same knowledge.
But what about sharing experience ? Have you ever come across someone who says he or she doesn’t like or refuses to share experience ? On the contrary, sharing experience is seen as positive in all respects. When you share experience, you make others benefit of your years of working and personal development. You are seen as the expert, and others look up to you and want to learn from your experience. There is a notion of ownership around knowledge (“it’s mine”), but there is no such notion around experience. Experience is something that happened to you, it is not something you own. If I share my knowledge with you, you have obtained my knowledge. If I share my experience with you, you haven’t obtained my experience.
Yet, is experience so different from knowledge ? The Oxford (www.oxforddictionaries.com) definition of experience is “the knowledge or skill acquired by a period of practical experience of something (especially that gained in a particular profession)”. In other words, experience is … knowledge (!) honed over time. I would argue that for all practical (and non-academic) purpose, one can equate experience to knowledge.So my message is: let’s stop referring to the loaded notion of “knowledge sharing” but let’s encourage people to work on the much simpler and positive approach of “experience sharing” !
Good point Peter. Two more things to consider:
ReplyDeleteDoes experience always require knowledge?
Does experience cover all aspects of knowledge?
Good article Peter, and welcome on blogger's world !
ReplyDeleteI think I see a little difference between knowledge and experience:
- To me knowledge is a general rule learned over time (eg from many experiences) and which would apply to most/all cases thereafter. The learning curve is usually long and that's where people can have a hard time to "let go" some of this "personal wisdom" as it can be seen as their career's treasure.
- However, experience is something triggered by very specific factors and which happened in a very specific context. As such, sharing your experience doesn't mean your counterpart will be able to reapply the "knowledge" you learned for yourself in a situation that will most probably be slightly - or very - different.
- I would summarize the above with: one experience = experience whereby several similar experiences = knowledge (if the said person can learn from its own experiences, which is different topic by itself);
That's why, to support your point, I think that sharing experience can be great for others to increase their knowledge without compromising your own value in the company.