Knowledge Management Basics

Barriers and Obstacles

The first intellectual mortal sin is not to want to know, the second not to let know.
Otto Galo, German writer

Starting point of the considerations is the question, why existing knowledge in the organisation is not used which will lead to restrictions of the development and usage possibilities of the individual and collective knowledge base. There are apparent obstacles, that stem the knowledge transfer and usage as well as the related learning processes. The debate on news disequilibrates because old rules and experiences must be abandoned whilst the bearing capacity of new solutions are often not assured. Simultaneously the power structures within the organization are changed by devaluating traditional competencies and strengthening the representatives of the new (Probst 1997, p 180 f; Schüppel 1996, p 107 ff; Bullinger 1998, p 30). Barriers may be constituted in psychic and social systems (individual resp. group), but also in structural and political-cultural restrictions (organization resp. corporate culture).

Individual knowledge and learning barriers impact the person-related knowledge transfer and lead to a suboptimal exhaustion of the knowledge base.
Collectiv knowledge and learning barriers impact the person-spanning knowledge transfer and lead to a suboptimal exhaustion of the knowledge base of a group resp. affect the group-spanning knowledge transfer and lead to a suboptimal exhaustion of the knowledge base of an organization.
Structural knowledge and learning barriers impact the knowledge transfer in the corporation through the particular specific characteristic of the structural conditions in the organization.
Political-cultural knowledge and learning barriers impact the knowledge transfer in the corporation through the doktrines grown in the enterprise and the restrictions established by cultural socialisation.

Barriers	structural	cultural
*individual*	miseducation intra-psychic conflicts emotional-motivational level of activation individuality and past orientation capacity of perception, processing, and learning	collective role enforcement participation rules and differential views superstition on determined cause and effect relationships cultural conditioned perception deformation
*collective*	vertical, horizontal and lateral operative information filters specialisation and centralisation distribution of power and participation rules cooperation conflicts defensive routines	inhibitory imprinting because of myths, tradition and "group thinking" dysfunctional consequence of cultural diversity overemphasis of a unity culture

Many grave obstacles are constituted in a knowledge-hostile corporate culture. The most important are the following:

No mutuality:
There is no balance between knowledge giver and knowledge receiver.
Lack of trust:
Knowledge initiatives are foredoomed without mutual trust on all levels.
Diverse cultures, language habits, reference framework:
Colleagues of different organisational units and professional guilds often use their own lingo and follow codes of conduct, which are predetermined implicitly by their working environment.
Humble acceptance of knowledge:
Statements of collegues with low status are often ignored, even if they were the best and most practical.
The local value of knowlegde in the company is poor:
Time famine, the absence of meeting places, and narrow view of "productive work" as well as the refusial of reading and conversions during office hour characterise the poor local value of knowledge.
Intolerance against mistakes and need for help:
Mistakes are obnubilated and offers of help are neither given nor taken in order not to get into discredit of an incompetent employee.

If these mental attitudes are anchored deeply into the corporate culture, remedy can only be found in long-run and careful organisation development steps.

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Last update 13^th Jan 2002