Each day you go to work, you become slightly more stupid

We only become increasingly stupid. You do. Your employees do. Each day you go to work, you become slightly more stupid. How does that sound?

Let us start from the beginning; knowledge must be shared to make it valuable—and you most likely hold your hard-earned knowledge close to your chest. Share your knowledge and become smarter.

In recent years, we are seeing dramatic changes in the way we work, who we work with, where we work, and whom companies point out as future talents. We are required to function in complex contexts (navigate in noise and chaos), new conflicts, excel at teamwork, be open to change and adjust, and master a professional core competence. And it is not working in most places. Frankly.

The reptilian brain takes over

We live in a time marked by abundant information and with vast demand for knowledge.

The well-known psychologist Eric Erikson’s research shows that people want to share information with one another (such as assisting others find their way to their destination) and that we as a race would not have survived if we were not willing to share information. However, we hold on to our knowledge so that we can use it to outcompete others. We share when survival is necessary, but we keep our knowledge to ourselves when achieving superiority is concerned.

In the knowledge society, generally speaking knowledge has taken on a far superior importance to individual success, company competitiveness, and national welfare (Nyhan, 2002: 18; Kolind 26ff.). Knowledge is the most important means to cope with the ever-increasing complexity and ever-quickening change that characterizes our society (Qvortrup 2004, 33ff.).

Your big challenge is that you are controlled by your reptilian brain, which prevents you from actively seeking out changes, unknown situations, or people who can challenge you. Most of us are not prepared for change at all (even though some of us say that we are).

Short shelf life

Knowledge is complex and difficult to document, and it becomes obsolete faster than a jar of marmalade on the kitchen table. Thus, your current knowledge has an uncertain shelf life. You cannot predict when your knowledge will be worthless (but it will happen). By contrast, you know when you can expect your computer to stop working, how long a vacuum cleaner will function, or when a certain amount of raw material is used up. Unfortunately with knowledge, things are considerably more difficult. Knowledge is a scarce substance with a limited duration.

By definition, knowledge is intangible, and determining whether you are the most talented, best, or most competent within a certain area of expertise is difficult. Therefore, documenting your access to a bottomless pool of new knowledge is important, and you must constantly upgrade your knowledge. However, you should be critical when deciding when you choose to upgrade your knowledge and from whom you obtain new knowledge and inspiration. Today, anybody can gain access to any type of information with little effort. Your access to knowledge is not important; what is crucial is how you package and use your knowledge. You should ask yourself, have you done enough to share your knowledge?

Brain on reduced power

Throughout life, you continuously obtain knowledge from, for example, school and further education. Your newly acquired knowledge, however, is only relevant in a very short period. After that, it becomes obsolete. Your market value is therefore difficult to maintain based on a piece of paper from an educational institution.

To prevent this your knowledge from becoming obsolete, you must determine why it happens. Humans are built to survive. We spend all of our waking hours saving energy and building relationships that ensure we live long and well. This was appropriate 200 years ago. Now we need brains that will be challenged and people who will venture outside their comfort zone. Did you know that you think 55,000 thoughts every day? More than 80 percent of the thoughts and ideas are repetitions, and more than 40 percent of everything you do during the course of the day are based on habits (including quite a few bad habits). Simply put, your brain is saving energy by constantly running at low power. It allows you to do and think the same things over and over. 

Knowledge increases your market value

Knowledge has always been and will remain a sought-after good. However, your knowledge is only valuable when shared or if those people who need to know it actually know it. If you are the type of person who holds on to your knowledge, you are facing a serious challenge, because preventing others, such as your customer, your boss, or your colleague, from acquiring the same knowledge is challenging. You should not fear that your knowledge is shared because sharing aids in increasing your market value. What good does it do that you are the best at something in the world if nobody knows it? If you do not want to share your knowledge, you must be aware that other people might choose not to share their knowledge with you as well and that over time you will become more stupid and less informed than the person who generously shares his knowledge in exchange for new knowledge. If your knowledge is difficult to share, it will also be difficult to sell!

More of the same

The problem is that we only share knowledge with people whom we trust. We only share information with people whom we do not like or know. Information does not necessarily make us any smarter.

When you seek “new” knowledge and new inspiration, a big risk exists that you will end up with more of the same because you obtain your knowledge and inspiration from people who look and think like you do. We tend to trust the people who most closely resemble ourselves. We are driven by trust, and we are inclined to most easily trust people who remind us of ourselves. 

Over the last 10 years, I have observed and communicated with executives and senior staff from more than 1,000 companies. I have discussed my observations with leading researchers, and a particularly interesting image becomes apparent when we tackle knowledge sharing and knowledge development.

Whether you have a career in front of you or behind you largely depends on whether you dare stop in your tracks and change the way you behave. You can change your behavior by creating a flexible comfort zone and daring to venture into unfamiliar situations together with people who might not considerably mean to you, but who are different from you and more skilled than you are. The question is, are you prepared to change your behavior based on instincts and habits to a regular knowledge strategy? A big pressure is on your shoulders!

The three behavioral types

Ordinary people with ordinary jobs seem to be subjected to three types of behavior that in the long term make them increasingly stupid. We constantly seek secure surroundings and people who resemble ourselves and do not teach us anything new. Therefore, we often end up reproducing old knowledge.

In a way, our brain is designed to avoid dangers, and consequently we do not seek out people who pose a threat to us. This means that when we meet someone who is very different from ourselves, we tend to withdraw from them—the case is the same for unfamiliar and new potential dangerous situations and events.

Thus, we typically obtain inspiration and information from people who resemble ourselves, who we like, and who are close to where we are!

1.  The 12-meter rule

When we need inspiration at work, we seem to prefer networking with people sitting within a radius of 12 meters from our desk. We simply prefer to ask our closest colleagues for advice. Thus, either we are sitting right next to the world’s most knowledgeable colleagues or we are extraordinarily lazy! You be the judge.

2.  The 7-people rule

We tend to always ask the same 7 people in our network for advice when we are required to obtain a deeper understanding of a certain topic. The worst part is that these 7 people also know one another. Thus, we are actually networking with only 1 person and not 7. Our relationships are entangled with one another in such a way that we actually close the door to new knowledge. We ask several people but receive the same answer from all of them. 

3.  The 4-factor rule

Our reptile brain and basic instincts allow us to actively seek out people who look like ourselves. We prefer people of same gender, age, nationality, and educational background.

Avoid becoming more stupid

Your ability to build trusting and loyal relationships, as well as inspiration, influence, and information (the three i’s), is a prerequisite for gaining access to contacts and contracts, which in turn means that you enrich your life with new knowledge. However, you will only gain access to new knowledge if you are capable of building relationships with people who are different from you.

The knowledge worker of the future faces the challenge of combining the ability to act as a specialist with the ability to see the broader picture—think like a generalist. Many of us experience that our surroundings expect us to be capable of researching (rather than providing fingertip knowledge) and solving problems in a new way to avoid reproducing old, familiar knowledge.

Community takes us further

Only few of us make a living based on one-man performances. Therefore, performing as a group and encouraging people to work together and share knowledge are essential. If sharing your knowledge is difficult, selling it will also be difficult, and then your knowledge ends up as useless tacit knowledge.

In a world of ever-flatter hierarchies, motivating others to accept responsibilities and make highly informed decisions quickly is crucial, and to succeed in this endeavor, you must identify, nurture, and develop relationships. Even those who possess unique talents and are geniuses are required to work through the community because our ability to cooperate across industries, silos, and personal interests is a factor that strengthens our competitiveness.

Do you hold on to your knowledge?

The primary challenge is that many people do not want to share their knowledge. “We have worked hard for many years. Of course we will not just give our knowledge away!” This is a typical comment in many companies. I work with several companies, where managers are concerned on how they can encourage the employees to share their knowledge, because when they look at their organization, they do not see a willingness among the employees to help one another. Many companies exist where departments hide knowledge from one another—even if they work for the same organization. Thus, if you want to stand out positively, you must determine how to motivate people to share their knowledge with everybody in the organization.

Many people think that holding special company knowledge makes them indispensable. However, these people are in for a surprise. On the contrary, companies are afraid when only one individual/specialist holds special knowledge and nobody else is aware of it. This situation happened to former DONG Energy director Anders Eldrup. It was the case about “the four golden geese” who, according to DONG’s chairman Fritz Schur, received an extraordinarily high salary and excellent contractual terms because of their specialist knowledge. As a result, Eldrup lost his job. Based on my experience, companies prefer to hire unique specialists on a contractual basis as consultants or freelancers.

Networks provide knowledge

What you view as new, captivating, and interesting knowledge right now might very well be obsolete or regarded as common sense in a couple of weeks. If you are to develop your knowledge, you can most effectively do it through a strong, loyal, and superior network consisting of people who are smarter than you are.

Tomorrow’s winners will be the ones who definitely understand how to adjust to changes and know how to cooperate with people who are markedly different from themselves—a concrete example could be across subject boundaries, generations, and nationalities.

Each person we meet and each new generation of employees contribute with unique advantages as well as new knowledge, experiences, and expectations that should be utilized. For example, each generation has its expectations about how they want to live and work. They have completely different views regarding how and why they work, how they learn and acquire new knowledge, how knowledge is shared, and what good management looks like. Are you prepared to see and embrace the value of our differences?

Network analysis

Companies are increasingly taking advantage of network analyses in which they map who holds on to knowledge and who shares knowledge in the organization. A network analysis corresponds to taking an X-ray of the company’s knowledge veins. The analysis can provide management the insight to understand how the cooperation and communication function in the organization.

I recently worked with an organization that is one of the world leaders in sales and development of alcoholic beverages. They have just implemented an organizational change, hired a number of new employees, and moved to a new production facility. They work in a competitive industry where focus is on the individual’s effort. Following an analysis of their corporate culture, the result revealed that a strong desire to become acquainted with one another existed among employees. However, it was not possible because of lack of appropriate structures. In reality, making it possible does not require considerable effort. Activities that create possibilities for employees to connect or communicate can make a big difference. A common understanding for one another’s skills and interests is created through dialogue, thereby improving our tolerance for one another. Tolerance creates trust, and trust leads to knowledge sharing.

The generation challenge

We are not utilizing our potential, and we do not discuss one another’s weaknesses. We are not taking advantage of the fact that particularly young employees have big networks and that they actually want to share their knowledge. Many young people believe that knowledge should be shared, flow free, and not be kept close to the chest. To many young people, knowledge sharing means connecting with the right people and creating new ventures.

This belief is in stark contrast with the older generation X (35–45 years old) and baby boomers (45–65 years old), who mistakenly believe that their market value increases if they hold on to their knowledge and only share it in moderation while collecting their monthly paycheck. Many of them believe that they must make themselves indispensable, and one way of doing this is by keeping something that nobody else knows. Furthermore, only few of them feel motivated to train other people. The generation of older executives views knowledge as a way to keep others out. Considering that more than half of the executives in the Danish business community are baby boomers, we risk that these old, conservative people make us increasingly stupid every day.

You have to realize that you cannot keep knowledge to yourself and that knowledge actually grows when it is shared. You cannot own knowledge—and if you want to be better than others in the future, you either innovate faster than the market or produce more cost-effective products and acquire a large market share.

The sum of my experiences is that we will see a major change in world leadership, customer engagement and types of partnerships within the next 5 -10 years—and that affects both you and me. Furthermore, it affects what type of people we will need in companies. In the next 5 years, we will experience radical changes to the way we work.

Other rules apply in a knowledge and network society compared with our historical efficiency- and production-focused society.

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