Why so much knowledge sharing, so little knowledge seeking?

Knowledge Management requires knowledge seeking and knowledge sharing. But why so much focus in internal processes on sharing and so little on seeking?

Learning Happens by shareski, on Flickr

One of the standard models for Knowledge Management in project environments is the idea of "Learning Before, During and After".

Ideally these three activities should be embedded in project process, so that a project

1. Starts by reviewing and accessing all the knowledge it needs,
2. Learns as it goes, improving its processes during the course of the project, and
3. Identifies, analyses, documents and shares the new knowledge it has gained, for the sake of future projects. 

For the project itself, the most powerful of the three is "Learning Before". If a project can maximise it's knowledge up front, especially if the team can discover the things it doesn't know that it doesn't know, then success is much more likely. "Learning Before" activities such as Knowledge gap Analysis, KM planning or Peer Assist can overcome some of the more serious cognitive biases for KM, and are the nearest thing to KM Silver Bullets that we have. Learning before activities drive receptivity, increase absorptive capacity, and help teams "want to learn".  

And yet, when you look at internal company project frameworks, or even at  generic frameworks such as Prince 2 or ISO, there is almost always a requirement for capturing and sharing lessons after the project, and no such requirement for Learning Before. According to our global survey, 68% of companies require their projects to do some sort of Learning After, but only 15% require them to do Learning Before.  Prince 2 has a required, and well documented, step at the end, for creating lessons (although this could be much improved!), but has no step at the project start-up, requiring a search for, and review of, existing knowledge.  

This astounds me.

Why even bother to collect lessons at the end of a project, if nobody reviews them at the start of the next project!

I think the answer is that it is psychologically easier to share than it is to learn.  A project team can feel proud and recognised (even a little smug at times) for sharing lessons, while asking for lessons can feel like an admission of incompetence ("can anyone help me with this?"). 

Learning After is Teaching - Learning Before is Learning, which is Much Harder. Knowledge reuse is more difficult than knowledge sharing, yet that is all the more reason we should make it a focused and deliberate step. 

You get around some of these barriers by introducing non-judgemental techniques such as Peer Assist and Knowledge Management plans, which take the exposure out of asking for help, or seeking for knowledge. And you also address it by developing a culture of Asking, rather than a culture of Sharing.

Please, let's introduce the full cycle of Learning Before, During and After, and let's not skip the Before step!