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The Power Of Shared Ideas At Work
I’ll keep this post on sharing ideas decently short, in part because I’ve already tackled the concept of knowledge sharing using examples from Trello’s organizational design.
Where to begin?
I hope we all understand the value in sharing ideas. The theory would go that, by sharing an idea, someone could improve upon it. You see this recently in the tech sector. Google and Tesla, for example, open-source a ton of their patents. They essentially give access to seemingly-proprietary information to the world, in hopes the world can make it better.
Here comes the conflict, though.
Businesses have been run for so long on proprietary information, it’s almost baked into most cultures. Crucial information for people to do their job is often withheld down the chain, or across silos. Largely it’s withheld psychologically. It makes the person with more power/information feel better about their perch. Almost no one ever acknowledges that, which is where we got the expression “That’s above your pay grade.”
In reality, Bridgewater Associates — one of the most successful hedge funds in human history — believes nothing is truly proprietary (it’s called “radical transparency”). And, well, er, um, they make a lot of money. Isn’t that part of the whole goal?
