Previous blog article: Underhanded Tactics (Part 4: Retrenchment Exercises)
I love getting to know all aspects of a specific topic. I love joining patterns and knowing the whole as well as the detail. Perhaps this is the reason that I noticed a reluctance on the part of many people to part with knowledge and I often felt I was kept in the dark, with enlightenment just out of reach. Of course, keeping knowledge to oneself is a necessary self protection tactic, especially in this cut throat world we live in. How much better it would be if we could all share information freely, sure in the knowledge that our colleagues would not use this knowledge for their own ends, or would give us credit where credit is due? So, as with most of the topics I write about, there are various sides to see a situation, and what may be good may also be bad, or have varying degrees of good and bad, depending on how the topic is approached.
Take the example of retrenchment which I wrote about in the previous blog article. The people planning the retrenchment have knowledge of what is being planned, but will not relay this to the victims. The victims may have an inkling of what is coming but cannot do much except wait and see and react once they know for sure, but by then it may be too late. Knowledge is withheld. People planning retrenchments may themselves be on the receiving end as people above them may be planning their demises too.
In the case of bullying, I have often wondered if bullies plan their strategies and thereby have full knowledge of what they plan to do to their victims, for example, arranging a meeting and then leaving out specific people time after time. Is the bully conscious of this as a tactic or does it just happen on the fly? Knowledge may be out of reach for both bully and victim I suspect.
Sharing knowledge, especially in a workplace, may be a factor of how secure one feels, as well as the culture of an environment. What is the potential for a win or a lose situation when sharing knowledge? If everyone in an environment shares knowledge and this is rewarded, one tends to share. If you work in an environment where your job does not feel secure and you are then asked to train a new person who could potentially be your replacement, you will probably be quite reluctant to train the person. Yet you need to, as it is part of your job requirement to coach others! If you don't people may look on you askance and use that as a reason to remove you. This happened to me as I was told to train new members of staff for affirmative action purposes, and I knew I might be made redundant once the new people were trained because I was a white person, one of the minority group, and I did not contribute to the BEE (Black Employment Equity) numbers, who needed to be the majority. The workplace there does not see the person, it sees the demographic on a piece of paper, but of course knowledge still holds sway and keeps those with knowledge secure for a time.
In a work environment, people seem to follow the need to know principle. Only if something is relevant to the job at hand will people be told about it. For me this is akin to being in a vehicle manufacturing factory and being one of the people holding a wheel, and wanting to know more than the fact that it slots into an axle not yet fitted to the rest of the car, but never finding out what the entire vehicle looks like. Are we building a Ferrari or a kit car? I always felt I needed to know more, due to simple curiosity, and I often felt I was not given enough information. But I didn't need to know! Someone hopefully knows the whole picture where you work or where you live! Hopefully a few people do! Think of how much of our lives are lived only knowing a small part of the world around us. Thankfully processes usually seem to work, but often we are oblivious to possible problems higher up the chain.
Of course, wanting to know more is not always a good thing, as this can translate into other aspects, like wanting to know too much about people and then gossiping, and of course gossip may be wholly unfounded and rumours may be untrue. Even if we say to ourselves we do not listen to gossip, of course this will impact the way we think.
I used to get upset at work when I produced a piece of work and was not given credit for producing it. I kept making the mistake of sending my work around openly to a few people and then I got upset when people used my work for their own ends. I used to notice that others would instead keep their work secret until the last minute. I much prefer being open though and wish this could be a new philosophy in workplaces--how much more efficient we could all be! Even writing this blog is repeating my mistake of being open about what I am producing before it is finished! What if someone steals my ideas, I wonder? I guess I have had enough practice at seeing that happen and it no longer seems as worrying. Let people steal my writing and my thoughts I think, there is more where that came from and it is on their conscience. God sees all. Yet I noticed an interesting trend where people preferred not to give me credit for what I did and would prefer to keep their source a secret, yet they were happy to give credit to other people they worked with, like charismatic leaders, some of whom used some of my work--boggles my mind. It's as if only some people are deemed worthy of being applauded, depending on personality and other unknown factors. Give credit where credit is due! Celebrate people's achievements! I read many things myself too, and I might not consider that I am writing something sparked by someone else's idea and I may not pause to give credit either. That is why it is good to be open, as I am sure many inventions were sparked from the work of previous people and this is the way the world moves forward, by building on top of previous platforms. Scientists given credit for huge breakthroughs may have had large platforms they sprang from, built by other people and leveraged off from.
Knowledge is indeed power. Think of negotiating. If you put all your cards on the table up front, you may not have any hidden advantage. It all depends what you want to achieve of course. If you are able to walk away then you might state your price and conditions up front and leave it at that, but if the other person has something you really want and you know some key facts that may change the bargaining table, you may hold back on revealing all until bargaining is underway.
Have I covered this topic adequately? I hope so. There's more I could say, but perhaps I need to rewrite parts and break it into new subtopics--I will see. I know I did some rambling and this topic has turned out different to what I was intending!
Link to next blog article: Underhanded Tactics (Part 6: Words Versus Actions)
Link to next blog article: Underhanded Tactics (Part 6: Words Versus Actions)
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