For those who spent the last couple of years in a place far, far away from here (or maybe just underneath a stone): Welcome to The Information Age!
Oh yes, it is true: information is everywhere. It cannot be avoided, it reaches us almost everywhere, almost every time. Some people started moaning because of the sheer mass of information already over a decade ago. Yet the amount of it we have to deal (or put up) with keeps increasing on a daily, no, on an hourly basis. And along with the increasing amount, it becomes harder and harder to select the few precious bits, the rare lines of real value from this immense pile of information.
While this is or may be true for many of us and for big portions of our lives, there is a growing field where information is kept as secret as possible. No, I am not pointing to governments or their related institutions, even though this claim can be easily verified. (Which is saddening but a different story.) I am not talking about companies or people developing new ideas or products either. But we are getting closer.
I am talking about the endless, unexplored fields of daily work of any kind, where people like you and me rely on information, the flow of information amongst and within departments, teams and individuals. And it is pretty obvious that information is not only precious because of its pure value - information has become a kind of weapon in our daily work life.
While some companies and all or at least most of their employees are proud of having developed a corporate culture of dealing with information the right way, of sharing it and making it available to everyone (well, everyone working there and possibly needing information to make an even better job), there are companies that don't seem to care about it at all. The latter have very poor (if any) standards on sharing news and information and it doesn't take anybody by surprise that those places' work climate isn't exactly good or even acceptable - if there is anything like it at all.
People working for those companies have to spend an incredible amount of time to look for and bring together all those tiny bits of information they need to get their work done. But this isn't because there is no information at all or because it would be extremely difficult to share. No, in most cases information isn't at all or only partially shared because of self-serving deliberations.
It can be found quite often that employees keep information and knowledge to themselves to appear more valuable - and less replaceable. Even though this kind of (mis-)behavior makes it very hard for co-workers and subordinates to accomplish anything at all - what makes it even worse is that this way of acting is tolerated or even backed by supervisors and managers. And in some cases those disciplinarians achieve their own goals in a similar way.
When hearing about it, lots of people start shaking their heads in disbelief as there is a simple question leaving them confused: why? What are the reasons that make people act like this? Why do people accept to come up with second-best results if cooperation and sharing of information could help creating top quality products? How can it be that companies allow personal small-mindedness to get into their way of offering best services possible?
Maybe we can still find the use of mis- or non-information within companies because people are afraid. Fear has been and still is a powerful motivation. Even when told otherwise, there is a deep-rooted fear: the fear of being respected less, the fear of being considered less valuable or even redundant. And as it isn't exactly far-fetched that people can lose their jobs quite easily these days all of the behaviour discussed above may be a means of self-preservation.
While this may be true for some employees, others tend to use information as a weapon to make sure their image of superiority stays preserved. They simply need their co-workers to help them reach their own goals - and they don't care about the goals of the others at all. But as soon as this behavior becomes obvious, what is the reaction one could expect? Of course, it all ends like a game of ping-pong, keeping everyone busy (well, yes, most of the time employed too) - but delivering only average results. If any.
It would be naive to think this could be overcome easily. When finding yourself in a situation similar to the one described above there are three options how you can deal with it. First, you can try to accept it. Well, you can try. Good luck. But I doubt it would turn you into a happy camper. Second, you can try to bring on a change. While the first option only challenges you to stay mentally sane (and to stay who you are), this one requires additional efforts, strength and stamina. Last but not least, you can simply leave the situation. Even though it may turn out not to be that simple at all because of all the dependencies you have to take into account, well, it is an option.
So if you find yourself spending more than the better part of your working day hunting for informations that you think (or already found) should not be that hard to find in your company's pool of knowledge, experience and expertise you may find yourself swimming in a shark pool. And while you become aware of the dorsal fins around you, this may be the perfect time to give leaving that pool a second thought.
Just don't wait too long, something is already closing in on you...
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