Sharing Knowledge Through Mentoring

This 7-page article, published in the Performance Improvement Journal, explores the strategy of using informal mentoring - carried out through one-on-one, face-to-face interpersonal dialogue - to foster the sharing of tacit knowledge. It is based on the premise that "an organization's ability to create new knowledge and extract value from existing knowledge, and its ability to build environments conducive to sharing knowledge, are considered major challenges" - but that the ability to share distinctive types of knowledge is a key organisational asset in the context of the current knowledge society. The idea is that mentoring is key to creating an organisational culture that values sharing and is open to new ideas, no matter how wrong they may seem; the result is a "knowledge-sharing culture" that is valuable, according to this piece.

The first portion of the paper establishes the theory-base for knowledge-sharing through informal mentoring relationships. Author Truls E.J. Engström begins by distinguishing knowledge - "justified true belief" - from information, or "data arranged in meaningful patterns". Whereas the latter is relatively easy to obtain and transfer (e.g., through use of measurement tools, quantifiable databases, and information and communication technology (ICT) systems), knowledge sharing is not about transferring facts but involves a human dimension. Knowledge is, in a word, "stickier", and its sharing is a "highly fragile process". Engström explains that tacit knowledge is especially difficult to verbialise because it is tied to the senses, skills in bodily movement, individual perception, physical experiences, and intuition. This type of knowledge is context-dependent, held in a non-verbal form, and often highly personal; sharing it involves, in turn, sharing emotions and mental models - frequently among those from different backgrounds, perspectives, and motivations. Particular difficulties that Engström outlines here involved in the sharing of tacit knowledge include perception and language, distance, and threat to self-image.

To address these challenges, Engström hypothesises that a mentoring system - involving a dyad engaging in face-to-face interaction in the context of a care-filled, trustworthy relationship - is an important tool for fostering a healthy organisation characterised by an open, knowledge-sharing climate. To test this hypothesis, a study was carried out among early managers and professionals in the Norwegian hospitality industry. A questionnaire was designed to evaluate the strategy of informal mentoring, in the context of the following 3 factors that may influence the effectiveness of this approach for sharing tacit knowledge:

1. Personality - the relationship between high self-esteem/communication skills and participation, as well as relationships among protégé personality factors, initiation of mentoring, the mentoring experience, and career success.
2. Gender - "women face many barriers to establishing cross-gender mentoring relationships, because others in an organization may view such relationship as sexual."
3. Age - although the mixing of ages often brings a wider breadth of experience and ideas to the organisation, challenges can arise when people of all ages, with all sorts of business backgrounds, must try to share and understand tacit knowledge.

The study found that the degree of mentoring and frequency of mentoring in the workplace are predictors of knowledge-sharing climate, career satisfaction, career prospects, and job satisfaction. In addition, greater age was found to be a predictor of knowledge-sharing climate and job satisfaction. Finally, the study identified the personality factor of emotional stability as a predictor of perception of knowledge-sharing climate in the same way emotional stability, openness to experience, and extraversion are predictors for perception of career satisfaction.

Reflecting on these findings, Engström suggests that informal mentoring has great potential, but that more thorough inventories of knowledge enabling and tacit knowledge sharing should be developed and used in future studies. He also stresses the importance of research on formal mentoring structures and thoroughly developed, or facilitated, mentoring processes.