also getting repeated when it comes to sharing and collaboration in the Hyper-Linked Organization aka Enterprise 2.0During the turn of the century - when KM - and the dream to let employees share what they know - was directed , the KM advocates (like me!) suggested that knowledge sharing should be given rewards. The thought was that if a person does not see a benefit for himself why would he share his knowledge with the behavior.
I have changed my belief - in part due to analysing my own behaviour on the social web.
Behaviours like sharing and collaboration are Organizational Citizenship Behaviors - and are a product of Employee's Engagement with the organization. This discretionary effort is not like one's work behavior - and needs to be rewarded not monetarily - but psychologically.
Psychological rewards will impact only a very few of employees, and that is okay.
Highly engaged employees who would indulge in Organizational Citizenship Behaviors follows the Power Law - much like social networks' law. In that a minority will create and curate the majority of the content.
So what are the ways that such employees can be recognized?
- Public Acknowledgement - A leaderboard style table of key frequent contributors is a dynamic public assertion of who is helping and creating content
- Social Voting and Curation - Like the rating system it shows the people whose content has been deemed most useful by the users.
- Collaboration - When a person shares content about a certain domain area it reveals his/her interest in that area. Involvement of the person in that domain would be a dream.
