All of us assimilate knowledge and skills as we grow in life.  Some of us are willing to share it, while others want to conserve it.  In my view, knowledge is for sharing.  Some of us believe that if we share knowledge, we may lose our uniqueness and our mental wealth. I think it is the other way around.  The more you share, the more you learn and the more you grow in life.

Let us first try to understand from the organisation context.  Let us assume we have great people practices in our organisation.  Some of us are reluctant to share our best practices with other organisations thinking that we may lose our competitive edge.  With many years of working in the corporate sector, I can confidently state that no organisation can cut, copy and paste the best of practices of any other.  An organisation culture evolves over years and can never be copied by another organisation just by aping it.

Similarly, the culture of a nation is built over centuries.  No other country can come in, learn and adapt this culture to their society.  It is like you may be able to copy and paste a photo or picture from one source to the other.  But, you can never transfer the beauty of nature in reality by copying photos of nature.

Now let us come down to the family as an institution.  Is it possible to imitate the values of a family by just trying to follow them.  It takes generations to institutionalise values in a family.  Even, if we generously share our values and beliefs, it is not possible just to transplant the same without evolving our own values.

Just like organisations and institutions, individuals are also worried about sharing knowledge and skills.  Let us imagine the world’s best batsmen trying to teach batting to any of us.  Even if he is willing to spend his lifetime sharing his knowledge and skills, we can not expect to become the world’s best batsman without putting in hard work and honing our own skills.  If knowledge sharing could lead to knowledge assimilation so easily, the world would have geniuses all around.  

Knowledge is for sharing.  The more we share knowledge and skills, the more we evolve and grow as an individual.  Let us look at the geniuses around us.  Whether it is a sports person or a musician or a scientist,  they are always willing to share their knowledge and skills with others.  The more they share, the more they learn and the more they are respected in society.

Like in the photo above, I met with a group of young talents in my organization, who were more than willing to share knowledge and skills with one another.

So, let us share whatever knowledge we have from today.  We will gain more than we are likely to lose.  Try it.

S Ramesh Shankar