Recent research shows that Loving Kindness Meditation reduces knowledge hiding in organizations and improves employee knowledge sharing.
What Is Knowledge Hiding In Organizations?
Knowledge Hiding is the deliberate attempt of members in an organization to conceal information that has been requested by another member of the organization.
There are many causes of Knowledge Hiding:
- Attempting to gain an edge over another in a competitive environment
- Attempting to save time. For instance, an employee is worried that it will take time to share knowledge with another employee, and believes that time will simply be lost, and not beneficial to their own objectives.
- Conflicts in the workplace. For instance, one employee has unresolved issues with another. This employee refuses to share knowledge because of these unresolved issues.
How knowledge Hiding Affects Companies:
- When employees engage in knowledge hiding it prevents the organization from working as one cohesive unit and massively inhibits innovation.
- When one employee is aware that another is engaging in knowledge hiding, they likely will respond with resentment and perhaps even hostility, leading to poor employee relations.
- Knowledge hiding breeds distrust between employees
- Knowledge may be permanently lost if an employee who is engaging in knowledge hiding ends up leaving the company
What Is Loving Kindness Meditation?
Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) is essentially a compassion-based meditation technique. You can learn all about it in our guide to Loving Kindness Meditation
Research published in BMC Psychology shows that Loving Kindness Meditation reduces knowledge hiding and improves knowledge sharing.
The researchers state, “LKM signifcantly improved employees’ altruism, and significantly reduces their negative affect…”
Negative affect is a broad concept that can be summarized as feelings of emotional distress (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988).
The researchers continue, “For knowledge hiding, LKM significantly reduced playing dumb and evasive hiding.”
In other words, Loving Kindness Meditation reduces knowledge hiding. When you apply LKM at scale across your company, it can significantly improve knowledge sharing and employee relations. Hence why HR managers should consider booking Loving Kindness Meditation classes for employees.
