I was reading a very interesting article in the latest edition of Harvard Business Review about knowledge-based workers.  Essentially, it said that in a knowledge-based firm, quite a few of the workers will resist passing down what they know for fear that the company will replace them.  In other words, they like to try and ensure that only they know certain things, and do not share that knowledge with other employees.  They never outright refuse to share that knowledge, but they will just come up with one excuse after another and as the magazine puts it, they will just never “find the time” to train others properly.  

The article, by Roger Martin, suggests that the answer is to organise workers around projects, so they deal with specific aspects of the business and also to train them so that they can be nimble, and move to other departments if need be.  Of course, they say that you should also do everything you can, where possible, to try and encourage employees to share knowledge, and that one of the ways that bosses get round the employees who will not share knowledge, is by having a staff manual!  I must say I found it extremely interesting, because to a large extent de Broglio Inc is set up around dealing with various aspects of cases as projects, with attorneys overseeing them and dealing with the litigation, and different departments dealing with different stages or projects within the case and I like to believe that the vast majority of the staff members are nimble enough, at a day or two’s notice, to move into another department or tackle a new project.