> "Our performance reviews reward shipping. Nobody ever got promoted for writing the wiki page that saved the next team six weeks." ^pain A collective trust pain. Individuals guard expertise as power or insecurity. Performance metrics reward delivery, not documenting or mentoring. Sharing is treated as extra work that goes unrecognised — and the rational response, given the incentive, is to hoard. ## Discovery questions - "Who on your team gets recognised - in performance reviews, not platitudes - for documenting?" - "Tell me about a senior person who shares versus one who hoards. What's the cost difference to the org?" ^discovery-questions ## Examples - BCG on failed KM programs: "star performers hoard expertise" because promotion systems ignore documentation and mentoring.[^1] - HRM journal: incentives and knowledge sharing in organisations - lack of explicit rewards leads to hoarding.[^2] - GitLab Engineering Handbook style guidance: documentation and mentoring are rarely recognised in performance reviews, leading to poor knowledge capture.[^3] [^1]: https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/leveraging-knowledge-management [^2]: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hrm.20140 [^3]: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/management