Why employees withhold knowledge from their team

An answer that still tells you nothing

A new person asks an experienced colleague for an example of a well-prepared offer. He hears, "I had it somewhere; I’ll look for it", and the next day, "I’m swamped right now". A week later, he discovers that the finished file had been readily available to the colleague from the beginning. It's not yet known if the colleague forgot, had other priorities, or deliberately postponed help. The difference is important. An organization cannot solve a lack-of-time problem in the same way as deliberate obstruction of access to knowledge. Before judging the person, it is necessary to establish what is actually blocking the transfer of information. Connelly and colleagues define knowledge hiding as a deliberate attempt to conceal knowledge that another person has asked for. Both the request and the intent are important. Someone who does not know about a colleague’s need may not be hiding anything. This distinction prevents every communication problem from being hastily reframed as disloyalty. Similarly, an employee who does not have the requested information is not hiding knowledge just because his answer disappointed the questioner. Connelly et al., 2012. It is also important to distinguish between refusal and failure to reply. An employee may know only part of the solution, not have time to explain it at that moment, or not be able to share access-restricted data. An honest answer should then name the obstacle and, if possible, indicate a way forward. “I can’t share this file, but I can show you how to request access” means something different from another assurance that the file will be sent shortly. Therefore, before evaluating behaviour, it's important to know what the person knows, whether they possess the requested information, and whether they can share it in a given situation.

Three forms of the same evasion

The classic framework, there is a distinction between pretending ignorance, deceptive concealment, and justified concealment. The first is: "“I have no idea,” even though the person knows the answer". The second can be a promise with no intention of fulfilling it or passing on information that seems to help but omits the essence. In the third case, there is a reason for refusal: "“I can’t share that.”". These forms differ in their relational meaning. Crucially, a justification may reflect a genuine restriction rather than merely a convenient excuse. When the question concerns client data or individual salaries, the correct response may be a refusal. In research, the category of legitimate concealment also includes situations involving confidentiality, so the entire concept should not be treated as inherently unethical. In practice, the transparency of the answer can be assessed: does it identify a specific boundary, an appropriate authorized contact or a safe alternative? “I cannot share client data, but I can show you an anonymized template” creates very different conditions for collaboration than repeatedly evading the request without giving a clear answer.

When knowledge becomes a way to protect status

It's easy to imagine an organization where the only source of recognition for an expert is that no one else can do their job. In a system like this, documenting a process can feel like giving up your own advantage. When promotion is competitive, early attribution of other people's ideas, or when there is no time allocated for onboarding others, asking for help stops sounding neutral. This may explain the behavior; it does not justify every evasive response. It does, however, show why the slogan “Let’s share knowledge” may be weaker than the organization’s everyday incentives. Reviews of research on knowledge hiding indicate the importance of relationships, mistrust, and working conditions. The findings do not come down to one type of difficult employee. You also need to distinguish plausible explanations from mechanisms actually established by evidence: many surveys show the co-occurrence of phenomena, not a simple chain of causes. A useful line of inquiry for a manager is therefore: What does the employee gain by helping, what do they risk, and what have their previous experiences taught them? Siachou et al., 2021. In practice, one can look at how an organisation values knowledge transfer. If an expert is to carry out their own tasks and continually train others at the same time, and their assessment only takes into account individual outcomes, there is a conflict of expectations. The solution does not have to be another database of documents. Sometimes you first need to allocate time for consultation, agree on the responsibility for the materials and notice the contribution of the person who enables others to work independently. None of this excuses deliberately misleading colleagues. It helps to eliminate conditions in which sharing knowledge imposes a constant cost for one party, or calls for openness is disconnected from the daily decisions about the burden, recognition and accountability of the team's work.

How mutual information blocking becomes a spiral

Let's go back to a person waiting for a template. After a few unsuccessful attempts, they may decide that a colleague doesn't deserve help. When they later ask for a contact with a client, they'll also hear an ominous response. Each side will have their own justification: "I'm just adjusting to how they treat me". This scenario illustrates how local frustration can become the norm in a relationship. Over time, the cost stops being two people, because projects that depend on their cooperation have to deal with further information blocks. Breaking this pattern requires verifiable agreements. The questioner can specify the scope and deadline: “I need an example of the pricing section by Wednesday. Can you send me the file, or should I ask someone else?” The recipient should have the opportunity to honestly say that they lack the time or authorization. That way, silence does not become the only means of defending personal boundaries. A clear refusal allows the requester to seek another solution; apparent agreement brings work to a standstill because the other person keeps waiting.

What the manager should change

It's worth starting with the most repeatable dependencies: who has critical knowledge, where the documentation should be, and how much time is actually allocated to transferring it. If the expert is fully committed, helping others cannot be treated as a cost-free addition. It's also good to recognize authorship and the contribution to team development. The employee should see that through knowledge sharing his role can grow rather than disappear. Then the discussion of individual responsibility is supported by conditions that make cooperation a reasonable choice. It's helpful to choose a small experiment about a particular process. The team may agree that for a month, questions about a given system are put in a common place and the answers are given a brief description of the context, then it checks whether the number of repeated questions has decreased and whether new people are actually able to do the job. The number of documents uploaded is not yet evidence of an effective knowledge exchange. The material may be outdated, incomprehensible or difficult to find. Information from the recipients is needed and the ability to complete the explanation without making people feel embarrassed for asking questions. In this way, the conversation moves from a general assessment of who is helpful to verifiable conditions for the use of knowledge, and responsibility for both communicating and learning remains shared.

Knowledge hiding must be identified precisely, without identifying it with any refusal to help. Intention, specific requests and reasonable limitations are important. The most useful actions are to combine transparent rules of access to information with relationships in which sharing knowledge does not mean losing recognition or control over one's own work.

Using Empatyzer to discuss knowledge sharing

Empatyzer can support preparation for a conversation in which a request for knowledge is met with evasion. In Talk to Em about a specific person, In Talk to Em about a specific person, the user can refine a message explaining what they need, which task it supports, and when. The available interlocutor profile and description of the relationship help to determine how to present the request, but they do not establish why someone failed to respond earlier. It is therefore worth preparing a question about obstacles and a feasible way to share the information. A leader can use the Talk to Em about your team to set the rules for consulting, sharing responsibility and valuing help. Empatyzer is not a repository of company knowledge or a tool for detecting knowledge hiding. Its role is to support communication between people. This team must check the availability of materials, take time to clarify and assess whether employees can actually use the necessary knowledge after the changes are made.