The Real Reasons Knowledge Doesn’t Transfer: How Behavior Shapes Learning in the Corporate World
If you’re familiar with the saying “It’s not what you say, but how it’s heard,” you may already know a little about the nuance of knowledge transfer — the process through which employees share, absorb, and apply information. Knowledge transfer can be explicit or tacit, and affects everything from morale to innovation. But be careful, simply following the advice “you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar” will steer you wrong.
Consider a time when you delivered the same message to two people but got completely different reactions—or you received similar information from two separate people but one rubbed you the wrong way so much the delivery alone made you not want to comply. This is no coincidence; there’s more involved in delivery than being nice. The key to creating lasting impact lies in understanding how your employees uniquely share and process information, and how the behavior of both giver and receiver impacts it.
The Why: What Gets Shared and Heard
Every employee approaches daily tasks with their own motivations and goals. According to the Five Archetypes framework—a system for understanding each person’s unique way of interacting with the world—individuals are primed to seek, receive, learn, and apply new information when they see knowledge as a tool to achieve specific personal or professional objectives. For instance, an Earth Archetype with natural caregiver tendencies might be driven to learn by a desire to gather context and resources to make sure everyone has what they need for stability, without conflict emerging on the team. Meanwhile, a Metal Archetype is an architect of beauty and structure who sorts out the right processes to keep us from making mistakes, and is motivated to learn systems that may prevent suffering from unpredictable change.
Understanding the “why” behind an employee’s intrinsic motivation is key to creating training that resonates, but it also can drive why folks share—or hoard—information. When they’re in a healthy mindset, each archetype has super powers that inspire and empower others. But when they’re stressed, each archetype’s unique tendencies can cause them to slide on a spectrum from oversharing to undersharing, with poor delivery of both.
For example, maybe you’ve tasked your company’s biggest cheerleader to lead your company’s onboarding for a batch of new hires because they have a magnetic personality and easily energize teams into action. This person is likely a Fire Archetype—those natural optimists that always celebrate the wins and kick off meetings with a fun story about their hilarious mishap on the way to work. When a Fire archetype is healthy and resilient, they fulfill their life’s work by teaching others in compassionate and energizing ways. But maybe the day of onboarding your Fire person had a lousy night’s sleep and forgot to eat breakfast. Stressed and not able to face the challenges of the day, they’re more likely to be scattered in their facilitation, go off on tangents, lose track of time and not get through the agenda, maybe even making the new hires feel uneasy with their awkwardness, causing your onboarding to flop and the new hires to question what chaos they signed up for.
Or maybe you’ve tasked a big new project to your Wood Archetype — the trailblazer always willing to “take a hill.” When they’re healthy, this person will drive your organization to new heights with inspiring humility, achieving big, collaborative, shared wins along the way with plenty of recognition for others. But when they’re stressed or make a mistake, Wood Archetypes can tend to see others as barriers to their progress or competitors for promotion, and might hoard information to protect their position in the lead.
With each archetype, there is a unique and powerful “why” and “why not” that can heavily influence knowledge transfer from both ends of the information. But even when the transmitter is in a healthy state and delivering flawlessly, that’s not the only behavioral factor impacting knowledge transfer.
The Barrier: Everyone Has a Personal Filter
Each person receives new information differently based on the narratives in their head at the time they are receiving it. Employees with low adaptability to stress will either go into protective mode and shut down to truth, or overvalue concepts that aren’t fully baked. There’s a spectrum within each archetype, ranging from completely close-minded and not willing to receive new information to way too open and not able to think critically, believing everything they hear without questioning its validity or application. The sweet spot in knowledge transfer is in the middle, slightly uncomfortable with open curiosity—and that sweet spot is different for each of us.
Employees come into training with their own set of experiences, expectations, and preconceived notions about the work they do. These personal stories can either facilitate or obstruct the transfer of knowledge by creating expectations. The Water Archetype, for instance, may find it difficult to absorb new information if it all seems generic without meaning, or connection to the big picture. On the other hand, a Metal Archetype may resist information that doesn’t fit within their structured, logical worldview, creating a barrier to more flexible, creative solutions.
These filters, shaped by personal and professional histories, can limit how employees receive and process new information. For effective knowledge transfer, it’s essential to acknowledge these barriers and create training environments that address them—or know when it’s not even time to try.
The How: Adapting The Way We Share Information
When we exist in a stressed state—something many of us can relate to at work at least once in our lives—we get stuck wishing our external environment would just give us a break. This means that at any given point, there’s a good chance someone on your team is struggling to learn something critical, will forget what they’re told, or has trouble putting it into action. It may not always happen, but gambling with knowledge transfer is an effective way to run a business right into the ground.
Each employee’s primary element provides insight into how to get the best out of them, and how to avoid getting their worst. The process of transferring knowledge requires strong interpersonal connection, and when the giver actively nourishes the communication style of the receiver, we’re able to activate the highest-functioning part of both brains. Brains that are in the sweet spot for growth can problem solve, tolerate nuance, and get curious together without taking things personally—and each Archetype has a way they like to receive information, which is why information dripping with honey will only work for one of them. The rest need something else.
Your Earth Archetypes value consistency and stability. They will excel in learning environments where they can reinforce knowledge through repetition and structured processes. Pro tip: provide them with information in story form because it helps them connect with the information in soothing ways.
The Water Archetypes in the room thrive in collaborative, reflective settings so they’ll appreciate small group seminars where they can explore ideas, discuss challenges, and relate learning to emotional or ethical considerations. Pro tip: don’t cram too much learning into a small time frame, and build in time for reflection breaks.
Fire Archetypes are energized by playfulness and social settings. And because they’re optimists, they like change and surprises, preferring dynamic, interactive training sessions that encourage quick thinking. Pro tip: kick off training with an opportunity to share something fun about yourself, but make it optional for the non-fire types in the room.
Your Wood Archetypes need flexibility and innovation and love a good challenge. They prefer to learn with open-ended problem-solving scenarios where they can explore multiple solutions and think creatively. Pro tip: keep it clear, with bullet points where possible. Wood types love an executive summary.
Any Metal Archetypes in the room will favor precision and clarity, and love to see the agenda before starting to learn. They will respond best to detailed, step-by-step instructions and clear goals that align with their methodical approach. Pro tip: they might be the only ones to read the entire technical manual so it’s worth writing one just for them.
Knowledge Transfer Begins Within
Research shows effective knowledge transfer leads to higher productivity, better team collaboration, and more resilient organizations. Whether your company is using training programs, hands-on simulations, group discussions, or clearly structured manuals, adapting the way we tackle information sharing requires an understanding of how we interact. When we design to meet the needs of each archetype, we help ensure employees not only understand new information but are also motivated and able to apply it effectively in their roles.
You can’t get where you need to be without understanding your own unique structure first. For some of you, even reading this and accepting something you didn’t previously know may have been a challenge. And that’s okay. Begin within.