---
title: The Power of Knowing Together (2) — Information Isn't Power, It's a Bottleneck
url: https://oosioo.com/en/p/%ED%95%A8%EA%BB%98-%EC%95%84%EB%8A%94-%ED%9E%98-2
date: 2026-10-16T10:13:30+00:00
author: SYSOP
summary: It's easy to believe that hoarding information creates power. What it actually creates is a bottleneck. An organization that stops without you isn't a seat of power — it's a prison.
---
# The Power of Knowing Together (2) — Information Isn't Power, It's a Bottleneck

In many organizations, information is power. If I know something others don't, that becomes my reason for being. "They can't ignore me, because only I know this." Whether they realize it or not, plenty of people hold onto information this way.

## The Prison Called Bottleneck

But this approach has a fatal flaw. When I monopolize information, the people around me end up only doing what they're told. Not knowing why, they can't judge for themselves, so they have to ask me every time. Eventually everything has to pass through me, and a bottleneck forms. At first this bottleneck feels like power. "See, nothing moves without me." But the cost is steep. I make every decision, I solve every problem, and if I get sick or step away, the whole thing grinds to a halt. This isn't power — it's a prison.

Once I went on a two-day business trip where I was hard to reach. When I got back, I found the team had barely made any progress. "We needed your sign-off, but we couldn't reach you." That's when it hit me: I was the bottleneck.

In the software industry there's a concept called the "bus factor" — how many people would need to get hit by a bus for a project to stall. A bus factor of 1 is the worst case. Information that exists only inside one person's head disappears the moment that person does. Monopolizing information is how you drive an organization's bus factor down to 1.

![The danger of a bus factor of 1 — when information lives only in one person's head, it vanishes when they do](/uploads/6e34981be4efcb51.webp =720)

## What a Predecessor Left Behind

I've run into a similar situation at my current company. My predecessor held onto handover documents and key information as a form of personal power instead of sharing them. Where certain documents were, what commitments had been made to clients, the history behind each project — all of it existed only in one person's head. Team members, unable to see the full picture, were just doing what they were told. Each held a single puzzle piece, with no idea what the finished picture was supposed to look like.

What happens if you do the opposite? When I share what I know, team members learn the company's situation, understand what clients want, and know why they're doing the work. Then they move without being told, set their own goals, and make judgment calls on their own when problems arise. Sharing information isn't losing power. If anything, it elevates my role — from a mere conduit of information to someone who sets direction.

Some companies have pushed this principle to an extreme. One fully remote software company has written up almost its entire way of operating in a handbook running over two thousand pages, and publishes the whole thing on the internet for anyone to see. With no office and people scattered across the world, the default is "public" for strategy, pay structure, and working rules alike — unless there's a specific reason to keep something hidden. The reasoning is simple: write it down once and open it to everyone, and you never have to answer the same question a hundred times. If someone holds onto information that has no reason to be hidden, they stop being a conduit for the organization and become a clog instead. Conversely, someone who writes down what they know and opens it up ensures the team doesn't grind to a halt when they're away. The person who matters more to an organization isn't the one holding the information, but the one making it flow. That's the surest way to eliminate a bottleneck. Netflix sums this up in one line: if you want to control, hold on to information; if you want to delegate, share it.

![The contrast between monopolizing information, which creates a bottleneck everyone must pass through, and sharing it, which lets everyone move autonomously](/uploads/ad6f2470da6030c1.webp =720)

In the next piece, I'll talk about silos — what happens to an organization when people hold onto information and compete with each other instead.