Is trust the linchpin for successful knowledge management?

Interesting post on Arup Thoughts last week from Andrew Trickett about trust and knowledge management. Here are a couple excerpts I particularly liked:

“For me the key element in this employer-employee relationship is trust. From experience, knowledge management thrives in organisations where there are high levels of trust between people within the organisation.

If there is trust then you don’t have to have as many manuals, checkers and counter signatures. People want to sign their work as craftsmen and to receive the credit as well as an acknowledgement of responsibility for that work.”

And…

“People naturally want to share knowledge. But organisations tend to place barriers in their way. Examples include not providing a time allowance to reflect and review work and to share and gather experiences from that work, to help improve the final product and to provide the ability for the organisation and its people to learn, adapt and evolve to meet a client’s current and future challenges.

If the organisation removes these barriers, people have to invest time in their own personal knowledge management and to recognise that their success is derived from being a sharer, not a hoarder of knowledge throughout the myriad formal and informal networks that exist in today’s organisation.”

I think Andrew makes several interesting points. What say you? Is trust the linchpin for successful knowledge management?