tacit knowledge
18-Jul-05
virginie herbout
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- Author:
- virginie herbout
- Publisher:
- KnowledgeBoard
- Date:
- 18-Jul-05
- Categories:
- Knowledge and Information Theory, KM Strategy and Vision, Strategy and Vision
- Sections:
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Tacit Knowledge Capture
Raquel, about your question regarding return-planning. It depends very much what kind of engagement it is. If it is longer term (i.e. 3year maternity leave) we usually start planning the return 6 month before the returnee is back, rather than 3 years in advance. If it is much shorter, we do outline the strategy on leaving/returning in discussion around the engagement itself, of course.
Re: Tacit Knowledge Capture
We do something like this in my company: a wives’ workshop. We noticed that – for all employees that are leaving our country to work in another one - if the spouses don’t manage to adapt themselves to the new context probably the couple will have to come back and the mission will fail. This workshop is done just like you described, with a facilitator, joining wives that lived overseas and the one who is following her husband.
A good book that talks about this question specifically is “So you’re going overseas - A handbook for Personal and Professional Success”, of Mr. J. Stewart Black., Global Business publishers.
I’d like to ask you something: do you plan the employees’ return? Or your action is restricted to these workshops?
Thank you a lot! Regards,
Raquel Balceiro
A target or direction
Hi, Eddie,
So you’re inviting us to construct a sense of direction to define tacit knowledge? Very good! Can you help us to choose the path?
I didn’t imagine that people were still discussing the differences among all kinds of knowledge: explicit, implicit, tacit etc. I always believe that the most important thing is what to do to obtain competitive advantage through knowledge management, either tacit or explicit one.
But, if you know a way to start a structured discussion, ok! I’m with you!
Regards,
Raquel Balceiro
Sun and Shadow Program
Hi, Piuma,
The first time I heard about the “Sun and Shadow” Program was in the Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) presentation in our KM Meeting, an event for companies promoted by Brazilian Society of Knowledge Management (SBGC – http://www.sbgc.org.br), a kind of “Knowledge Board” that we have in Brazil.
Little time later, I found the book “Knowledge Management Fieldbook” in Portuguese. The authors are Wendi R. Bukowitz and Ruth L. Williams (Prentice Hall Ed., available at Amazon.com). In Brazil, PwC sponsored the edition. You can learn more about the “Sun and Shadow” Program there. But, if you search at Google for this theme, you will also find information like:
"Shadowing is at its essence, the modeling or imitation of someone's behavior. It can be a powerful teaching tool if the model is a winner and if the student correctly learns to imitate the winning traits and not just any trait or activity.
By it’s very nature shadowing is not designed to be an on-going or long-term relationship. Most shadowing lasts for a few hours or a few days. During this time the person being shadowed also agrees to talk with the shadow about daily routines, skills needed, objectives sought and goals achieved. The shadowing experience is designed to give new real estate agents an up-close look at the world of a successful real estate producers. The problem is that there is no free follow-up after the experience and this leaves the shadowee on his/her own again".
(Source: Written by Dr. Martin Oliver of RealSure, Inc. http://www.swanepoel.com/articles/archives/coachingandmentoring-2004.htm)
In the TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT Journal there are a lot of articles about this too!
Regards,
Raquel Balceiro
answer
Piuma,
I'm so sorry, I can't show you any link about this subject but if you want to talk about general knowledge concepts I'm here.
what is "Sun & Shadow"
what is "Sun & Shadow" could u please tell me the link that i can learn about it
The Tacit Knowledge Start
Ladies and gentlemen,
The Tacit knowledge is the most dificult subject of our society.
First, because it should bring us profit and innovation.
Second, because it should bring us development not just to the companies but for us, specially for us.
At last, our society shouldn´t tell a history about products and services. Our society must tell a new history to the mankind.
Every site we visit finding concepts and ideas usually offer a several good thoughts but unfortunately the foro stopped before everybody get the same plan. It's like the lost boat in the middle of the Ocean. It doen't a compass to arrive at the port.
Our dialogues are more important to stablish the thruth about our fate.
Knowledge is a word we need to use beside others one as Management, Technology, Society, Economy and Age.
So , if we want to follow those worlds we need to get the same concept for everybody.
We need to get the essence of that.
We need to look at the several knowledge dimensions and development a strong model to this world
We need to know what is the history we are going to build...
As our Medieval Age old friends we need to listen everything. We need to leave our minds open to listen the thruth because the target is finish The Information Age.It's show something that information is not able to do.
Lewis Carroll wrote into "Alice in Wondeland" a little dialogue very important to our society I decided to leave above.
Alice: “ Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here ?
Cat: “ That depends a good deal on where you want to get to ”
Alice: “I don’t much care where...”
Cat: “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go ”
Everytime we want to speak about the knowledge we need to look at the future. We need to find the targets.
Share is important, but we need to describe the port. we need to know how it's possible to arrive to there.
The Tacit knowledge basis starts from here
The strategies will appear based on the blueprint
So Where all of you want to get to?
Tacit Knowledge Capture
What we have done a few times now are something we call knowledge transfer sessions (especially useful, if you do not have much time because the person is leaving or transferring).
The principle is as follows: The person to transfer knowledge from gets into the front and around them are about 7-8 people (colleagues, the manager, new starters in the same domain, interesting outsiders) and (very important) a facilitator. We usually did about 2hour sessions. The facilitator should be somewhat familiar with the topic to make sure they can lead properly. You start out with having people telling stories on how they see theír work, what happend to them, what they like, what they hate, how they do or did this or that etc. etc. And then you have those diverse people ask questions (either prepared by them or spontanous). The effect is a lively exchange, and a lot of it is tacit. It is in the stories that are told, in the questions asked or sometimes just how they are answered. The session is video taped (with the consent of the main person, of course and with very simple video technology), split into topics (as much as possible) and made available on the internal web or as a CD for others that the domain knowledge captured is useful to. I heard about the idea from Rolls Royce Air, adapted it to what we needed and let me tell you everybody loves it.
Especially the one that gets to talk about themselves and their work were really happy and said that it was a lot of fun, actually. In the end you do not really turn tacit into explicit but make some of the tacit a little bit more transportable ...
Captruing Tacit knowledge
With my experience i found that talking to people with prepared agenda works very fine fot capturing...but at last u need to do the documentation for future use.I do agree the Guru shishya system in ancient India worked without storage system till paper technology came. But today the Organizations are eager to do this through various tools but i think first People issue should be handled first.
Also the sharing attitude need to be considered,where the self actualization person is always prompt to share the knowledge.
Designing smart Portals can also work where people have to put their contribution before navigating further.
Jeevan Kamble
knowladge transfer
how can we transfer tacit knowladge to explicit knowladge
tacit knowladge
could u please tell me about programms like "Sun & Shadow". and also tacit knowladge deeply rooted in experience, ideas and values.
then how can we transfer this experience in to explicit knowladge
Tacit Knowledge
Dear Rajesh,
Thank you for the links! I'll check them.
Many companies are also implementing programms like "Sun & Shadow" to transfer the tacit knowledge. For us, it is now very important to do something like this, because we have to accelerate our learning curve.
I know that consultant firms have this kind of practices. PriceWaterHouse Coopers is one of them.
Regards,
Raquel Balceiro
Petrobras - KM
tacit knowledge grasping during 4000BC to 800AD
Similar to apprenticeship, storytelling and the many audio-video interactive methods to transfer tacit knowledge, during ancient days in Asia there was something called "Gurukula system (please exclude the regional and religious protocols from that)" of transferring knowledge to new generations and newcomers of domain.
Starting from atleast 4000BC, Gurukula system of 'tacit knowledge transfer' used in all arts and science domains in ancient India and later starting from 500BC a more sophisticated version of this method in Buddisht universities (monastic centers) like Nalanda
(
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/n/na/nalanda.htm
http://www.ayurveda-california.com/Buddhist_ayurveda_monastic_college_Nalanda.htm
)
and Taxila http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/t/ta/taxila.htm
This evolutionary process help re-creating Deep Smarts in all the domains where the gurus (mentors) are experts.
http://www.cio.com/go/index.html?ID=3863&PMID=16327113&s=2&f=1
http://www.cio.com/go/index.html?ID=3862&PMID=16327113&s=2&f=1
The learners live, travel and completely associate oneself with the Gurus (mentors or teachers). And the mentors bring the learners to the context of the subject in interactive ways (with live experiece and opportunity for experimenting with guidance) considering the social, intellectual, creative and aesthetic aspects of gathering knowledge. And in the long run the learners start doing self reflection and improve the domain leading to more advancement of the subject.
best wishes,
Rajesh
Re: tacit knowledge
In Petrobras, the company I work for, we're considering both types of knowledge in our knowledge programm: the explicit and tacit one.
Recently, we started a project of case studies, to register the most important stories of our 50 years life-cycle. This work is being complemented by a project of storytelling - recorded in videos.
Specifically to develop the case studies, we contracted a Research Center. The methodology involved 13 interviews with the main actors of that story, indicated by the leader, and information collecting of all that period. The Research Center has autonomy to write: its team would not put a lot of compliments in text, neither criticizes all the time. We asked the team to be impartial.
The main objective of this projet is to provide our students (we have a corporative university), the chance to learn with an internal case study. The prioritization of the stories has been doing by their importance for the company´s story.
Regards,
Raquel Balceiro
Petrobras - KM
Sharing or Capturing
Yes, tacit knowledge is hard to capture, that is why one should first ask, if it is necessary to capture it. Usually the goal of capture is to transfer it, so one should ask if there is other ways of transfer (i.e. apprenticeship, storytelling etc.) before attempting to go there. If capture is really what you need (because direct contact is not an option), stories might help. Stories have shown to transfer certain tacit elements that in context with the receivers interpretation create knowledge that can at least have certain elements from the sender's knowledge. There is a lot on storytelling from people like Steven Denning or Dave Snowden. Another more longterm angle on it might be very specific training. If you identify training methologies that have shown to produce after repitition and exercise at some point knowledge that might actually be tacit, it could be about capturing and transferring the methodology. If it is a good one, similiar tacit knowledge can develop over time. A good example would be juggling, which holds a lot of tacit elements on how to do certain things, but those cannot be transferred to shown to anybody, you can design a training however that will (depending on certain conditions) sooner or later produce the tacit knowledge for the trainee.
A guideline for harvesting tacit knowledge
Virginie,
From its very nature, tacit knowledge is rather difficult to capture, at least as a whole.
Nevertheless, you may follow some principles which may help you as written here
Moreover, if you need more details about tacit knowledge itself, it is quite possible to let you aware into a next comment.
Guy
tacit knowledge
Rachel,
The mankind knew 4 centuries ago that knowledge was very important to develop the society.
The mankind knew it's necessary to change the mind about everything.
The thinkers told us that it's necessary to draw. it's necessary learn Physics and the art of the numbers.
The nature and the men were too precious to get knowledge and Bacon advertised a new stage free of the old ideas.
A world based on the experiment. In the others words, the machine era.
The old thinkers knew that it's necessary to build machines.
The machines were the path to get knowledge. They were the compass for development.
Like our friends from the past, we need to define necessary elements to change the the world, and worst we need to get a target.
In the past were the machines.
what will be the another one, now?
The competitive advantage starts here.
The target is the candidate definition.
It's the great idea to organize our mind.
May you tell me some elements we need to learn ?
May you tell me where we are going for?
I'll back soon
Until next time.
bye.