Epic Think Tank
Blending Learning and Knowledge Management
4. The book under the counter
Tacit knowledge has been variously defined in the academic literature
as the observance of a set of rules which are not known as such
to the person following them (Polanyi), or as knowledge which cannot
be articulated 'in codified forms such as blueprints and written
instructions' . Either way, tacit knowledge under these definitions
cannot be written down, because it is specifically defined as 'the
type of knowledge that cannot be written down'.
In the light of this, it is useful to draw on a brace of anecdotes
that came up during the discussion concerning instances of unofficial
knowledge sharing.
The first was about a group of gas fitters that had an informal
process for recording and passing on scraps of knowledge gained
on the job. The centre of this 'knowledge share' was a particular
cafe where they met up between jobs. It was discovered that they
kept a book under the counter, in which they recorded problems encountered
with specific boilers and other pieces of equipment, and how they
had solved these problems. Gas fitters who spent much of their time
out on the road would often consult the book under the counter,
or add new entries of their own. Over time this book became a valuable
hoard of localised, task-specific knowledge. And the company didn't
even know about it.
Similar patterns of unofficial knowledge management have been observed
among photocopier service engineers. Here it was found that the
knowledge recorded was very much along the line of 'things the manual
doesn't tell you'; glitches the manufacturers did not care to own
up to; solutions for problems which had no official existence.
What these stories indicate is a whole stratum of knowledge, essential,
in some cases, to performing one's job function, that is not so
much tacit as unofficial. It is not made explicit within the organisation's
jurisdiction, either because the organisation does not think to
provide it, or because the organisation - for reasons to do with
intellectual property and the laws of libel - is prohibited from
doing so. Clearly, no inherent technical difficulty prohibits this
species of knowledge from being written down - as evidenced by the
book under the counter. But there are all sorts of reasons why useful
stuff like this does not end up on the company website or in a trainer's
PowerPoint.
Perhaps a third category of knowledge exists then, somewhere between
explicit and tacit, that we might call unofficial knowledge (or
'watercooler' knowledge). It is quite capable of being made explicit.
It's just that, seemingly in everybody's interest, explicitness
is limited to oral transmission, posts on forums or inter-personal
emails - or a book kept under a counter in the nearest greasy spoon.
The value of the employee to the organisation in these examples
is enhanced by their possession of such unofficial knowledge, which
goes 'beyond the manual' and beyond what is provided by the company
about its own products and processes.
An alarming corollary is the somewhat uncomfortable fact of what
makes these sort of unofficial knowledge transfers happen in the
first place. Could it be that these organisations are not providing
employees with the knowledge they need to become expert at their
jobs? Bear in mind, here, Heisenberg's definition of an expert as
someone who knows everything that can go wrong within a given field
(bit of a focus on the downside there, Walter).
Organisations might even be inadvertantly destroying valuable stores
of unofficial knowledge by actions such as closing down the subsidised
staff canteen, or minimising 'unproductive' common areas within
their offices where staff could previously mingle informally for
this unofficial solving of unacknowledged problems.
However, looked at positively, what these examples indicates is
that far more learning could be going on in the workplace, unofficially
and informally, than is usually given credit for. These narratives
also indicate a source of motivation that organisations might usefully
tap into, because clearly, employees will be pro-active about knowledge
sharing where performance of their day-to-day job functions depends
on it.
Then again, is the book under the counter really a parable about
knowledge management? To an e-learning person, this looks very much
like an example of collaborative
learning.
In this very simple, grass-roots example, the difference would
seem to be, finally, one of semantics: knowledge management is the
process; learning is the outcome.
Next>>
Intro: Sven, VBM and the book under
the counter
1. The personality of knowledge
2. Making the tacit explicit
3. Learning from war stories
4. The convergence of learning and
knowledge management
5. Reward systems in the culture club
6. Modelling the tall poppy
7. Value based management and Sven's
men
8. The Odyssey as quality manual
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