6T60 Training: Tacit Knowledge

Welcome to your weekly 60 second insight into optimising your Team, Tools, Training, Tactics, Traction and (Cultural) Transformation.

Each week we share videos, quotes, podcasts, questions and articles for you with the aim to add value in 60 seconds, or less!

This week: Training

As we only have 60 seconds, let’s start!...

Have you ever wondered why native English speakers say the big red bus and not red big bus? I hadn’t until I was training to teach English overseas and came across N-O-S-A-S-C-O-M-P. The rule of the order of adjectives: Number (or determiner), opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, purpose + noun.

Before I learned about N-O-S-A-S-C-O-M-P the fact that the sentence had to be big red bus, to me was tacit knowledge. A rule I’d just picked up through osmosis, growing up as a native English speaker, surrounded by a family of native speakers in an English speaking country. If someone had asked me how I knew that big red bus was correct, I couldn’t have given an answer - even now my only answer is N-O-S-A-S-C-O-M-P - and a helpless shrug.?

In 1967 British Polymath, Michael Polanyi described tacit knowledge as, ?“things that we know but cannot tell.”?

How much of how your teams do what they do everyday, is tacit knowledge?

Through traditional training, organisations invest significantly in explicit knowledge transfer mechanisms, such as training programs and documentation. Tacit knowledge, rooted in individuals' experiences, insights, and intuition, has massive potential to foster innovation, enhance decision-making, and ultimately, help bolster productivity but its value remains understated.

When people leave, they don't just leave behind their roles; they also take with them all the tacit knowledge accumulated over their tenure. This can result in a significant loss, affecting productivity, morale, and continuity. Recognising the importance of tacit knowledge and implementing strategies to capture and retain it is crucial.

But where to start:

1. Fostering a culture of knowledge sharing. Empower your teams to share? insights, experiences, and best practices freely. This can be facilitated through regular meetings, where employees can exchange ideas and learn from each other's experiences. The best way to learn is to teach. This not only supports knowledge transfer but will help reinforce the knowledge in those transferring.
2. Implement mentor and capture programs to help transfer tacit knowledge including practical skills, problem-solving approaches, and industry insights that may not yet have been explicitly documented.?
3. Finally, leverage technology to capture and codify tacit knowledge. Create internal wikis, or knowledge management systems to document insights, lessons learned, and best practices shared by employees. These will serve as valuable resources for current and future team members, ensuring that critical knowledge remains accessible even when individuals transition out of the team.

Addressing the challenge of tacit knowledge loss, can mitigate the impact of turnover on team retention, contribute to a culture of continuous learning and innovation and help support long term success.

Ready to take action?

Tacit knowledge capture forms part of Human’s Culture Capture Audit process. If you would like to start a conversation about how Human can help you develop a culture of knowledge sharing, book a discovery call to learn more.?

Think it might be time to hire a dedicated People & Culture person? Take our assessment to find out.?

If you have more time (and you’re interested in language):

Here’s an article on the language rules we know - but don’t know we know…?

See you next time!

Amy