Know

To understand how to manage knowledge we first need to understand what is meant by knowledge.

 

The Oxford dictionary defines knowledge as, “Facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject”. Now this definition is actually a combination of two types of knowledge, skills which is knowledge in people’s heads (tacit knowledge) and facts or information which could be in peoples head (tacit knowledge) or written down (explicit knowledge). I think that this is an important distinction when applying this to an organisational setting.

 

To consider knowledge fully you need to think about how you can support people to build tacit knowledge when they join an organisation and when changes are made to that organisation. This is where explicit knowledge can be very supportive. Well written knowledge articles or well made videos can help people to learn what they need to know about organisations when they join or changes that are made while they are there. The creation of explicit knowledge in your organisation also starts with tacit knowledge in people's heads and their ability to communicate these things simply.

 

Take a look at the other pages in this section to understand more about how we build tacit or explicit knowledge, how knowledge is transferred between tacit and explicit and how to manage this transition.

 

Name *
E-mail *