Dove Lane

Recently I was talking with a friend about knowledge transfer, and he made the comment that in his organization, the management team seems to be trying to create “plug and play” people. Their goal is to be able to move people from one job to another seamlessly, assuming that somehow employees will be able to adapt to any new role because there is documentation. While I can understand management’s goal to bring efficiency to the organization and create a more agile work model, this approach is counter-productive and demoralizing. Even if exiting employees attempt to write everything they know about their jobs and processes, research shows that they will probably capture only 3/4 of it. When business process flows are well-defined and have predictable results, how do you capture the “intuitive” knowledge that differentiates what an expert knows from what a newcomer knows?

After two very heady weeks of discussions about information, knowledge, data, reality, applied knowledge, personal knowledge management, tacit/explicit knowledge, and a wide range of other related topics, I came away with new insights about KM and what it is. But I haven’t given up on believing that knowledge requires a knower” and that knowledge is not the same as information, and it can’t be “captured”. This short musing about data, knowledge and information pulls it all into focus.