Booked up
One of the secrets of successful businesses everywhere isthe following: Of the two sorts of knowledge in the world, there is good and
bad news for each. On the one hand, explicit knowledge will be handed down for
the benefit of future generations. The downside for explicit knowledge,
wherever found, is that it is generally decreasing in financial value. Tacit
knowledge on the other hand is increasing in value but it only has value whilst
life lasts.
Staring absent mindedly at 40 years of books and manuals on
the office shelf, I marvelled at such a collection of thinking, learning and
wisdom in all those pages. It must have been a different experience reading
some of those tomes at thirty years of age, than more recently at sixty. I wondered what my head had done with it all, if anything.
A few days later I was in the London Boardroom of a large retail
chain. In response to my question, the HR director assured his colleagues that
the appraisal system was well established and very effective. So I asked who
appraised the directors and by the way, what are their development points?
Silence.
I gently advised the HR director that much of the time, energy
and money spent on appraisals is wasted. Then turning to the Managing Director
I continued that “unless the appraisal process starts with the externally
facilitated review of you and your colleagues, in the same room, then almost
all of the resources put into the appraisal process are wasted.”
Unique tacit knowledge. Find out what yours and that of your
colleagues consists of, learn how to apply it, then use it.
Labels: explicit and tacit knowledge
posted by Tim @ 1:49 PM
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