Tools To Facilitate The Sharing Of Tacit Knowledge

After-Action Reviews

The tool, Retrospect, developed at BP to help capture tacit knowledge at the end of major projects (Collinson and Parcell, 2001) includes the following steps:

• Call a meeting with key players who have been involved in the project

• Re-visit project objectives and deliverables, using the help of a skilled facilitator

• Re-visit project plan

• Discussion and dialogue

• What went well and why?

• What could have gone better?

• What are the key messages others need to know about? The learning that is captured needs to be expressed as being beneficial for the future

• Ensure participants leave the meeting feeling that they have achieved something

• Agree next steps if appropriate

• Record the meeting and make available to others

End Of Project Learning Review

This example of an End of Project Learning Review, developed by the author (Evans, 2000), is offered as a starting point for conducting learning reviews within your organisation. It is designed to capture learning in three areas: learning about the task, the process, as well as learning at the individual/ organisational level.

Your Views About The Task

What was the project designed to achieve?

What did it actually achieve?

Why did these differences occur?

What can we learn from this?

Your Views About The Process

What worked particularly well in terms of the way we worked together as a team on this project?

What worked less well for you in terms of the way we worked together as a team?

How might we have worked SMARTer together?

How might we have made better use of different levels of expertise and skills?

What were the surprises for you on the project and why?

Your Views On Individual/Organisational Learning

What have been the key benefits for you personally of taking part in this project, for example what new insights, ideas, or skills have you acquired?

How have you applied, or are you intending to apply, these to your other roles?

Who else have you shared your insights/ideas with?

Who else do you think would benefit from the lessons learnt on this project?

What be the best way(s) of sharing and disseminating these lessons?

Storytelling

One of the tools that is gaining popularity as a way of helping to elicit tacit knowledge, as we saw in the preceding chapter, is the use of narrative techniques such as Storytelling. Storytelling is not a new tool, its roots are in ancient traditions. In tribal cultures, for example, community members gather around the campfire to tell and re-tell tales of important events. During these gatherings different individuals offer their recollections of a major event (e.g. wars, change of leadership) and the leader (often referred to as a shaman) offers a commentary of the story thus helping to bring the story’s significance to light.

Stories, according to J.S. Bruner (1986), a social psychologist, are ‘polysemic’ i.e. they have layers of meaning and significance, which we become aware of as we grow in experience and insight. As individuals we return to stories time and time again to get fresh insights. Stories, according to Gareth Morgan (1986), are a valuable tool for reconciling paradoxes and of transforming our understanding of organisational dilemmas.

Storytelling can provide a means for organisations to collectively reflect on past experience and draw out lessons learnt, so that these can be proactively taken forward.

Storytelling is both a process as well as a product, the product being a compelling story which conveys key messages. These messages can often be about the organisational values, norms, or rules that have previously got in the way on a particular project, or of organisational change.

Geoff Mead, an Organisational Development consultant, suggests that if OD consultants and developers use story as a way of describing actual events and relationships, then it can help to unlock individuals through opening up creative possibilities, thus making people more open to change^[2].

The Oxford Group, a major change consultancy, stress the importance of creating a shared ‘One Story’ during change programmes. This was the approach adopted for the closure of C&A, in the late 1990s. C&A had been a household high street name up until this point. Having taken the difficult decision to close their high street stores, the organisation set an objective of making it the best closure on the high street. This was the story that senior managers communicated time and time again; this strategy seems to have paid off as profits rose during the closure period.

Storytelling can be a time consuming process. It requires the support of skilled facilitators with a diverse skill-set. However, many of these skills may already exist within the organisation, but remain untapped. For example, individuals with observation and recording skills may well exist in HR teams who carry out Assessment Centres. Qualitative research skills may well exist amongst individuals who are studying or, or who have completed, a masters programme. Some individuals may even have script writing skills developed from their interests outside of work. So it seems a good time for organisations to take a look at the broadranging skills which individuals have, but may not yet have been captured or exploited.

Drawing out lessons learnt, whether it be successes, or failures, so that these can be communicated across the organisation is crucial in learning-centric organisations. The use of narrative techniques, such as Storytelling, is one of the tools that organisations are now more prepared to experiment with. The case study that follows, from English Nature, shows how Storytelling is a natural fit as a knowledge management tool given the existing organisational culture and skills set.

^[2]Some additional references on Appreciative Inquiry, other than the Cooperrider one in the main references, include: S. Hammond (1998) The Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry (2nd edn). Thin Book Publishing, Plano Texas and C. Elliott (1999), Locating the Energy for Change: An Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry. The International Institute for Sustainable Development, Winnipeg, Canada.