Paradigmas

Wisdom - Peter Russel View

2007-10-31T10:17:00.000-02:00

What is wisdom? We hear the word a lot these days—the need for wisdom, the wisdom traditions, wisdom schools. We each would like to have more wisdom. And for others to have it as well. Too much human hurt and suffering comes from lack of wisdom. There is something about wisdom that we all aspire to. But what is this quality we hold in such high regard?

Clique no link abaixo e veja mais...

http://www.peterrussell.com:80/SP/Wisdom.php

Modelos Menatis

2006-11-21T12:23:00.000-02:00

A nossa visão de realidade tem algo a ver com nossos modelos mentais. Há indícios de que em nossa mente construímos quadros que utilizamos a todo instante para interpretar e tirar algum sentido do que aconteceu, está acontecendo, ou supomos virá acontecer. Quanto maior for a compreensão de uma situação e da forma como se vê o mundo, mais se aumenta a chance de evitar equívocos como em "A Visita do amigo".

Há quem diga que o reconhecimento e a comunicação de nossos modelos mentais exigem reflexão e capacidade de investigação que poucos administradores possuem. Segundo Senge,[1] um dos conceitos-chave da disciplina que consiste em trabalhar com modelos mentais é a necessidade de contrabalançar inquérito e advocacia. A maior parte dos administradores agem como advogados, pois foram ensinados a atuar com vigor e coerência na defesa de seus pontos de vista. São poucos os casos em que se recompensa o inquérito feito com perguntas incisivas, desafiando práticas e políticas estabelecidas para melhor compreendê-las.

Ironicamente, Os problemas realmente importantes que se apresentam à alta-administração são ‘problemas divergentes’ que precisam ser contemplados sob diversos pontos de vista. Só assim é possível fazer opções, mantendo-se receptivo ao exame dos possíveis erros de raciocínio. Ocorre que os designados para resolver essas questões estão condicionados a serem rígidos advogados, não inquiridores incisivos e colaborativos.[1]

Notas de aula do professor Sérgio Lins. Curso MBKM RJ10 CRIE/COPPE/UFRJ

[1]SENGE, Peter. A quinta disciplina: caderno de campo. Rio de Janeiro: Editora QualityMark, 1994.

Mudança de paradigma

2006-11-03T16:38:00.001-03:00

O termo 'mudanças de paradigma' vem sendo muito utilizado na literatura empresarial. Muitos tentam rotular suas teorias como mudanças de paradigma pois essa conotação é muito bem aceita pelo mercado.

Mudança de paradigma é bem aceita pelo mercado pois reflete algo inovador, mostra algo que vem mudar antigas formas de atuar para tornar-nos mais competitivos. Porém, poucas dessas 'novas' teorias realmente são mudanças de paradigma. Antes de podermos entender o que são mudanças de paradigma precisamos entender o que é um paradigma.

Para Adam Smith, um paradigma é: "Suposições compartilhadas. O paradigma é a forma como nós percebemos o mundo; água para os peixes. O paradigma explica o mundo para nós e nos ajuda a prever o seu comportamento."

Para Barker, paradigma é: "um conjunto de regras e regulamentos (escritas ou não) que faz duas coisas: (1) estabelece ou define limites; (2) diz como devemos comportar dentro desses limites para sermos bem sucedidos."

Com isso, podemos concluir que uma mudança de paradigma é uma mudança de pressupostos básicos do campo de conhecimento, uma mudança nas 'regras do jogo', um novo conjunto de regras. Paradigmas diferentes diferem significativamente em seus pressupostos básicos.

Ver também:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm

Paradigma na Wikipédia

2006-11-03T16:21:00.000-03:00

Paradigma é a representação do padrão de modelos a serem seguidos. É um pressuposto filosófico matriz, ou seja, uma teoria, um conhecimento que origina o estudo de um campo científico; uma realização científica com métodos e valores que são concebidos como modelo; uma referência inicial como base de modelo para estudos e pesquisas.

Filosofia
Na filosofia grega, paradigma era considerado a fluência de um pensamento, pois através de vários pensamentos do mesmo assunto é que se concluia a idéia, seja ela intelectual ou material, depois dela realizada surgiam outras idéias até chegar a uma conclusão final. Pensar que a idéia inicial, tanto a intelectual como a material, é o paradigma da conclusão final demonstra uma incoerência com o que de fato ocorre, pois não conta com a inspiração e os diversos fluxos de pensamento.

Lingüística
Em Lingüística, Ferdinand de Saussure define como paradigma o conjunto de elementos similares que se associam na memória e, assim, formam conjuntos. O encadeamento desses elementos chama-se sintagma.

Origem: Wikipédia, a enciclopédia livre.

Cultura da Mudança

2006-11-03T09:43:00.000-03:00

Existe um momento em que o sistema dá um salto para o novo e o diferente, procurando se reinventar sem compromisso com qualquer padrão estabelecido.

Programas mentais compartilhados orientam o foco dos interesses e indicam a maneira apropriada de agir, provocando reflexos nas realizações e caracterizando a cultura de uma organização.

A cultura organizacional também pode ser vista como um sistema de relacionamento dos seus colaboradores com espaço, tempo, dinheiro, tecnologia, e a natureza.Ressaltamos também que a cultura engloba valores, hábitos, crenças, preconceitos e paradigmas que o ser humano dissemina e compartilha no relacionamento com seus pares.

Dentro desta linha conceitual, no âmbito das organizações o ser humano se torna um catalisador de cultura, disseminando e compartilhando realidades, valores e pressupostos, enquanto se relaciona com seus pares, seus colaboradores e os diversos parceiros de negócios da organização.

O poder e o efeito da influência cultural desse catalisador é função do papel de cada indivíduo como Agente da Cultura Organizacional.
BlogBlogs.Com.Br

Visite http://aprendendocomamudanca.blogspot.com/

Learning

2006-06-10T08:40:00.000-03:00

First-hand learning

This is a slow process in which an organism finds a suitable response to a situation by trial and error.

A secretary finds out how her boss prefers his letters typed. A circus horse learns how to stand on its hind-legs. A cat learns to find its way home. A tennis player learns how to serve.

Learning involves doing something about a situation and then seeing what happens. The outcome may be good, bad or indifferent.

If you eat red berries the taste may be very nasty. If the circus horse stands on its hind-legs it gets rewarded with an apple.

Gradually one learns to shape the response so it produces only pleasure and no pain. Once it has been shaped in this way the response is elicited by special situations just as an instinct response might be.

Advantages

The advantage of leaming over instinct is that one can develop responses to new situations.
Responses can be exactly adjusted to a situation. Bad
responses can be improved or abolished.

Disadvantages

Leaming is very slow as one has to mess around with tria! and error. This is especially so with long-range learning where the reward does not come at once but only after a long sequence ofresponses (so you cannot tell at once whether you are on the right track or not).
Direct leaening can be dangerous. It would be very dangerous if everyone had to find out about an electric socket for themselves by putting their fingers into it.

Second-band learning

This is a sort of artificial instinct. It involves acquiring immediate responses to situations without having had to go through the slow trial and error process for oneself. It is passed-on or second-hand learning. It comes from books, TV, school, parents, other people, etc. A child learns that a car is dangerous without having to find out for himself. A student learns that vitamin B12 can cure a certain type of anaemia because his medical textbook tells him so. A man learns that an investment is risky because bis broker tell him so.

Advantages

Second-hand learning is very much quicker and safer than first-hand learning.
Second-hand learning can apply in advance to situations which have not yet been met.
Second-hand learning can apply to situations which would never be encountered (for instance geography lessons about far-away lands).
Second-hand learning can be stored and passed on (books, etc.) so that the total body of learning grows and grows.
Lots of different minds (some much better than one's own) can get to work on a situation and produce a much better response than one could by direct first-hand learning.

Disadvantages

You depend entirely on the trustworthiness ofthe source that is passing on the learning. Since you do not encounter the situation directly you can only meet it through the possibly prejudiced eyes of the person who is handing on the leaming.
The second-hand response is a sort of average response suitable for everybody and not as finely tuned to individual requirements as a response leamed at first hand.
There may easily be conflicting responses passed on by different sources of second-hand learning (e.g. parents, teachers, pals). This can be confusing.
Since reward and punishment are less direct there is not so much keenness to leam as with first-hand learning.

EDWARD DE BONO. Practical Thinking. Penguin Books. New York, 1971

lnstinct

2006-06-10T08:26:00.000-03:00

This is a fixed reaction built into the organism so that a special situation will automatically elicit a special response. The response is pre-wired. It is as direct, automatic and unchanging as the illumination of a room if you switch on the light. The response is built into the organism just as the electric wires are built into a house. No learning is required.

Animals show instinct responses to situations which they could not possibly have encountered before. A particular black silhouette moved above naive nestlings will make them cower in fright because it suggests the shape of a hawk moving through the sky. Exactly the same shape moved backwards has no effect because it looks like a harmless swan.

Instincts are precise responses set off by precise situations. Young gulls open their mouths for food as soon as a beak-like shape with a red spot on it appears above them, because this is how the mother gull looks. A piece of wood bearing a red spot will produce the same response. This type of direct response has been beautifully worked out by Tinbergen.

Advantages

An instinct response is immediate and perfect and requires no learning at all.
An instinct response is predictable and its meaning does not change. This makes it useful for communicating with other animais.

Disadvantages

The instinct response is fixed and cannot be adjusted to suit the situation. Nor can it be abolished if the response is inappropriate.
The number of fixed inbuilt responses is limited so there is no way of coping with new situations for which there is no ready-made response.

EDWARD DE BONO. Practical Thinking. Penguin Books. New York, 1971.

Understanding

2006-06-10T08:02:00.000-03:00

An instinct is a, response fitted to a special situation. The smell of a female moth entices the male moth from miles away. In first- or second-hand learning responses are also fitted to special situations. These become 'familiar' situations because one knows what to do about them. But what about new situations? What about unfamiliar situations which do not have any ready-made responses?

A strange woman appears on the doorstep. Immediately you try and put the situation into a familiar category to which you know the response. Is she carrying out some sort of poll? Is she trying to sell you a flag for charity? Has her car broken down? Has she just lost her way? Is she an old acquaintance whose face you have forgotten?

Understanding is the process of changing an unfamiliar process into a familiar one so that you know what to do about it. This changing around takes place in the mind as you go from one idea to another until the unfamiliar situation is seen to resemble or be derived from familiar situations. This going from one idea to another is thinking. Understanding is thinking.

If you see a white sheet flapping in the night it is frightening because it is an unfamiliar situation, but as soon as you can see it as a sheet on a washing-line then you know what to do nothing. In a foreign restaurant you try and relate the strange words on the menu to words you already know in order to understand what dishes are available. In the end you find that some of the most exotic names refer to very familiar dishes.

Understanding is a very powerful process because it is the means by which man multiplies his knowledge. He can only learn responses to a few special situations but through understanding he converts any number of new situations into already familiar situations and thus knows what to do about them at once (without having to develop a response through first-hand learning or ask for one from second-hand learning).

Advantages

Understanding allows one to multiply learning by using old responses in new situations.
With understanding you can explain new situations to other people so that they can choose their own responses instead of having to accept second-hand responses blindly.

Disadvantages

Understanding is limited by the available old responses (or ideas) with which to explain the new situations.
In trying to understand a new unfamiliar situation in terms of old ideas one may leave out a lot or distort the actual situation to make it fit the available ideas.
It is usually possible to understand an unfamiliar situation in several altemative ways but one is apt to settle on the first way and believe this to be the only possible way.
Different people may understand the same situation in quite different ways and act accordingly.

EDWARD DE BONO. Practical Thinking. Penguin Books. New York, 1971.

FLATLAND

2006-06-10T07:17:00.000-03:00

Em 1884, um clérigo britânico, Edwin Abbott (1838, 1896) inventou uma forma de as pessoas perceberem melhor o que seria uma quarta dimensão: inventou um mundo de duas dimensões apenas para que nós, seres de três dimensões, percebêssemos o quanto faz falta uma coordenada a mais. “Flatland” (Terra Plana) acabou se tornando um clássico da Ficção Científica.

Na fantasia vitoriana Flatland (Terra Plana), os personagens são diferentes figuras geométricas vivendo em um mundo exclusivamente bidimensional.

Quando a história começa, o narrador, um Quadrado de meia-idade, tem um sonho perturbador em que visita um reino de uma única dimensão, Terra Linear, cujos habitantes só podem se mover de ponto a ponto. Com crescente frustração, Quadrado tenta explicar a si mesmo - que é uma Linha de Linhas, de um reino onde é possível mover-se não apenas de ponto a ponto, mas também de lado a lado. Os habitantes da Terra Linear, irritados, estão a ponto de atacá-lo quando ele acorda.

Mais tarde, naquele mesmo dia, ele tenta ajudar um de seus netos, um Pequeno Hexágono, em seus estudos. O neto sugere a possibilidade de uma Terceira Dimensão - um reino com alto e baixo do mesmo modo que lado a lado. O Quadrado classifica essa noção como tola e inimaginável. Naquela mesma noite, o Quadrado tem um encontro que mudaria sua vida: uma visita de um habitante do Espaço, o Reino das Três Dimensões.

A princípio, o Quadrado se sente apenas intrigado com o visitante, um círculo peculiar que parece se modificar em tamanho e até mesmo desaparecer. O visitante explica que é uma Esfera. Apenas parecia mudar de tamanho e desaparecer porque estava se deslocando na direção do Quadrado no Espaço e, ao mesmo tempo, descendo.

Percebendo que somente com argumentação não seria capaz de convencer o Quadrado quanto à Terceira Dimensão, a exasperada Esfera cria para ele uma sensação de profundidade. O Quadrado fica muito abalado.

Houve uma estonteante e enjoativa sensação visual que não era como ver; vi uma Linha que não era Linha; um Espaço que não era Espaço. Eu era eu mesmo e não era eu mesmo. Quando consegui recuperar a voz, gritei alto em agonia: "Ou é uma loucura ou é o Inferno." "Não é nada disso", respondeu a Esfera calmamente. "É o Conhecimento: são as Três Dimensões. Torne a abrir seus olhos e procure olhar firme."

Depois de ter uma percepção de outra dimensão, o Quadrado se torna um evangelista, tentando convencer seus amigos da Terra Plana de que o Espaço é algo mais do que uma desvairada noção de matemáticos. Por sua insistência, acaba sendo preso, a bem do público.

A partir de então, a cada ano, o mais alto sacerdote da Terra Plana, o Círculo Chefe, vai examiná-lo, a fim de ver se recobrou a razão, mas o teimoso Quadrado continua a insistir que existe uma Terceira Dimensão. Ele não consegue esquecê-la nem explicá-la.

Edwin A. Abbott ©1884

Ethnovention

2006-05-28T11:00:00.000-03:00

EthnoventionTM is a term coined by Work Frontiers InternationalTM to describe our rapid, iterative method of studying the behavior of an organization or community using organizational ethnography and archaeology, and in the same cycle, introducing innovative interventions to enhance their behavior.

This cycle is repeated until the desired outcomes are reached. Thus the term, ethnoventionTM has sprung from a combination of the main elements of this approach: ethnography, intervention, and invention.

These quick EthnoventionTM cycles typically produce rapid improvements in the work practices of the community. This is because the community gains deep insights into their behaviors and is given the opportunity to reflect on them and change them themselves. This is much more effective than the traditional brute force method of change - being forced to implement changes designed by others without the participation or intimate knowledge of the affected community.

They also learn the new approach more quickly and deeply because they designed it and they get to keep experimenting with it until they find just the right fit for themselves.

An example of how this works is a recent knowledge audit conducted by Work Frontiers for a large non-profit organization. The desired outcomes of the knowledge audit were:

- Seek answers to the following questions:

What knowledge do staff need to do their jobs?
Where/whom do they get it from?
How do they use it?
What do they do with it when they’re finished?
What enhances the flow & sharing of knowledge/information?
What impedes it?

- Avoid rehashing & repeating the same old messages about what’s wrong with the organization
- Instead, focus on what works & what can realistically be done
- Seek to leverage the organization’s existing strengths & intellectual assets

Using EthnoventionTM , we sought to not only observe and record the knowledge behaviors of the organization staff. We also were there to influence them as soon and as much as possible, without inflating their expectations beyond the ability of the organization to meet them.

Two Work Frontiers ethnoventors spent about two and a half months interacting with most parts of the organization, studying its knowledge behaviors and artifacts. By immersing ourselves in the organization for this period, we were able to not only do objective data collection, but also to accumulate subjective impressions of the organization which helped us to understand the essence and root causes of the data rather than just the form of it.

Extraído de EthnoventionTM
A Powerful Tool for Organizational Reflection and Transformation
by Arian Ward, Wednesday, July 28, 1999

Environment suitable for knowledge sharing

2006-05-28T09:36:00.000-03:00

...knowledge is best facilitated, not managed. In fact, more time should be spent on the design of an environment conducive to sharing...and less on the formalized capture of organizational knowledge. The environment has the greatest value.

Some components needed in a well-crafted environment suitable for knowledge sharing:

Informal, not structured
Self-forming connections - let members of the environment decide how to interact
Tool-rich - members should have many options for connecting and dialoguing.
Simple/single starting point...but multiple branches/exits
Diversity of participants - very critical...people tend to form into groups of similar people. Knowledge sharing and innovation require smashing together ideas of contradictory or unrelated nature
Time - facilitation is best viewed as a small spark that grows into a roaring flame over time. Most managers seem to prefer explosions that die out quickly...
Trust - knowledge sharing is about people. Safety and security (face to face or online) lead to trust. General community rules should value individual contributions and personalities.
User-shaped - most KM initiatives begin with the mindset of building a house and then telling employees to move in an basically only hang up pictures. Instead, they should be given tools and supplies...and then allowed to create what they really need.
Community feel - communities of practice have gained a reputation as being effective means of sharing knowledge...because we are most likely to share what we know with people we know.
Capturing and searching - these staples of KM are still important. Newcomers should be able to observe the trials others have walked...and if done right, a KM system could link into persformance support systems...resulting in up to date resources for people...when they are needed.

Extraído de elearnspace

Knowledge Sharing Environment

2006-05-26T12:29:00.000-03:00

"Most people have a hard time dealing with the sheer number of e-mails they receive," says Andrew Mitchell, a research associate with London-based British Telecommunications E-Government Division. "We need solutions to store and summarize all this, and that will enable us to collaborate."

"I'm concerned that people don't know how to find what they need," says Mike Turillo, chief learning officer at KPMG International in Boston. "And when they finally find it, they don't know how to use it. We spend a lot of our time just trying to manage it."

To manage e-mail more efficiently and productively, both Mitchell and Turillo are testing new web-based software: Mitchell is trying out his own company's Knowledge Sharing Environment (KSE); at KPMG, Turillo is using Palo Alto, CA-based Tacit Knowledge Systems KnowledgeMail. In addition to helping people manage their e-mail, the software tracks a user's work, alerts users to important information and even notifies them that someone else in the company is doing similar work. This way, the software brings people (like A and B) together to share information and solve problems.

KnowledgeMail and KSE share similar technology, vernacular and features. KSE in particular can be traced directly to Yenta, software agent technology developed by Lenny Foner, a doctoral student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.

Extraído de Feb. 15, 2000 Issue of CIO Magazine

The Dark Side of Tacit Knowledge

2006-05-25T15:28:00.000-03:00

Tacit knowledge by its very nature actually ‘emerges’ from the people’s heads.

The various mental processes that shape and construct certain knowledge are very difficult to comprehend. This sort of knowledge is a key behind exercising judgment in human decision-making and employing intuition or ‘gut-feeling’.

It is seen in experienced managers; because of their tacit knowledge and expertise based on this sort of knowledge, they are able to make better-informed and effective intuitive decisions. However, there is also a probability of these managers making a wrong judgment ending up in wrong decisions.

This paper was inspired by the authors’ experience when delivering presentations on knowledge management issues. In several cases members of the audience responded by observing that some tacit knowledge is inaccurate, incorrect or inappropriate.

Therefore, it is a possibility that the tacit knowledge that we are trying to capture may not be useful. Their objection seems valid when we find out various examples of big judgmental mistakes made by managers that risk and jeopardize a whole project. Through this short paper we acknowledge this fact and endeavor to explain the factors that affect the effectiveness of the tacit knowledge.

The paper also examines what can be done to make sure that tacit knowledge stays effective when captured and used in decision-making.

Extraído de Biases and Heuristics in Judgment and Decision Making: The Dark Side of Tacit Knowledge

Tayyab Maqsood, Andrew D. Finegan, Derek H. T. Walker

Varieties of Tacit Knowledge

2006-05-25T14:47:00.000-03:00

The distinction between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge has sometimes been expressed in terms of knowing-how and knowing-that, respectively (Ryle 1949/1984, pp. 25-61), or in terms of a corresponding distinction between embodied knowledge and theoretical knowledge.

On this account knowing-how or embodied knowledge is characteristic of the expert, who acts, makes judgments, and so forth without explicitly reflecting on the principles or rules involved. The expert works without having a theory of his or her work; he or she just performs skillfully without deliberation or focused attention.

Knowing-that, by contrast, involves consciously accessible knowledge that can be articulated and is characteristic of the person learning a skill through explicit instruction, recitation of rules, attention to his or her movements, etc. While such declarative knowledge may be needed for the acquisition of skills, the argument goes, it no longer becomes necessary for the practice of those skills once the novice becomes an expert in exercising them, and indeed it does seem to be the case that, as Polanyi argued, when we acquire a skill, we acquire a corresponding understanding that defies articulation (Polanyi 1958/1974).

But the distinction between knowing-how and knowing-that breaks down upon examination. As Dretske has pointed out (Dretske 1988, p. 116), knowing-how involves more than just a certain technical or physical "know-how"; it also involves knowing how to obtain desired end-states, knowing what to do in order to obtain them, and knowing when to do it.

Implied in all this is that knowing how to perform action _A_ means knowing that certain things are the case regarding, for example, tools, the situation in which _A_-ing takes place, and so forth. If, as seems likely, this is the case, then knowing-how would seem to be closely bound up with, if not dependent on, some variety of knowing-that. Even if we are able to isolate the know-how that goes into _A_-ing, it isn't clear that the processes, involved -- which narrowly understood may amount to little more than automatized physical sequences or muscular reflexes -- count as cognitive in any interesting way.

Note, though, that in rejecting the distinction between knowing-how and knowing-that we are not thereby denying the existence of tacit knowledge per se; rather, we are denying its exclusive identification with procedural operations that may in the end have little to do with knowledge as such.

What is rejected is not the idea that skillful (or other) activities may rely on content states that are inaccessible to consciousness (or that conscious attention is not necessary for the exercise of a given skill), but rather the notion that a given behavior or performance stands as the proper criterion for possession of the tacit knowledge in question. Certainly there is no reason to suppose that the knowing-that which would seem to come into play even in expert performance cannot be tacit.

That an exhaustive equation of tacit knowledge with pretheoretical, skilled expertise cannot be maintained becomes particularly clear when we consider that one widely accepted paradigm of tacit knowledge is to be found in language competence (e.g., Chomsky 1986, pp. 263-273; 1980, pp. 69-70; 1972, pp. 103-104). In contrast to the variety of tacit knowledge described above, knowledge of language is not understood to constitute a skill, and thus to consist in a capacity to do something -- and consequently to have possession predicated on the appropriate behavioral criteria -- but rather is a properly cognitive capacity, and therefore defined in terms of mental states and structures that are not always or reliably manifested in behaviors or performances (Chomsky 1986, pp. 9-10; 1980, p. 48).

We might point to a third kind of tacit knowledge, which consists in what might be thought of as the presuppositions or stances many of our actions and behaviors commit us to.

Such stances are not occurrent beliefs, although they may be expressed as occurrent beliefs under the appropriate circumstances. Rather, they constitute a kind of cognitive background or disposition to believe that certain things are the case (cf Searle 1995, 1992, 1983; see also entry on The Background).

An example of this kind of tacit knowledge is that objects are rigid, a bit of knowledge few people ever bother to formulate, but which is evidenced in such basic everyday actions as sitting in a chair. Because such knowledge is expressible as a propositional content, it would seem to be a case of tacit knowing-that. (It is tacit knowledge of this sort that may ultimately explain the cognitive dimension at work in those cases held up as examples of embodied knowledge or knowing-how.) These tacit stances or presuppositions are perhaps best described as tacit beliefs or hypotheses that can be falsified under the appropriate conditions.

While the kinds of tacit knowledge underlying skills or expert performances on the one hand, and cognitive competences like knowledge of language on the other, appear to be domain-specific, this third type of tacit knowledge would appear to be more generally applicable. It seems to be the case that the cognitive content associated with tacit beliefs of this sort comes into play across a diverse set of activities and domains. Much, though by no means all, of the heterogeneous set of biological and cultural stances and capacities that Searle refers to as The Background (see entry on The Background) may be thought of as consisting in a generally applicable tacit knowledge of this sort.

Although the three conceptions of tacit knowledge outlined above differ from each other in significant ways, they do have one central feature in common, and that is the postulation of content states that are at once causally efficacious and inaccessible to (or not ordinarily accessed by) consciousness.

Extraído de tacit knowledge

Daniel Barbiero

Five Challenges for the Next Five Years

2006-05-25T13:33:00.000-03:00

1. Speed

The speed of business has changed a lot. We can buy almost anything on the web, and people expect to have the ability to buy things 24/7, 365 days a year because computers hum all the time. E-mail messages fill up overnight even after you deleted all messages the night before.

Business is where the buyer and seller meet. The way you do business is changing rapidly. Amazon.com is an example of this rapid movement. Capital moved away from Asia very fast when financial problems started there. The whole economy is moving faster, creating pressure on executives and employees; and decisions have to be made faster than before and globally. The speed mandates a large strategy to convey to the frontline employees on how to bring value, not just lip-service.

KM has to deliver value, not just talk. For example, corporate yellow pages need to be developed, and communities need to move faster. Taxonomy became very important to deal with unstructured knowledge.
KM can help Executives make better decisions, provide decision support for employees, social network support and taxonomy.

The best we can do for customers is to save them time. Business moving faster means allowing more decisions to be made at the lower level. We need intellectual working data on the desktops. We need to link to strategic imperative, which is customers' imperative

2. E-Commerce

E-Commerce is fuzzying (blurring) the boundaries. It's hard to know where one business ends and another begins. Before the fall of .com business, a survey was taken and showed that 1/3 predicted .com will prevail, 1/3 predicted that the traditional business will prevail, and 1/3 said "don't know." This year the internet commerce created $3 trillion.

E-commerce changes the fundamental ways to do business where sellers and buyers meet. It reduces error and provides real-time market data, which allows better use of the capital.

Dell can see the market real-time, so they can use that knowledge as the power to compete. When you buy something from the web, the seller knows where you came from: Google, Frederick, etc. -

This is tremendous knowledge for business. "Buyer and seller" are like conjoined twins and are interwoven. John Hagel calls this "Fuzzy Boundary of Business." Databases used to be guarded and were never shared with customers. Impact of KM can be seen in how Cisco helps customers configure their network and mediates the knowledge with their customers.

3. King Customer (Growing Power of Customer)

Automobile dealers are now faced with different negotiations with buyers because the buyers have more information about the dealer collected from the web. It became very hard to keep the price, and their profit margin was lowered from 11% to 6%.

Business has been taken over by consumers, such as decreasing telephone rates. Customer Power cannot be changed, but customer knowledge can be worked with. We have to offer customers better experiences. Therefore, Customer Relations Management becomes more important than ever before.

Customers do not like to be manipulated. You don't manage your wife. What you need to do is to make sure what you do is really valuable for customers. We need to identify unique and valuable selling.

CEO needs to ask "Why do people buy from us, not from others?" Three answers, a) cheaper, b) better quality, and c) we are innovative and responsive.

An organization needs to have cohesiveness, and how to be innovative and responsive depends on intellectual capital. We need to use intellectual assets where it matches.

Human capital is important when the talent is important, such as when you go to a certain restaurant because of the talent of the chef. When you go to McDonald's, it is predictive, cheap and fast with set recipes; this is Structural Capital McDonald's has. When you go to a restaurant because the waitresses are very friendly and you feel welcome, then you are going there for the Customer (Social) Capital. When you hire McKinsey as a consultant, you are buying their IQ, the talent - Human Capital.

When you hire Accenture, you are buying their formula, which is Structural Capital. When you are a customer for one bank, you have a long relationship with that bank - Customer (Social) Capital.

Any organization needs to have at the top level, at a minimum, one of 3 Intellectual Capitals - Human, Structural, and Customer. A beer company in Colorado is depending on structural capital and customer/social capital, when truck drivers for that beer company know to which bars to deliver beers and schmooze with workers at the bar. Customer Value proposition implies that you need to map your talent with those values.

4. Low Cost Worrier (Competition)

CEOs are struggling on how to deal with low-cost worriers, like Wal-Mart, Dell, Ameritrade, etc., that provide marginal quality service with low cost. To compete against low-cost worriers is to sell experience, such as Starbucks, to sell continuous innovation, to sell quality services, or become niche player. We need to find the competitive advantage.

5. Uncertainty on Decision Making

Management used to work with predictability since the scientific management started by Frederick Taylor. Then TQM promoted reduction of variances and control, "Execution" always matters.

We believed that people are rational. Now non-linearity and unpredictability are more common in the networked global environment. We talk about futility of forecasting, because you don't know how to plan under this environment where there exists ambiguity of outcome.

The relationship between cause and effect is obscure and the decision making model we used to use is not very helpful. We used to examine, evaluate, review options and decide--different kinds of decisions for different problems; There are four different kinds of problems (environment):

a) Cause-effect well connected,
b) Complicated problems,
c) Complex Systems, and
d) Chaos.

KM is currently helping with two problem areas. When there is a cause and effect relationship and this relation is knowable, then we can find an expert. KM can facilitate finding the expert. When we have a complicated problem, such as an airplane built by Boeing, if you disassemble the plane, you can re-assemble again because connections are fixed, knowable and predictable. KM can be useful here.

However, with complex systems, when you dissemble it and put it back together, they don't look the same. Different patterns emerge and communities are organic.

For example, an employee goes to another country to work for a year and returns to the same office. He/she will find that the organization is not the same any more. Even though it's the same office, the same people, but they don't use the same approach. We don't know how KM can help here.

Then there is Chaos, where there is no known cause and a random pattern. It's like you are lost on a mountain and are using a wrong map, then you will not be able to find a way out. It is important to know what kind of decision is needed. When you don't know the question, how do we know who needs to know what? It is a fundamental question for KM.

Thomas Stewart "Five Challenges for the Next Five Years"

Extraído de NINETEENTH KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT ROUNDTABLE CONVENED ON SEPTEMBER 24, 2004 AT MITRE WASHINGTON.

Knowledge acquisition technique glossary

2006-05-24T11:52:00.001-03:00

Card Sorting
Knowledge acquisition technique in which a collection of concepts (or other knowledge objects) are written on separate cards and sorted into piles by an expert in order to elicit properties (attributes and values).

Commentary
Knowledge acquisition technique in which the expert provides a running commentary of their own or another’s task performance. A valuable method for acquiring process knowledge. Includes various types such as self-reporting, imaginary self-reporting, self-retrospective, shadowing and retrospective shadowing.

Ladder
A ladder is a hierarchical (tree-like) network diagram. A ladder can comprise a single type of relationship throughout or have multiple relationships.
Important types of ladder include a taxonomy (aka concept ladder) which uses the "is a" relationship and a composition ladder that uses the "part of" relationship.

Laddering
Laddering is a knowledge acquisition technique that involves the construction, modification and validation of ladders. It is a valuable method for acquiring knowledge of concepts. For more information, click here.

Lessons Learnt Review
Knowledge Management technique whereby a structured group discussion takes place just after the end of a project to provide recommendations for future projects.

Peer Assist
Peer Assist is a knowledge management technique whereby a person (or team) experienced in a particular type of project helps a person (or team) unfamiliar with the same, or a similar type, of project.

Repertory Grid
Knowledge acquisition technique used to elicit properties (attributes and values) for a set of knowledge objects, rate them on a scale, and use cluster analysis to arrange and group similar properties and objects. Useful for acquiring detailed object knowledge and tacit knowledge. For more information, click here.

Extraído de Glossary

Knowledge acquisition technique glossary

2006-05-24T11:52:00.000-03:00

Lessons Learnt Review
Knowledge Management technique whereby a structured group discussion takes place just after the end of a project to provide recommendations for future projects.

Extraído de Glossary

DIKW - Russell Ackoff's view

2006-05-23T17:15:00.001-03:00

According to Russell Ackoff, a systems theorist and professor of organizational change, the content of the human mind can be classified into five categories: Data, Information, Knowledge, Understanding and Wisdom.

Ackoff adds another level i.e., understanding between knowledge and wisdom. He indicates that the first four categories relate to the past; they deal with what has been or what is known.

Only the fifth category, wisdom, deals with the future because it incorporates vision and design. With wisdom, people can create the future rather than just grasp the present and past.

But achieving wisdom isn't easy; people must move successively through the other categories. A further elaboration of Ackoff's definitions follows:

Data... data is raw. It simply exists and has no significance beyond its existence (in and of itself). It can exist in any form, usable or not. It does not have meaning of itself. In computer parlance, a spreadsheet generally starts out by holding data.
Information... information is data that has been given meaning by way of relational connection. This "meaning" can be useful, but does not have to be. In computer parlance, a relational database makes information from the data stored within it.
Knowledge... knowledge is the appropriate collection of information, such that it's intent is to be useful. Knowledge is a deterministic process. When someone "memorizes" information (as less-aspiring test-bound students often do), then they have amassed knowledge. This knowledge has useful meaning to them, but it does not provide for, in and of itself, an integration such as would infer further knowledge. For example, elementary school children memorize, or amass knowledge of, the "times table". They can tell you that "2 x 2 = 4" because they have amassed that knowledge (it being included in the times table). But when asked what is "1267 x 300", they can not respond correctly because that entry is not in their times table. To correctly answer such a question requires a true cognitive and analytical ability that is only encompassed in the next level... understanding. In computer parlance, most of the applications we use (modeling, simulation, etc.) exercise some type of stored knowledge.
Understanding... understanding is an interpolative and probabilistic process. It is cognitive and analytical. It is the process by which I can take knowledge and synthesize new knowledge from the previously held knowledge. The difference between understanding and knowledge is the difference between "learning" and "memorizing". People who have understanding can undertake useful actions because they can synthesize new knowledge, or in some cases, at least new information, from what is previously known (and understood). That is, understanding can build upon currently held information, knowledge and understanding itself. In computer parlance, AI systems possess understanding in the sense that they are able to synthesize new knowledge from previously stored information and knowledge.
Wisdom... wisdom is an extrapolative and non-deterministic, non-probabilistic process. It calls upon all the previous levels of consciousness, and specifically upon special types of human programming (moral, ethical codes, etc.). It beckons to give us understanding about which there has previously been no understanding, and in doing so, goes far beyond understanding itself. It is the essence of philosophical probing. Unlike the previous four levels, it asks questions to which there is no (easily-achievable) answer, and in some cases, to which there can be no humanly-known answer period. Wisdom is therefore, the process by which we also discern, or judge, between right and wrong, good and bad. I personally believe that computers do not have, and will never have the ability to possess wisdom. Wisdom is a uniquely human state, or as I see it, wisdom requires one to have a soul, for it resides as much in the heart as in the mind. And a soul is something machines will never possess (or perhaps I should reword that to say, a soul is something that, in general, will never possess a machine). It has been contended that the sequence is a bit less involved than described by Ackoff . It is understanding that support the transition from each stage to the next. Understanding is not a separate level of its own.

ACKOFF, Russell. From Data to Wisdom, Journal of Applies Systems Analysis, 16, 3-9, 1989.

Extraído da wikipedia

Corporate Culture

2006-05-23T15:04:00.000-03:00

What is Corporate Culture?

Culture refers to an organization's values, beliefs, and behaviors. In general, it is concerned with beliefs and values on the basis of which people interpret experiences and behave, individually and in groups.

Cultural statements become operationalized when executives articulate and publish the values of their firm which provide patterns for how employees should behave.

Firms with strong cultures achieve higher results because employees sustain focus both on what to do and how to do it.

Vadim Kotelnikov

Corporate Culture: Surface, Middle and Deepest Levels

Surface Level: At this level, culture is both enacted and reinforced through visible appearances and behaviors, such as physical layouts, dress codes, organizational structure, company policies, procedures and programs, and attitudes.
Middle Level: Here, culture is manifested through our beliefs and values.
Deepest Level: At this level, culture is manifested through basic assumptions - our long-learned, automatic responses and established opinions.

By Edgar Schein

Extraído de Corporate Culture
Achieving Higher Results Through Sustaining Employees' Focus on What To Do and How to Do It
By Vadim Kotelnikov, Founder, Ten3 BUSINESS e-COACH – Innovation Unlimited!, 1000ventures.com

Aquisição do Conhecimento

2006-05-23T11:46:00.000-03:00

Knowledge acquisition includes the elicitation, collection, analysis, modelling and validation of knowledge for knowledge engineering and knowledge management projects.

Issues in Knowledge Acquisition
Some of the most important issues in knowledge acquisition are as follows:

Most knowledge is in the heads of experts
Experts have vast amounts of knowledge
Experts have a lot of tacit knowledge
They don't know all that they know and use
Tacit knowledge is hard (impossible) to describe
Experts are very busy and valuable people
Each expert doesn't know everything
Knowledge has a "shelf life"

Extraído de Knowledge Acquisition

Typical Use of KA Techniques

2006-05-23T11:00:00.000-03:00

How and when are the many techniques described above used in a knowledge acquisition project? To illustrate the general process, a simple method will be described. This method starts with the use of natural techniques, then moves to using more contrived techniques. It is summarised as follows.

Conduct an initial interview with the expert in order to (a) scope what knowledge is to be acquired, (b) determine what purpose the knowledge is to be put, (c) gain some understanding of key terminology, and (d) build a rapport with the expert. This interview (as with all session with experts) is recorded on either audiotape or videotape.
Transcribe the initial interview and analyse the resulting protocol. Create a concept ladder of the resulting knowledge to provide a broad representation of the knowledge in the domain.
Use the ladder to produce a set of questions which cover the essential issues across the domain and which serve the goals of the knowledge acquisition project.
Conduct a semi-structured interview with the expert using the pre-prepared questions to provide structure and focus.
Transcribe the semi-structured interview and analyse the resulting protocol for the knowledge types present. Typically these would be concepts, attributes, values, relationships, tasks and rules.
Represent these knowledge elements using the most appropriate knowledge models, e.g. ladders, grids, network diagrams, hypertext, etc. In addition, document anecdotes, illustrations and explanations in a structured manner using hypertext and template headings.
Use the resulting knowledge models and structured text with contrived techniques such as laddering, think aloud problem-solving, twenty questions and repertory grid to allow the expert to modify and expand on the knowledge already captured.
Repeat the analysis, model building and acquisition sessions until the expert and knowledge engineer are happy that the goals of the project have been realised.
Validate the knowledge acquired with other experts, and make modifications where necessary.

Extraído de Knowledge Acquisition

Inteligência segundo Sternberg

2006-05-22T10:10:00.000-03:00

Intelligence

The conventional view of intelligence is that it is some relatively stable attribute of individuals, which develops as an interaction between heredity and environment.

Conventional tests of intelligence and related abilities measure achievement that individuals should have mastered several years before.

Tests such as those of vocabulary, reading comprehension, verbal analogies, arithmetic problem solving, and the like are, in part all tests of achievement.

Even abstract reasoning tests measure achievement in dealing with geometric symbols, which are skills taught in Western schools.

(...)Developing expertise is defined here as the ongoing process of the acquisition and consolidation of a set of skills needed for a high level of mastery in one or more domains of life performance.

Extraído de "Practical Intelligence in everyday life" Robert J. Sternberg (p1)

Sternberg proposes three intelligences in human cognition.

Analytical intelligence is the ability to analyze and evaluate ideas, solve problems and make decisions.
Creative intelligence involves going beyond what is given to generate novel and interesting ideas.
Practical intelligence is the ability that individuals use to find the best fit between themselves and the demands of the environment.

The three intelligences, or as he also calls them three abilities, comprise what Sternberg calls Successful Intelligence: "the integrated set of abilities needed to attain success in life, however an individuals defines it, within his or her sociocultural context."

Sternberg's attempts to establish the validity of practical intelligence as a construct have yielded significant empirical work and criticism. As such, it provides a window on the issues and ideas at the core of this debate.

Practical Intelligence

Inteligência Prática

2006-05-22T09:53:00.000-03:00

What is Practical Intelligence?

To do well in any everyday endeavor, whether the endeavor pertains to school, work, or play, requires practical intelligence.

Although intelligence as conventionally defined maybe useful in everyday life, practical intelligence is indispensable. It is the ability to adapt to, shape, and select every day environments.

Practical intelligence, like most abilities can be viewed as a form of developing expertise. Individuals who have developed the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to succeed in a particular domain generally are characterized as experts.

Therefore, understanding expertise and how it develops provides a method of insight into practical intelligence.

So how do we come to characterize practical intelligence as a form of developing expertise? We begin with a distinction between viewing abilities as relatively stable attributes and viewing them as developing expertise.

Extraído de "Practical Intelligence in everyday life" Robert J. Sternberg (p1)

Innovation Process: Diversion and Conversion of Ideas

2006-05-22T07:58:00.000-03:00

"The process of innovation is a rhythm of search and selection, exploration and synthesis, cycles of divergent thinking followed by convergence".2

Divergence, or creative synthesis, is the interlocking of previously unrelated skills, or matrices of thought. The creation of such intellectual ferment is important to innovation - the more options offered, the more likely that an out-of-the-box perspective will be available for selection.

Just hearing a very different perspective challenges the mindset of others sufficiently that they will search beyond what initially appears to be an obvious solution.

This is a reason that intellectually heterogeneous cross-functional teams are more innovative than homogenous functional ones.

As soon as a sufficient choice of innovative ideas has been generated, a solution - convergence upon acceptable action - needs to be defined and agreed upon.

Confining the discussion here to managing the tacit dimensions of knowledge three types of tacit knowledge - overlapping specific, collective, and guiding - need to be managed.

2. "The Role of Tacit Knowledge in Group Innovation", Dorothy Leonard and Silvia Sensiper, 1998
Extraído de Managing Tacit Knowledge - a Tremendous Resource for Innovation
by Vadim Kotelnikov and Ten3 East-West

Veja também "Do gelo natural à indústria da refrigeração"

Divulgar

2006-05-22T07:05:00.000-03:00

Diffusion (anthropology)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The term diffusion is used in cultural anthropology to describe the spread of cultural items — such as ideas, styles, religions, technologies, etc. — between individuals, whether within a single culture or from one culture to another.

The diffusion of innovations within a single culture applies, for example, to the acceptance of new technological products like the wristwatch and the personal computer, foods like tomato sauce and California sushi, music styles like opera and bossa nova, dressing styles like the top hat and blue jeans, ideals like democracy or feminism, and so on.

Diffusion across cultures, too, is a well-attested and uncontroversial phenomenon. For example, the practice of agriculture is widely believed to have diffused from somewhere in the Middle East to all of Eurasia, less than 10,000 years ago, having been adopted by many pre-existing cultures.

Other established examples of diffusion include the spread of the war chariot and iron smelting in ancient times, and the use of cars and Western business suits in the 20th century.

Transferir

2006-05-22T06:59:00.000-03:00

Knowledge transfer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Knowledge transfer in the fields of Organizational development and organizational learning, is the practical problem of getting a packet of knowledge from one part of the organization to another (or all other) parts of the organization.

It is considered to be more than just a communications problem. If it were merely that, then a memorandum, an e-mail or a meeting would accomplish the knowledge transfer.

Knowledge transfer is more complex because (1) knowledge resides in organizational members, tools, tasks, and their subnetworks (Argote & Ingram 2000) and (2) much knowledge in organizations is tacit or hard to articulate (Nonaka & Takeuchi 1995).

Argote & Ingram (1999) define knowledge transfer as "the process through which one unit (e.g., group, department, or division) is affected by the experience of another" (p 151). They further point out the transfer of organizational knowledge (i.e., routine or best practices) can be observed through changes in the knowledge or performance of recipient units.

The transfer of organizational knowledge, such as best practices, can be quite difficult to achieve (Szulanski 1996).

2006-05-22T06:53:00.000-03:00

Sharing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Sharing is the joint use of a resource. In its narrow sense, it refers to joint or alternating use of an inherently finite good, such as a common pasture or a timeshared residence. In a broader sense, it can also include the free granting of use rights to a good that is capable of being treated as a nonrival good, such as information. Still more loosely, "sharing" can actually mean giving something as an outright gift: for example, to "share" ones food really means to give some of it as a gift.

Sharing figures prominently in gift economies, but also can play a significant role in market economies, for example in car sharing.

The issue of handling shared resources figures prominently in computer science: for example time-sharing is an approach to interactive computing in which a single computer is used to provide apparently simultaneous interactive general-purpose computing to multiple users by sharing processor time.

Sharing is a key feature in the developing field of free software and open source software, with implications for economics. This is leading to a need to review licensing, patents and copyright, and to controversy in these areas, as well as new approaches like creative commons and the GPL.

New Ways to Work

2006-05-22T06:21:00.000-03:00

Let’s pause for a moment. Whereas tacit knowledge is the bedrock of craft, as firms gain experience with work under craft, additional learning occurs. This isn’t just craft workers becoming better craft workers.
A new type of knowledge, an important by-product of craft work, is generated: articulated knowledge. Leveraging articulated knowledge can propel a firm toward mass production.

Ignoring it (intentionally or not) means that a firm will remain in craft work. We see this pattern again and again on the right path.

One type of knowledge is the foundation for each of the four types of work. This foundation knowledge has to be managed for a firm to excel, be it in craft, mass production, process enhancement, or mass customization. Under each type of work, learning occurs and a by-product of work is generated: additional learning and knowledge, the key ingredients for firms taking the right path.

As firms capture and codify the by-product of articulated knowledge generated under craft, the story of the right path unfolds. We call the activities underlying the codification of articulated knowledge the development transformation, and it leads to mass production work.

Through development, a firm gleans, then begins to reuse the best ways to do the work. Development, in short, is a transformation that mines the rich veins if articulated knowledge and builds a machine like organization that mass-produces.

Using tools such as time and motion studies, process engineering, and automation, development captures the best approaches discovered in craft and applies them across the company.

Development instills discipline through processes, procedures, or automation so that work can be replicated anywhere, at any time, in any amount. Mass production is characterized by repeatable tasks, hierarchical control systems, functional structures, standardized routines and processes, automation, and division of labor.

Invented Here: Maximizing Your Organization’s Internal Growth and Profitability
Bart Victor
Andrew C. Boynton
harvard business school press
Boston, Massachusetts

Tacit knowledge is far less tangible

2006-05-22T05:21:00.000-03:00

Explicit knowledge is what you find in computer data banks, textbooks, and academic journals; once created, it is easily captured, distributed, and used by people other than the creator.

While explicit knowledge can create a competitive advantage- as in the case of a patent for a new technology- its half-life is increasingly brief. Once we know something can be done, much less time and money is required to imitate, reverse engineer, or clone it than was needed to demonstrate its initial viability.

For example, after Intel spent $1 billion and more than a year to create its 486 microprocessor, Cyrix was able to produce a clone in approximately 18 months for just $10 million.

A second type is tacit or implicit knowledge, which you may think of as personal and context-specific "know-how." Tacit knowledge is far less tangible and so deeply embedded into an organization's operating practices that it's often nearly invisible, being described broadly as just "the way we do things around here."

For individuaIs, it's often referred to as experience or intuition; in organizations, we often call it culture. What we refer to as intuition, though, are really bits of knowledge that we've gained and combined with other bits in ways that are not easily traced or described.

Tacit knowledge includes relationships, norms, values, and standard operating procedures. Because tacit knowledge is much harder to detail, copy, and distribute, it can be a sustainable source of competitive advantage.

Extraído de MEYER, Christopher. Relentless Growth: How Silicon Valley Innovation Strategies can work in your Business. New York: The Free Press, 1998.

Publicly Defined Innovation Process

2006-05-21T15:17:00.000-03:00

In any socio-technical system the people in the system work better when they understand how they fit into the system as a whole.

Road-mapping provides strategic aligning, a common language for innovation, and builds bridges between technologists and business managers within your corporation, and with your major suppliers and customers.

"When a firm lacks a publicly defined innovation process, everyone operates based on their own past experience and assumptions. Because these are likely to be different, task timing, deliverables, and interfaces won't match up."

In successful medium and large companies, the innovation process is documented explicitly via maps and charts, and implicitly communicated by words and practice.
In young companies, the innovation process is often a part of the firm's tacit knowledge base, and therefore it is invisible. To grow substantially, though, young firms must eventually make the core element of their innovation process explicit.

Extraído de Innovation Process Traditional and New Approaches

By Vadim Kotelnikov, Inventor & Founder, Ten3 BUSINESS e-COACH – Innovation Unlimited, 1000ventures.com

Barriers to the Sharing of Tacit Knowledge

2006-05-21T14:55:00.000-03:00

Hierarchies, when they implicitly assume wisdom accrues to those with the most impressive organizational titles
Strong preferences for analysis over intuition discouraging employees to offer ideas without "hard facts" to back it up
Penalties for failure discouraging experimentation
Strong preferences for a particular type of communication within working groups
Fear of failing to express the inexpressible when trying to convert tacit knowledge into explicit one
Inequality in status among the participants is a strong inhibitor for tacit knowledge sharing, especially when exacerbated by different frameworks for assessing information
Uneasiness of expressing emotional life experiences rather than intellectual disagreements
Distance, both physical separation and time

Extraído de Managing Tacit Knowledge

by Vadim Kotelnikov and Ten3 East-West

Tipologia de Conhecimento Tácito

2006-05-21T14:31:00.000-03:00

Emotional TK
Damasio points out how emotions involve learned associations that maintain organismic integrity through leading to patterns of action (flight, attack, and fancier ones) as well as to internal feelings on which we can reflect and act within limits.

Social conventions TK
Societies and cultures typically involve social conventions, for instance for conversational turn-taking, for how close you stand to people, for conventional greetings, e.g. shaking hands.

Unspoken on-the-fly understandings between people TK
Someone mentioned that people often reach tacit understandings through conversational TK. Let’s say A projects an expectation through the manner in which A makes a comment or asks a question, e.g. "Gosh, I didn’t realize it was almost six o’clock." B picks up on A’s implicit message—shouldn’t we be winding up—and follows through.

Expert chunking TK
Studies of expertise argue that experts chunk situations in their domains, recognizing large-scale patterns of significance, as in patterns of attack or defense in chess play. This allows them to encode complex situations parsimoniously in long-term memory. Thus, chess masters can memorize board layouts at a glance and play chess blindfolded. Similar phenomena have been documented in several domains.

Expert self-management TK
Bereiter and Scardamalia, as well as Eraut, pointed out that experts come to manage themselves well in their domains of expertise, allocating effort wisely, anticipating problems etc. This appears to involve TK.

Grammatical TK
This is a classic example of TK. We speak more or less grammatically in our mother tongues, we have a sense of what "sounds right," we can correct errors.

Extraído de Types of TK
D. Perkins, March 19, 2002

The Tacimometer

2006-05-21T12:28:00.000-03:00

"Hot" knowledge is the most explicit.

"Cold" knowledge is the most tacit.

Explicit as it gets

Fully explicit (direct statements to others, oneself, written policies taken at face value, scientific laws, etc.)
Entirely conscious but unspoken, for reasons of good grace, privacy (intentional unspoken understandings).
Situated consciousness: we are aware of “the rules” or our moves in the very particular context as things come up, but hardly at all if asked out of the blue (often self-management principles, many social moves, some encoding chunks)
Peripheral unfocused awareness—we know it’s there without examining or analyzing, just doing it (social rituals of greeting and departure).
Mood and such that operate in the background, “coloring” our lives, although we may detect them if we pay attention (tension, etc., a la Damasio)
Not conscious of what stimuli trigger what responses on an occasion (often emotional reactions, many other conditioned responses)
Completely unconscious of practices, behaviors, rules—no direct conscious access, although we may surface them by examining our own conduct (grammar, how close you stand in different cultures, some encoding chunks)
Embodied knowledge (the knowledge of physics, chemistry, mechanics embodied in biological structures: perhaps too tacit even to be called tacit knowledge).

Tacit as it gets

Extraído de The Tacimometer: Degrees of the Tacit

D. Perkins, May, 2002

Knowledge Management and AI

2006-05-21T12:01:00.000-03:00

Knowledge is not neatly packaged. It is difficult to extract, it is ephemeral and may only be approximately correct.

One of the chief barriers to the construction of expert systems is the difficulty of knowledge acquisition—and this barrier must also be overcome to achieve success in knowledge management. However, there is some good news. The problem may be more tractable in the new context.

Systems that support knowledge management typically do not try to solve a problem alone. Rather, they try to find the knowledge (best practices, lessons learned, tips, solutions to related problems, and so on) that assist people in developing their own solutions. Stated another way, the goal today is to help people solve problems.

Contrast this with the original goal of expert systems—to solve problems themselves at an expert level. This is not to say that the AI community should give up on the expert systems goal, but rather, that achieving the goal of giving powerful assistance to people as they solve problems is of great interest to the knowledge management community.

Extraído de The Road Ahead for Knowledge Management
An AI Perspective
Reid G. Smith and Adam Farquhar
AI MAGAZINE, WINTER 2000

Tecnologia para a conversão do conhecimento

2006-05-21T11:29:00.000-03:00

Knowledge Creation using Technology

A key enabler to the creation of all kinds of knowledge discussed above is technology.

The use of technology solutions for some elements of knowledge creation is not a recent phenomenon. Even before the availability of solutions such as Lotus Notes, which is the building block for many knowledge capture solutions today, intranets and networking technology were being used.

Collaboration and knowledge sharing solutions also arose from the development of on-line conferencing and forums. It is however important to realize that knowledge creation cannot be solely done using technology tools.

As was stated by Ackerman, in many respects the state of the art is such that many of the social aspects of work important in knowledge management cannot currently be addressed by technology. Ackerman refers to this situation as a “social technical gap.”

Decision support systems, executive information systems, data warehousing and mining systems and a host of other technologies have all been evaluated by Davenport & Prusak, and more recently Smith and Farquhar have discussed Artificial Intelligence, alluding to how all these solutions falls short in the process of knowledge creation.

Further, the different knowledge conversion processes, shown in Figure 5 below do not occur in isolation, are all equally important, simultaneous, and need common support.

The implementation of such a multi-dynamic approach to knowledge creation and management requires integrated IT systems & technologies. Some common examples of technologies used in each of these processes appear in Figure 5, and are then discussed in detail.

Figure 5: Technologies used in knowledge conversion processes.
(Source: Knowledge management technology, Marwick, A.D, IBM Systems Journal, Vol.40, No.4)

Extraído de Knowledge in Organizations Definition, Creation, and Harvesting
Smita Kothuri, May, 2002

Knowledge Harvesting: A proprietary solution to knowledge creation

2006-05-20T08:58:00.000-03:00

Even when knowledge transformation using various technologies is adopted and a context is provided to these processes, the essence of knowledge creation lies in a holistic approach. Knowledge harvesting is one such proprietary, comprehensive approach that is gaining wide acceptance.

Knowledge harvesting may be seen as a strategic solution to knowledge creation as it synthesizes the advantages of technology with the relevance of a context.

'Knowledge Harvesting is a proprietary suite of methodologies and technologies for efficiently capturing the implicit intuitive knowledge of top performers, converting that expertise into explicit knowledge, and transferring it to users.’[25] It is predominantly an exercise of making implicit knowledge explicit. Larry T Wilson and the group at Learner First developed it.

Stage 1: Identification of knowledge - Identification involves mapping the organization’s key processes and the individuals who possess the best know-how.
Stage 2: Elicitation of knowledge - Experts and activities are first identified; the experts are then asked to explain the activities.
Stage 3: Capture of knowledge - The expertise of the top performers must be preserved to continue the success of the organization.
Stage 4: Organization of knowledge - The knowledge captured from top performers must be arranged in a coherent or systematic form.
Stage 5: Application of knowledge - The whole point of a knowledge management system comes down to later applications by individuals.
Stage 6: Recording of knowledge - This sub-process records the learning that takes place with the user, causing the database of knowledge to grow.
Stage 7: Sharing of knowledge - Knowledge that has been captured must be shared or its capture will be irrelevant and the effort and expense wasted.
Stage 8: Evaluation of the knowledge creation process - Evaluation should be continuous so that the database can be kept up-to-date, relevant, and as small as possible.
Stage 9: Improvement of the knowledge creation process - The improvement sub-process is the continuous betterment of the entire process.

Extraído de Knowledge in Organizations Definition, Creation, and Harvesting
Smita Kothuri, May, 2002

Organizational forms and dominance of knowledge types

2006-05-20T08:36:00.000-03:00

In table 1 the combinations of dominance of knowledge type and organizational form are presented. The level of analysis is the organizational process. More detailed determinations can be done for the constituting tasks within the organizational processes and for the individual actors.

The combinations are not the result of empirical research. They are the result of analytical reasoning and could be reformulated as hypotheses. I will llustrate the reasoning by shortly discussing the various combinations, from clan (ta +; c -; th -) to market (ta +; c +; th +).

A clan (ta +; c-; th -) consists of a limited group of actors that cooperate on the basis of trust, sometimes justified by family or very close friendship relations. Boisot (1995, p. 259) says that the term clan refers to a non-hierarchical group of limited size transacting on the basis of shared intangible knowledge and values.

These values are implicit and well-known by the members of the clan, but they are very difficult to formulate. Clans often are small and local, which means that different clans have different interpretations of what trust, loyalty, responsibility and obedience mean. If a clan is large, it normally consists of sub-clans, because of the nature of physical presence or proximity.

Table 1

Extráído de Knowledge Types and Organizational Forms in Knowledge Management
René JORNA

The Many Meanings of Tacit Knowledge

2006-05-19T10:28:00.000-03:00

Not one thing

TK is more like collegiate sports or flowering plants than suspension bridges. It’s a bundle concept.

Collegiate sports bundle under one label different kinds of things that have something in common—football, basketball, rowing, and so on. Flowering plants bundle under one label Elm trees, water lilies, and pitcher plants, although they all have share the fundamental process of capturing energy from sunlight.

Suspension bridges, on the other hand, are pretty much alike. Some are bigger, some smaller, some longer, some shorter, some with different materials, but they all look pretty much alike.

TK is a bundle concept for a simple reason. There are several different sense of “tacit,” for example tacit in the sense of entirely unconscious or in the sense of a tacit understanding (agreed upon in subtle ways without speaking) or in the sense of taken for granted without examination (we tacitly presumed that…).

Also, there are several different senses of “knowledge,” for instance knowledge in the sense of knowing facts about something, or know-how, or the knowledge embodied in habits. No wonder, then, that there are a number of different varieties of TK where what we’re examining is knowledge in one or another sense that is tacit in one or another sense.

Extraído de The many Meanings of Tacit Knowledge
D. Perkins, May, 2002

The acquisition and activation of knowledge

2006-05-19T10:17:00.000-03:00

The acquisition and activation of knowledge, both explicit and tacit, seems to help people succeed in their day-to-day endeavors. As such, it would seem to follow that it would be useful for educators. Thus it appears that educators ought to increase the explicit and tacit knowledge stores of their learners.

A great deal of research in education has addressed increasing knowledge in learners, but most of it so far has focused on the development of explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge has been mostly overlooked. Does this mean that tacit knowledge cannot be taught?

The researchers of the Practical Intelligence for Schools (PIFS) research project suggest that tacit knowledge can be taught and learned (Gardner, et al., 1994; Sternberg, et al., 1990). However, there are some theoretical and practical arguments, particularly from the constructivist perspective, that suggest that tacit knowledge that has been learned through didactic means is not as useful as tacit knowledge that has been acquired through experience. Can these seemingly contradictory positions be integrated?

This article will examine three issues relating to the acquisition of tacit knowledge. The first part will summarize Sternberg's techniques for teaching tacit knowledge (Sternberg & Wagner, 1986; Sternberg, et al., 2000), especially as they were exemplified in the PIFS project.

The second part of this article will describe constructivism and look at how some interpretations of constructivism would question the robustness of the knowledge learned in PIFS. The final section will describe a potential "middle road" that integrates the two perspectives.

Extraído de

How can Tacit Knowledge and Intuition be Cultivated in Oneself and Others?

Scott Armstrong, September, 2001

Diferenciação competitiva

2006-05-19T08:40:00.000-03:00

Tacit knowledge as a resource: the generation of tacit knowledge has a significant impact on the competitive advantages
Tacit Knowledge as a Source of Sustainable Competitive Advantage: because tacit knowledge is much harder to detail, copy, and distribute, it can be a sustainable source of competitive advantage
Maintaining competitive advantage by exploiting TK: Regional economies and clusters find ways to maintain their edge through exploiting their expertise and tacit knowledge in the industry and convert that knowledge into a viable competitive advantage and wealth.

Tacit knowledge as a resource

2006-05-19T08:27:00.000-03:00

Our results suggest that the generation of tacit knowledge has a significant impact on the competitive advantages of the new ventures who obtained assistance.

CONCLUSION

This study showed a causal linkage between source of knowledge (time), use of knowledge (advantage), and value of knowledge (growth).
Sustainable competitive advantage depends on knowledge gained by entrepreneur.
Outsider assistance can be source of sustainable competitive advantage.
Competitive advantage gained from outsider assistance positively related to performance.
Assistance and Education programs for would-be entrepreneurs must impart tacit knowledge rather than merely explicit knowledge to have an impact.

?? Counseling > Consulting.

6. Economic Development = Invention + Innovation.

?? Invention = explicit knowledge of scientists.
?? Innovation = tacit knowledge of entrepreneurs.

Extraído de

OUTSIDER ASSISTANCE AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN NEW VENTURES: TACIT KNOWLEDGE AS A RESOURCE

James J. Chrisman and W. Ed McMullan University of Calgary

What is Knowledge?

2006-05-19T07:42:00.000-03:00

But what exactly is knowledge? Where does it come from? And how can you build it up and spread it around your organization?

Referring to the above figure, note that data are our starting point. Data are simply recorded inputs. Like stacks of cash register receipts in the back office of the grocery store.

You must analyze data in order to convert them to information. For example, you can analyze your cash register receipts (the data) to discover (the information) how much of each product you sell.

Clearly, your cash register receipts are data internal to your organization. Thus, your analysis of that data will yield internal information. At times, you’ll also need information from outside your organization… like your customers’ buying preferences, for example.

But gathering data from outside your organization is generally both expensive and time consuming. Fortunately, you can often skip this external data gathering step and obtain information available from (analyzed by) somebody else. Indeed there are many sources of published information on social, economic, environmental, political, legal and technological issues.

Knowledge, Your Sustainable Competitive Advantage
By http://www.birnbaumassociates.com/building-knowledge.htm

Tacit Knowledge as a Source of Sustainable Competitive Advantage

2006-05-19T07:33:00.000-03:00

What is Sustainable Competitive Advantage?
Sustainable competitive advantage allows the maintenance and improvement of the enterprise's competitive position in the market. It is an advantage that enables business to survive against its competition over a long period of time.

All knowledge isn't the same. There is explicit knowledge – the kind that can be easily written down (for example, patents, formulas, or an engineering schematic). The explicit knowledge can create competitive advantage, but its shelf-life is increasingly brief, as it can be replicated easily by others.

Tacit knowledge, or implicit knowledge, is far less tangible and is deeply embedded into an organization's operating practices. It is often called 'organizational culture'. Because tacit knowledge is much harder to detail, copy, and distribute, it can be a sustainable source of competitive advantage"... More

By Vadim Kotelnikov, Founder, Ten3 BUSINESS e-COACH –

Innovation Unlimited!, 1000ventures.com

Extraído de http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/crosscuttings/sca_main.html

Tacit Knowledge as a Source of Competitive Advantage

2006-05-19T07:25:00.000-03:00

Tacit knowledge underlies many competitive capabilities. The experience, stored as as tacit knowledge, often reaches consciousness in the form of insights, intuitions, and flashes of inspiration.

The marvelous capacity of your mind to make sense of your previous collection of experiences and to connect patterns from the past to the present and future is essential to the innovation process. "The creativity necessary for innovation derives not only from obvious and visible expertise, but from invisible reservoirs of experience."

Tacit knowledge, or implicit knowledge, as opposite to explicit knowledge, is far less tangible and is deeply embedded into an organization's operating practices. It is often called 'organizational culture'.

"Tacit knowledge includes relationships, norms, values, and standard operating procedures. Because tacit knowledge is much harder to detail, copy, and distribute, it can be a sustainable source of competitive advantage... What increasingly differentiates success and failure is how well you locate, leverage, and blend available explicit knowledge with internally generated tacit knowledge."

Inaccessible from explicit expositions, tacit knowledge is protected from competitors unless key individuals are hired away.

by Vadim Kotelnikov and Ten3 East-West

Extraído de http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/crosscuttings/knowledge_tacit.html

Maintaining competitive advantage by exploiting TK

2006-05-19T07:19:00.000-03:00

Speaking at the National Press Club in Canberra, Australia, special guest Dr. Peter Brain gave a lucid and insightful overview of the importance of tacit knowledge for the success of economies at the regional level.

He explained that in today's global economy, codified knowledge is easily shared between competitors and is no longer a strong enough foundation for local industry to maintain a competitive advantage.

Regional economies and clusters find ways to maintain their edge through exploiting their expertise and tacit knowledge in the industry and convert that knowledge into a viable competitive advantage and wealth.

Dr. Brain outlined the importance that local governments play in creating proactive economic policy in areas like transportation and education while strengthening the government's commitment with resources and responsibility in areas of regional economic growth.

To accomplish these ends, Dr. Brain identified vital regional at scale resources and the strong enabling institutional students of the so-called "flexible entrepreneurial networks? that drive wealth creation". Though this speech was specifically directed at regions in Australia, it provides a poignant philosophical argument that can and should be applied to regional economies throughout the world.

Recognition and successful exploitation of tacit knowledge is most easily realized through professional business organizations, committees and conferences. To read more: click here

Managing Collective Tacit and Explicit Knowledge

2006-05-14T12:23:00.000-03:00

During the new idea generation – divergent or lateral thinking – phase, people create a wealth of possible solutions to a problem. In a well-managed development process, where a group of diverse individuals addresses a common challenge, varying perspectives foster creative abrasion, intellectual conflict between diverse viewpoints producing energy that is channeled into new ideas.

Brainstorming gathers together a set of experts with diverse skills, preferably including client representatives. Main rules to be followed during the idea generation phase:

defer judgments;
build on the ideas of others;
one conversation at one time;
stay focused on the topic;
and think outside the box – encourage wild ideas.

All ideas should be recorded and discussed during the selection – convergent thinking – phase.

As soon as a sufficient choice of innovative ideas has been generated, a solution – convergence upon acceptable action – needs to be defined and agreed upon. In particular, three types of tacit knowledge – overlapping specific, collective, and guiding – need to be managed... More

By Vadim Kotelnikov, Inventor,

Veja mais em Perfect Brainstorming

O Conhecimento tácito é inato?

2006-05-14T11:38:00.000-03:00

Are you born with tacit knowledge? Of course not. Then where does it come from? Experience. In a study of fifty-four business managers, fifty-one business-school students, and twenty-two undergraduates, we found, as you would predict, that tacit knowledge for management increases, on the average, with business experience. No surprise there. But IQ does not increase.

So tacit knowledge is like other aspects of practical intelligence in that it increases over the course of the life span, in contrast to academic intelligence, which decreases. It is important to keep one additional finding in mind, however. People with more business experience did not score uniformly higher than those with less such experience. In fact, some people with many years of business experience performed quite poorly. The point here is that what matters most is not how much experience you have had but rather how much you have profited from it-in other words, how well you apply what you have learned.

In a later study, which focused on the development of tacit knowledge over the managerial career, we used extensive interviews and observations to construct measures of tacit knowledge for different levels of management. We administered this measure to all executives in four high-technology manufacturing companies. We also obtained nominations from managers' superiors for "outstanding" and "underperforming" managers at the lower, middle, and upper levels.

This approach enabled us to delineate the specific contents of tacit knowledge for each level of management (lower, middle, upper) by examining what experts at each level knew that their poorly performing colleagues did not. Our results showed that there was indeed specialized tacit knowledge for each of the three management levels and that this knowledge is differentially related to success. We derived these results by comparing outstanding and underperforming managers within each management level on inventories specific for the various levels of management. For example, within the domain of knowledge about oneself, knowing how to seek out, create, and enjoy challenges is substantially more important to upper-level executives than to middle-or lower-level executives.

Knowledge about maintaining appropriate levels of control becomes progressively more significant at higher levels of management. Knowledge about self-motivation, self direction, self-awareness, and personal organization is roughly comparable in importance at the lower and middle levels, and becomes somewhat more important at the upper level.

Finally, knowledge about completing tasks and working effectively within the business. environment is substantially more important at high levels. In general, the lower the level of management, the more important it is to know how to get day-to-day, operational tasks accomplished, whereas the higher the level of management, the more important it is to know how to set a vision for the company to follow.

Robert J. Sternberg. Successful Intelligence. New York: A Plume Book, 1997.

Hierarquia DIKW

2006-05-12T10:13:00.000-03:00

Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
T.S. Eliot, "The Rock", Faber & Faber 1934.

The origin of the DIKW (Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom) hierarchy is ably presented in Sharma (2004) highlighting the first appearances of the hierarchy in both the Knowledge Management and Information Science domains.

Although references to the DIKW hierarchy were made by both Zeleny (1987) and Ackoff (1989) in the Knowledge Management domain, the closest reference to T.S. Eliot’s original hinting appeared in a Futurist article by Cleveland (1982).

Conspicuously, data was not in the original information, knowledge, wisdom hierarchy suggested by Eliot or Harland but was added by others. Since then others have also proposed extensions to the ‘top half’ of the hierarchy; Ackoff includes understanding (and some use intelligence) as its own level before attaining wisdom, and Zeleny proposes enlightenment as the final stage beyond wisdom.

Extraído de The Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom Chain: The Metaphorical link

An Emerging Knowledge Organization

2006-05-12T09:52:00.000-03:00

Over the past 15 years the term “knowledge management” has evolved to represent the changing nature of the workplace – a true paradigm shift.

In coining the phrase “knowledge society” Peter Drucker convincingly argued that land, labor, and capital – the classical factors of production – had been largely replaced by knowledge (Drucker, 1993), “that knowledge has become the resource, rather than a resource, is what makes out society ‘post-capitalist’”(p. 45).
The modern knowledge organization has become a social environment designed by the specialists, to meet the needs of the market and the specialists, in the most efficient and quickest way possible.
Lang (2001) clarifies the importance of the knowledge worker in this new age, “while the knowledge worker may need the tools of production the organization owns, while she may well have to work in organizations, she nevertheless owns the means of production” (p. 44).
Hitt (1995) further argues, “It seems evident that the learning organization is a paradigm shift from the more traditional organization. Indeed, it is a paradigm shift of the highest order. We are witnessing the emergence of a radically new perspective on organization: how they should function, how they should be managed, and how they should cope with change” (Hitt, 1995, p. 17).
Rowley (1999) definitely suggests that “the knowledge based society has arrived, and those organizations that can succeed in the global information society are those that can identify, value, create, and evolve their knowledge assets” (p. 416). Rowley continues by suggesting that effective management of knowledge, change, and innovation are central or “core competencies” that must be mastered for organizations to succeed.

Extraído de Journal of Leadership Education Volume 1, Issue 2 - Winter 2002

Perception and Recognition

2006-05-12T09:04:00.000-03:00

The first element involved in the human information processing that facilitates knowledge construction is perception of the event, and then use of memory to give this perception a recognition.

As shown in Figure 1, perception of displays occurs through stimuli generated by various sensory inputs - e.g. vision, audition, chemical senses - i.e. smell and taste. This system recognizes the information, assembles it, and makes comparisons with previously stored material (knowledge). Knowledge is used, reused and hence gets constructed.

Perception is a selective process and certain amounts of information from the outside are selected because not all of the information coming in can be assimilated. Perception is affected by factors such as attitudes, values, motives, stress and a person’s background.

Extraído de Biases and Heuristics in Judgment and Decision Making: The Dark Side of Tacit Knowledge

Competence

2006-05-12T08:04:00.000-03:00

The concept of competence is used in many different areas of research, including psychology, education, management, human resources, and information systems. It is also used in a variety of ways - sometimes as a synonym for performance, other times as a skill or personality trait. It is sometimes referred to with different prefixes or suffixes, such as in the terms 'competency', meta-competence', or 'supra-competence'. These different uses generate some confusion as to the meaning of the concept.

Competence is the potential that leads to effective behavior. Competence is often used as an umbrella term to cover almost anything that might directly or indirectly affect job performance. Various definitions can be grouped into three main ideas:

Competence as skill: a large portion of the competence literature is discipline-specific and refers to the development of specific skills or "competencies" for a particular job or profession. The idea is that there should be a fit between the employee's skills and the job requirements. This approach assumes a predefined task. Competence is a fit between an individual and the task. It focuses on the minimum skills an employee needs to to do an effective job.
Competence as a personality trait: other researchers use a broader definition of competence. ... generic knowledge, motive, trait, social role, or skill of a person linked to superior performance on the job. ... include general of specialized knowledge, physical and intellectual abilities, personality traits, motives, and self-images. ... often associated to a lifetime competency perspective.
Competence as knowledge (here I think they make a confusion): ... two types of knowledge, explicit and tacit. ... the ability to perform well is tacit knowledge, or know-how. Practice, or experience, where the individual modifies his action based on the results of previous actions... worldviews add a cognitive component to tacit knowledge.

Andre Saito

Extraído de Andre Saito at JAIST

Conhecimento Tácito versus Gestalt

2006-05-12T07:31:00.000-03:00

Polanyi (1967, 6) distinguished tacit knowledge from Gestalt, arguing that tacit knowledge is not the activity of spontaneous perception, but the outcome of the "active shaping of experience performed in the pursuit of knowledge."

According to Polanyi (1967,16), when we understand something.tacitly, we "incorporate it in our body."

Polanyi further described tacit knowing as indwelling and interiorization. By indwelling, Polanyi didn't mean learning through empathy or by looking at things; instead, tacit knowing meant dwelling in things.

Following Polanyi's thesis, true understanding for educational leaders emerges through application or practice. Polanyi explained that just as one cannot understand fully a poem by reading about poetic structure, neither can individuals employ empirical knowledge to understand reality.

Extraído de Investigation of Tacit Knowledge in Principal Leadership

Quinn, David M

Os componentes P e D da dimensão tácita

2006-05-04T15:17:00.000-03:00

Polanyi claims from his research that tacit knowledge has two distinct properties, which he names its proximal and distal terms [17]. The proximal term is the part that is closer to us, while the distal part is further away.

Polanyi exemplifies by describing how the police help a witness who is unable to describe a perpetrator to create a phantom picture by selecting pictures from a large selection of human features such as eyes, noses, and hair. By attending from the first, closer image that resides within, to the second, more distant picture collection, the witness is able to communicate her awareness of the face.

Similarly, Polanyi refers to an experiment where a person was presented with a large number of nonsense syllables and after certain syllables, the person was given an electric shock. The person was able to anticipate the shock at the sight of the shock syllables but on questioning remained unable to identify them. Again, by attending to the distal term - the shock - the test person became aware of the proximal term - the shock association.

Tacit knowledge is, argues Polanyi, the understanding of the unity that this proximal/distal pair together constitutes. We become aware of the proximal term only in the presence of the distal term - the tactile cue - but remain unable to communicate the former. Should we indeed focus our attention on the proximal term we may become temporarily paralysed and unable to perform the task at hand. For instance, a pianist may know a complicated musical piece by heart and be able to play it without concentrating on where to put his hands. However, should he start to think about where each finger should go - i.e. should he attend to the proximal term - he would soon find himself unable to continue playing.

Hence, we should not attend to the particulars in themselves but be aware of them as the entity they constitute. Only by dwelling in them, we can understand their joint meaning, according to Polanyi. Despite not being easily expressible in words, tacit knowledge may be both shared and taught. Choo [5] explains that through rich modes of discourse including analogies, stories, and metaphors, tacit knowledge may be revealed. Hansson [12] agrees and claims that tacit knowledge is not at all “tacit” - it just expresses itself in another form than spoken language.

Applying Polanyi’s theories here, we see that when attending from our interests - the proximal term - and attending to the document - the distal term - we are able to recognise and express our interests. Through documents, the tacit knowledge of our interests may thus be communicated. All we need now is a mechanism that allows us to both identify documents and share this insight with others. I suggest that a web-based recommender system provides such a mechanism.

Extraído de "Turning Tacit Knowledge Tangible" Dick Stenmark

Especificidades do Conhecimento Tácito

2006-05-04T09:06:00.000-03:00

We can know more than we can tell, an adage offered by Michael Polanyi, scientist, philosopher, and author of the influential Tacit Dimension, may be the most quoted observation in the tacit knowledge research enterprise.

Recent studies in the business, sociological, psychological, military, and other research literatures have expanded this concise definition to include assertions that tacit knowledge is:

personal in origin and valuable to the possessor;
job specific and related to context;
difficult to fully articulate;
both known in part and unknown in part to the possessor;
transmitted, where transmission is possible, through interpersonal contact;
operative on an organizational level;
applied, in part, through "if-then" rules;
capable of becoming explicit knowledge and vice versa;
intertwined with explicit knowledge along unstable knowledge borders;
poorly reflected in contemporary knowledge literature.

Extraído de "Tacit Knowledge - Tacit Ignorance and the Future of Academic Librarianship - Bill Crowley"

Hábito

2006-04-25T09:14:00.000-03:00

Habit as Organizer

In much of the literature on the subject, habit is described as serving the purpose of organizing and automatizing routine cognitive functions to free the mind of having to process every action or thought a person carries out.

William James pointed out, “Ninety-nine hundredths, or, possibly, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of our activity is purely automatic and habitual, from our rising in the morning to our lying down each night.”[2]

Habits enable us to perform routine functions such as dressing, walking, speaking, and driving a car, without having to bend our entire cognitive will to the carrying out of the task. Without habit formation, we would have to think out and process each step of everything we do as if it were a spontaneous or novel occasion.[3]

John Dewey refers to habits as “conditions of intellectual efficiency.”[4] Habits are mental energy savers that lower certain mental tasks to less tangible levels of our consciousness.[5] They can be thought of as automatic mental processes that involve “one-third less effort than regular thinking.”[6] Psychologist John A. Bargh has used the term ‘mental butlers’ to describe the unconscious mental influences that orchestrate and organize our routine behaviors.[7]

Habit is seen as not merely freeing up our conscious mind from the burden of managing mundane activity, but as helping the mind to define the world with which it interacts. Habits are a way to structure one’s world, linking one to one’s surroundings. They are “cultural patterns on an immediate, bodily level.”[8]

For Dewey, habits act as “blinders,” keeping the mind’s eye on the road, preventing it from getting lost in the enormous, confusing potentiality of all it could explore.[9] Habits, which are both physical and mental behaviors, help us maintain order in and make sense of our world.

Habits are the organization and implementation of mental and physical behaviors that takes place on an unconscious level. This has the effect of relieving the conscious mind of considerable cognitive burden. At the same time, it lends structure to our world, influencing what we pay attention to, and shaping our disposition to act in a certain way.[10]

Extraído de Ethan Mckee, May, 2002
Can Understanding Links Between Tacit Knowledge and Habit Lead to Knowing How They Both are Formed?

O mito da aprendizagem pela experiência

2006-04-23T09:26:00.000-03:00

Por causa do efeito deslocado no tempo e espaço é que se torna muito difícil aprender com a experiência nas organizações.

As decisões mais importantes que se toma, sejam estratégicas ou operacionais, têm conseqüências no futuro e muitas vezes em áreas aparentemente sem afinidades, ou distantes do ponto em que as decisões foram tomadas. Isto faz com que seus efeitos sejam difíceis de serem captados e apreendidos para constituir uma base para aprendizagem. Para alguns executivos, "muitos vinte anos de experiência de executivos não passam de um só ano repetido vinte vezes."[1]

Pode-se dizer então que o aprendizado baseado na experiência é pouco eficiente, pois se acumula pouco conhecimento por não se considerar a dinâmica das conseqüências das decisões tomadas. Ou seja, perde-se no tempo a relação da causa com o efeito, ou basicamente não fica na memória qualquer registro sobre o contexto, os motivos, o que deu certo, o que deu errado e por que.

Talvez a Gestão do Conhecimento venha num futuro, estimular, manter, homogeneizar e difundir esses registros, que são basicamente contextos e narrativas, possibilitando assim alguma forma de aprender com experiências diversificadas.

[1]Rick Ross apud Senge(1993)

SENGE, Peter. A arte e a prática da organização-aprendizado. In: Novos paradigmas nos negócios. Michael Ray & Alan Rinzler. São Paulo: Editora Cultrix, 1993.

Conhecimento explícito

2006-04-23T08:47:00.000-03:00

O significado depende do contexto em que o termo é empregado. Em geral quando nos referimos a conhecimento temos em mente o que pessoas esclarecidas, estudiosas, cultas, bem informadas têm de especial e imaginamos alguém inteligente, com boa formação acadêmica e com domínio sobre alguma área do saber.

É raro pensarmos no conhecimento contido em manuais ou um banco de dados, mesmo que pessoas de conhecimento tenham trabalhado arduamente na confecção deles. Contudo, existem certos conhecimentos organizacionais explícitos que podem ser embutidos em documentos, rotinas, procedimentos, práticas, normas e procedimentos operacionais.

Na prática, os conhecimentos assim embutidos funcionam como memória e fonte de referência de detalhes. O valor destes conhecimentos só aparece para aqueles que já têm experiência e conhecem o funcionamento geral das operações documentadas (Davenport&Prusak, 1998). Possivelmente, a questão fundamental não é o que é conhecimento e sim o que é conhecer e quais os desafios inerentes ao processo de aquisição do conhecimento.

Sabemos que na Grécia antiga já se tentava obter um entendimento claro do que significa conhecer. Como o propósito deste livro é transmitir o conceito de conhecimento para as organizações, não abordará aspectos filosóficos, restringindo-se a tratar apenas das características que fazem com que esse conhecimento tenha mais valor.

É aceitável dizer que o conhecimento está sempre sendo produzido na mente daqueles indivíduos que usam seu potencial intelectual em processos, visando produzir algo de valor para os outros indivíduos. Estes processos podem ser decompostos em três vetores.

A criatividade para criar algo que além de nos realizar possa vir a ser útil.
O desenvolvimento para transformar o que criamos em um produto ou serviço.
A socialização para distribuir o que criamos e desenvolvemos para uma realidade social e valiosa para outras pessoas.

Através do fluxo de informação, seja no vetor criatividade, desenvolvimento ou socialização, estamos usando, criando e disseminando conhecimento.

O trabalho para transformar informação em conhecimento é árduo e essa transformação pode ocorrer através dos seguintes mecanismos:·

Comparações para comparar as informações deste caso com outros.
Conseqüências para avaliar implicações destas informações para as decisões.
Conexões para relacionar o novo conhecimento com o já acumulado.
Conversações para ponderar o que as outras pessoas pensam desta informação.
(Davenport&Prusak, 1998:7)

Quando um líder dissemina o resultado de um planejamento estratégico para seus colaboradores, a visão e as estratégias da organização afetam o comportamento e são transformadas em conhecimento através das interações entre os diversos membros da empresa. Nestas interações são feitas as comparações, avaliações e conexões com conhecimentos já consolidados.

Trecho do livro “Transferindo conhecimento tácito"

Informação muda o estado de incerteza

2006-04-23T08:41:00.000-03:00

É aceitável dizer que informação é uma mensagem, sob a forma texto, imagem ou som, emitida por alguém ou por algum sistema e orientada a um ou mais receptores. A informação, tem o propósito de modificar a atitude, comportamento e julgamento do receptor. Isto acontece porque a informação muda o estado de incerteza de quem a recebe possibilitando assim maior segurança nas formas de julgar e tomar decisões.

A informação visa orientar quem a recebe no sentido de modificar a percepção sobre o que está em análise. Contudo o que constitui informação para uns pode não ter absolutamente qualquer valor para outros. A informação só pode fazer sentido para quem a recebe. Quem a emite, no máximo, pode inferir seu possível valor e esperar o feedback do receptor que confirma a utilidade ou não do que recebeu.

Pode-se aumentar a chance de transformar dado em informação quando lhe é atribuído algum significado, isto é, quando a ele agregamos valor. Davenport & Prusak (1998) sugerem vários métodos que podem ser usados para agregar valor aos dados:

Contextualização para saber qual a finalidade dos dados coletados.
Categorizarão para conhecer os componentes essenciais dos dados.
Cálculo para analisar os dados estatisticamente.
Correção para eliminar erros caso existam.
Condensação para resumir os dados em uma forma mais concisa.

É fácil perceber que o computador pode ser muito útil para cálculo, correção, e condensação, um pouco menos para categorização e pouquíssimo, ou quase nada na contextualização.

Trecho do livro Transferindo conhecimento tácito"

Dados são registros de eventos

2006-04-23T08:39:00.000-03:00

No ambiente de negócios a diferença entre dado, informação e conhecimento é uma questão do grau em que estas entidades contribuem para reduzir a incerteza do seu usuário no momento da tomada de decisão. Dados são registros puro e simples de eventos que num contexto empresarial pode corresponder apenas a registros estruturados de transações. De uma forma mais abrangente e usando os recursos das diversas tecnologias convergentes na TCI, estes registros podem ser constituídos também de textos não estruturados, imagens, sons e vídeos.

Podemos ilustrar esta situação com a execução de uma compra em uma loja por um cliente. Neste momento, diversos tipos de dados podem estar sendo registrados: (1)as transações comerciais, (2)um vídeo relatando seu roteiro na loja, (3)sua voz respondendo algumas questões informais sobre preferências, etc. Os dados transacionais serão usados para atualizar estoques, contas a receber, perfil do cliente, etc. Se não houver utilidade para gravação de imagem ou voz do cliente, estes registros sonoros e visuais não irão contribuir para redução do estado de incerteza, não irão ajudar em qualquer tomada de decisão e serão sempre dados.

O dado em si não tem qualquer relevância ou propósito. O acúmulo de dados pode criar a ilusão de possibilidade de melhores decisões, enquanto seu excesso pode dificultar a extração do significado que realmente importa, do que é realmente relevante para o negócio, pois os dados não têm significado inerente. Na prática, os dados descrevem parcialmente apenas o que já se passou, não fornecendo qualquer julgamento ou interpretação sobre a qual possamos nos basear para tomar decisão.

O valor do dado só começa a aparecer, quando ele é usado para responder questões fundamentais: “quanto, quem, quando, onde”. Porém, quando se procura obter ajuda a partir dos dados para responder questões do tipo “como” e “por que”, sente-se dificuldades em obtê-las diretamente. Mesmo assim, não se pode negar que os dados são indispensáveis por serem a principal matéria-prima para a criação da informação.

Trecho do livro “Transferindo conhecimento tácito"

Lógica cristalina com uma intuição poderosa

2006-04-22T17:37:00.000-03:00

Há duas décadas, Henry Mintzberg relatou na Harvard Business Review (HBR) os resultados de um amplo estudo sobre os executivos. Ele descobriu que o líder ou gerente que melhor opera sob condições caóticas e não prognosticáveis é o "pensador holístico... que se apóia constantemente em pressentimentos para lidar com problemas complexos demais para permitir uma análise racional". Mintzberg concluiu que "a eficácia organizacional não está no conceito obtuso denominado 'racionalidade'; ela reside na mistura de uma lógica cristalina com uma intuição poderosa".

As descobertas de Mintzberg encontram eco em uma recente matéria publicada na HBR, que dizia: ''A expressão máxima da compreensão é a intuição altamente treinada - por exemplo, o insight de um diretor maduro que sabe por instinto que projetos financiar e exatamente quando fazê-Io." Ou um gerente experiente que contrata, avalia, planeja ou interage. Ou um empreendedor à procura de uma idéia inovadora, ou um conselheiro de investimentos que percebe que as regras financeiras empíricas comuns só permitem calcular de 20 a 30 por cento dos riscos de um investimento. Ed McCracken, diretor-executivo da Silicon Graphics, explica: "Você tem de saber fazer todo o dever de casa, mas depois tem de seguir com sua intuição sem deixar que sua mente se intrometa." Uma empresa que aprendeu pelo método mais difícil a defender o fluxo intuitivo foi a 3M. Depois de saírem da beira da bancarrota logo após a virada do século, os gerentes e cientistas da 3M juraram manter uma cultura corporativa em que todas as novas idéias fossem bem-vindas e levadas em consideração.

Extraído de
Inteligência Emocional na Empresa
Ayman Sawaf e Robert Cooper, Ph. D.
Capítulo 13. O fluxo intuitivo.

Tacit knowledge, tacit knowing or behaving?

2006-04-22T16:29:00.000-03:00

Collins has recently explored the question of making tacit knowledge explicit.

Many examples of tacit knowledge fall into what he called the motor-skills category. This is exemplified by riding a bicycle or performing any such similar skill.
A second group he called the rules-regress model, and is based on Wittgenstein's observations about rule-following.
The third category is what he called the 'forms of life' approach. People in different social groups take different things to be knowledge, but are unaware of the social basis of their certainties. Thus, if the true sources of our beliefs are largely social, yet we do not recognize this, then, he claims, the sources of our beliefs are hidden from us, and thus based on tacit understandings.

Collins argues that there is nothing philosophically fundamental about the motor skills and rules-regress forms of tacit knowledge since advances in neural net computing make it possible to incorporate both types into a non-symbolic computer program from where, in principle, it might be possible to derive a symbolic computer program.

On the other hand, the 'forms of life' type of tacit knowledge is beyond the reach of neural nets since they do not and cannot participate in human society, and so is inherently beyond explication.

Moreover, even though motor-skills and rule regress forms can be replicated by computer programs, both these types of tacit knowledge are actually exercised in infinitely varying and therefore unpredictable contexts. Any setting down of such tacit knowledge would therefore only be of limited value.

Extraído de Stephen Gourlay. Tacit knowledge, tacit knowing or behaving?

Confiança

2006-04-22T09:10:00.000-03:00

A história do sucesso de algumas organizações[09] parece indicar que na Sociedade do Conhecimento, o sucesso para a inovação e o empreendedorismo depende de parcerias que, por sua vez, são conquistadas com muita confiança e colaboração − fatores críticos de sucesso para a sinergia. De acordo com Rosabeth Kanter,[12] é a confiança que faz com que algumas companhias sejam sempre percebidas com bons olhos pelos seus empregados e clientes, enquanto outras tenham sua imagem sempre ofuscada. A confiança é algo mental, mas não é uma postura no sentido de estar sempre presente.

Confiança é uma expectativa situacional positiva que nos leva a esforços e investimentos para tornar a expectativa uma realidade. O principal segredo da liderança é a confiança nas outras pessoas, criando segurança pessoal e estimulando-as a realizar os seus melhores esforços em uma direção coerente.
Confiança é segurança íntima relativa a procedimentos, que exige crédito, fé, ou boa fama. Confiança é algo relacionado à segurança e bom conceito que inspiram as pessoas de probidade, talento, discrição, etc. Quando se tem confiança em outra pessoa espera-se poder contar com ela em qualquer situação.
Confiança existe quando se tem completa certeza relativa ao caráter, habilidade e a força do parceiro. Confiança mútua existe quando a esperança de parceria duradoura se comprova pela realização de compromissos assumidos por ambas as partes.

Trecho do capítulo 8 do livro "Sinergia"

[09]GROSS, Daniel. Forbes: as maiores histórias do mundo dos negócios. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1996.
[12]KANTER, Rosabeth Moss. Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End. New York: Crown Business, 2004.

Metaphors and Analogy

2006-04-22T08:37:00.000-03:00

A metaphor is not just a figure of speech but a way we structure our thoughts. The market is moving away from being a market where the basic necessity or need of a product is enough. In today’s highly competitive market the use of metaphors in products is essential.

Creating metaphoric products can make users desire it. Based on a review of metaphor theory parallels are going to be drawn to three different areas of product design. In design management the metaphors can help to get all members of a team conscious what the product they are developing stands for. This is accomplished through totem building, drawing analogies. In the area of metaphoric use in products the issue is to make the user understand the meaning of the product. This is for a producer achieved by describing, expressing, exhorting, and identifying certain properties through the product with the help of metaphors. The user understanding the product is also the central in the creation of metaphoric products. A method is here presented that focuses on the early phases of the design process of new metaphoric products.

As an example of how metaphors can be used he takes a superior metaphor for the development of new car concepts at Honda in 1978. There “the theory of automobile evolution” got presented. What associations can rise from this metaphor? The metaphor rouse the question: If cars were living organisms how would they evolve? The conclusion the development team came up with was the slogan: “car-maximum, machine-minimum”. This was in contrast to the general trend of the time that sacrificed comfort in favour of appearance. The further development of the concept led to a car that was short (in length) and tall (in height). These properties made it cheaper, lighter and more comfortable. The result of the concept development was the urban car Honda City. This car inaugurated a new generation of “short and tall” cars in Japan instead of the styling trend that was long and low sedans.

As stressed earlier Nonaka arguments that the use of a metaphor in product development must also include an analogy. As an example he uses the development of a personal copier by Canon where a beer can was used as an analogy. To make the copier more reliable Canon decided that the copier drum that stood for 90 per cent of all the maintenance was going to be disposable. However this would imply a dramatic reduction of production cost of the drum.

When the development team discussed this problem over a beer, suddenly the idea of analyzing the production process of beer cans appeared. It would be excellent if this cheap production process could be used to produce the copier drum. Analogy did lead to the solution of the problem as the intermediate step between pure imagination and logical thinking.

Extraído de The use of metaphors in product design

Practical Intelligence in Everyday Life

2006-04-19T17:29:00.000-03:00

Book Description

This path-breaking book reviews psychological research on practical intelligence and describes its importance in everyday life. The authors reveal the importance of tacit knowledge--what we have learned from our own experience, through action. Although it has been seen as an indispensable element of expertise, intelligence researchers have found it difficult to quantify. Based on years of research, Dr. Sternberg and his colleagues have found that tacit knowledge can be quantified and can be taught. This volume thoroughly examines studies of practical intelligence in the United States and in many other parts of the world as well, and for varied occupations, such as management, military leadership, teaching, research, and sales.

Destaque

Practical Intelligence in Everyday Life
Robert J. Sternberg, George B. Forsythe, Jennifer Hedlund, Joseph A. Horvath, Richard K. Wagner, Wendy M. Williams, Scott A. Snook, Elena Grigorenko

Raciocinando sem pensar

2006-04-19T15:13:00.000-03:00

Assim como caminhamos sem pensar, raciocinamos sem pensar! Não sabemos como nossos músculos nos fazem andar- também não sabemos grande coisa a respeito das agências que realizam nosso trabalho mental. Quando você tem um problema difícil para resolver, pensa sobre ele por algum tempo. Em seguida, sabe-se lá, a resposta parece surgir de estalo e você diz: "Ah! já sei, Farei isto e aquilo". No entanto, se alguém lhe perguntasse como encontrou a solução, dificilmente seria capaz de dizer mais coisas do que as que se seguem:

"De repente me dei conta..."

"Sei lá, tive esta idéia..."

"Passou-me pela cabeça..."

Se pudéssemos realmente perceber o trabalho de nossas mentes, não agiríamos com tanta freqüência segundo motivos que nem suspeitamos. Não contaríamos com tão variadas e conflitantes teorias para a psicologia. E quando nos perguntam como alguém consegue suas boas idéias, não nos veríamos reduzidos a metáforas sobre "ruminar", "digerir", "conceber" e "dar origem" a conceitos como se nossos pensamentos estivessem em qualquer outro lugar exceto na cabeça. Se pudéssemos ver dentro de nossas mentes, teríamos, sem dúvida, coisas mais úteis para dizer. Muita gente parece estar absolutamente certa de que nenhum computador poderia, jamais, ser dotado de sensação, percepção, ter vontade própria, ou ter "consciência" dele mesmo de qualquer outra forma. No entanto o que faz todo mundo ter tanta certeza de que pessoalmente possui todas estas qualidades admiráveis? É verdade.que se temos certeza de alguma coisa, esta é que "Sinto... portanto sinto". Contudo, o que significam, realmente, estas convicções? Se a autopercepção significa saber o que está se passando dentro da própria mente, não haveria um único realista que pudesse declarar, por muito tempo, que os seres humanos possuem muita percepção, no sentido literal de ver lá dentro.

Na verdade, a evidência de que somos autoconscientes - isto é, que possuímos uma aptidão especial qualquer para descobrir o que está acontecendo dentro de nós mesmos - é, na realidade, muito fraca. É verdade que certas pessoas são especialmente formidáveis para assessorar as atitudes e motivações de outras pessoas (e, mais raramente, delas mesmas). Porém, isto não justifica a crença de que o modo como aprendemos coisas sobre os seres humanos, inclusive nós mesmos, é fundamentalmente diferente da maneira como aprendemos a respeito de outras coisas. A maioria dos conhecimentos que denominamos "percepções" são meras variações de nossos outros modos de "imaginar" o que está acontecendo.

Página 63 de MINSKY, Marvin. The Society of the Mind. New York: Simon Schuster, 1985.

The Intelligent Organization

2006-04-19T08:39:00.000-03:00

Three classes of knowledge

Chun Wei Choo

"What magical trick makes us intelligent? The trick is that there is no trick. The power of intelligence stems from our vast diversity, not from any single, perfect principle. Our species has evolved many effective although imperfect methods, and each of us individually develops more on our own. Eventually, very few of our actions and decisions come to depend on any single mechanism. Instead, they emerge from conflicts and negotiations among societies of processes that constantly challenge one another."

(Marvin Minsky 1986, The Society of Mind, Section 30.8)

Table 1.1

An organization works with three classes of knowledge: tacit knowledge, rule-based knowledge, and background knowledge (Table 1.1). Tacit knowledge consists of the hands-on skills, special know-how, heuristics, intuitions, and the like that people develop as they immerse in the flow of their work activities. Tacit knowledge is deeply rooted in action and comes from the simultaneous engagement of mind and body in task performance.

Tacit knowledge is personal knowledge that is hard to formalize or articulate (Polanyi 1966, 1973). The transfer of tacit knowledge is by tradition and shared experience, through for example, apprenticeship or on-the-job training. Tacit knowledge in an organization ensures task effectiveness - that the right things are being done so that the work unit could attain its objectives. It also provides for a kind of creative robustness - intuition and heuristics can often tackle tough problems that would otherwise be difficult to solve.

Whereas tacit knowledge is implicit, rule-based knowledge is explicit knowledge that is used to match actions to situations by invoking appropriate rules. Rule-based knowledge guides action by answering three questions: What kind of situation is this? What kind of person am I or What kind of organization is this? and finally, What does a person such as I, or an organization such as this, do in a situation such as this? (March 1994) Rule-based knowledge is used in the design of routines, standard operating procedures, and the structure of data records.

Rule-based knowledge enables the organization to enjoy a certain level of operational efficiency and control. It also promotes equable, consistent organizational responses. The third kind of organizational knowledge is background knowledge. This is knowledge that is part of the organizational culture and is communicated through oral and verbal texts such as stories, metaphors, analogies, visions, and mission statements. Background knowledge supplies the mindset or worldview by which people in the organization understand particular events, actions, objects, utterances, or situations in distinctive ways (Morgan 1986). Background knowledge draws the cognitive context for the construction of reality and endows meaning on the organization's actions and activities. It promotes commitment through the creation of shared meanings and values.

All three forms of knowledge can be found in any organization. The intelligent organization however, is skilled at continuously expanding, renewing, and refreshing its knowledge in all three categories. The intelligent organization promotes the learning of tacit knowledge to increase the skill and creative capacity of its employees, takes advantage of rule-based knowledge to maximize efficiency and equability, and develops background knowledge to unify purpose and meaning in its community. In effect, the intelligent organization has mastered a fourth class of knowledge - a higher order or meta-knowledge - that it uses to create, integrate, and invigorate all its intellectual resources in order to achieve superior levels of performance.

Chun Wei Choo

Chapter 1: The Intelligent Organization

CONHECIMENTO TÁCITO

2006-04-17T15:33:00.000-03:00

"Nós podemos saber mais do que podemos contar", escreveu o filósofo de ciência Michael Polanyi há 50 anos. Em seu livro, Criação de Conhecimento na Empresa, Ikujiro Nonaka e Hirotaka Takeuchi constroem sobre as noções de Polanyi de "conhecimento tácito" uma distinção entre conhecimento explícito e tácito - uma distinção útil para qualquer um desenvolvendo infra-estrutura para aprendizagem organizacional. Quando Polanyi, Nonaka e Takeuchi utilizam o termo, "conhecimento explícito", ele é dito em linguagem e números; ele pode ser codificado e transmitido, precisamente porque foi analisado e separado em partes discretas. Um exemplo é um livro de jurisprudências, que traça os precedentes em uma ordem precisa, com índices e referências cruzadas.

Os elementos cruciais para que as coisas sejam realizadas são os modelos mentais, premissas, habilidades e capacidades - dos quais geralmente não temos muita consciência, e os quais Polanyi chama de conhecimento tácito. A palavra "tácito" vem do verbo latim tacere, ficar em silêncio. (As palavras "taciturno" e "reticente" vêm da mesma raiz.) Uma jovem recém-saída da escola de Direito que há pouco começou a trabalhar em uma empresa pode achar que está "agindo como uma advogada" sem jamais ter tomado uma decisão consciente de parar de "agir como uma aluna." Ela aprende os comportamentos de sua nova profissão reunindo todos eles, tanto deliberada quanto inconscientemente. Ela observa outros advogados; percebe os momentos de seu próprio sucesso e, continuamente, chega a conclusões sobre "as maneiras como os advogados fazem as coisas."

Tudo isso representa um componente crítico de seu conhecimento de advogada; tão vital para seu sucesso como seu conhecimento de casos. Ela jamais poderia aprender este tipo de conhecimento tácito em uma sala de aula ou lendo um livro. Ela só pode aprender isso fazendo parte de uma comunidade de advogados atuantes, experimentando novos comportamentos, observando os resultados e, gradualmente, assimilando esse conhecimento em seu próprio comportamento até que ela não esteja nem mais consciente do porquê de seu comportamento mudar. Isso ilustra como o conhecimento é gerado nas comunidades atuantes - a fonte da noção de "comunidades de prática."

É importante entender que o conhecimento tácito nunca pode ser reduzido a conhecimento explícito. Na verdade, falar sobre "conversão de conhecimento tácito em explícito" reflete uma compreensão superficial da própria noção de tácito. Como disse um pesquisador recentemente, "Eu entendo que na corporação XYZ, a gerência diz que está reunindo o conhecimento tácito da organização. Espero que tenham uma sacola bem grande." Em última análise, contemplar o significado mais profundo do conhecimento tácito leva a reconhecer as sutilezas do que significa "saber" para os humanos.

Extraído de SENGE, Peter. A Dança das Mudanças: o desafio de manter o crescimento e o sucesso em organizações que aprendem. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Campus, 1999.

INTELIGÊNCIA CULTURAL

2006-04-17T11:56:00.000-03:00

DAVID C. THOMAS E KERR INKSON

Instrumentos para negócios globais
Editora Record

Rio de Janeiro - São Paulo2006

Sumário
PrefácioAgradecimentos
1. Você é um gerente globalizado?

2. Entendendo a cultura: O que é a cultura, e o que não é

3. Desligando o piloto automático cultural

4. Elevando a sua inteligência cultural

5. Tomada de decisão através das culturas

6. Comunicando-se e negociando através das culturas

7. Liderança através das culturas

8. Equipes multiculturais

9. Gerenciando carreiras internacionais

Conclusão: O básico da inteligência cultural

Know-how - De Bono

2006-04-17T11:23:00.000-03:00

Since only hens lay eggs, chicken sexing is a very important profession. It is not easy to tell the sex of a chicken that is only a few days old. In England bands of highly skilled Japanese chicken sexers go from farm to farm identifying the sex of young chickens. Any mistakes which they make are replaced by the person who has sold the chickens as all hens. Chicken sexing does not appear to be something that you could learn out of a book. Knowing how to do it is what matters. This know-how comes from experience and possibly from working with other experienced people.

Huge industries like paper making and steel making are not as scientific as might be imagined. In some respects they are more like crafts, depending on the know-how of certain skilled workers. Whisky blending, tea blending and tobacco blending are much more obvious examples of the importance of know-how.

Know-how is a mixture of informarion, experience, trial and error, imitation and learning. A Japanese company setting out to make dyestuffs will buy the know-how from a Swiss firm under a licensing agreement. A businessman who has worked for year in the Middle East will be eagerly sought out for his know-how regarding business in that area.

In certain technical subjects such as chemicals or electronics the know-how may consist entirely of technical information but in most other cases it is actual experience that matters most. The apprenticeship of a student to a master was a useful method of passing on know-how. Famous painters like Rubens had studios full of pupils who learned directly from the master, and painted many of his pictures for him. At one time plumbers, doctors and lawyers all learned their professional know-how through apprenticeship.

The simplest way to acquire knowhow is to buy it by hiring someone who has it. A person with know-how in a certain field has a sort of in tellectual capital which has gradually accumulated over the years and has acquired a cashing-in value. It also happens that a great mystery is made of know-how in certain fields where anyone may be able to acquire the know-how in a few weeks.

Extraído do livro "Wordpower" de Edward De Bono.

The Use of ICT-Systems in Managing the Tacit Knowledge of Professionals - Laurens Waling

2006-04-17T08:26:00.000-03:00

Appendix I: Case studies

1. Knowledge management at consulting firms

In consulting firms the primary factor of production is knowledge. Advising customers is based on the knowledge of the consultants. Knowledge management in such an organization leads directly to successes. Customers demand high quality advises and professional aid in problems. Especially managing tacit knowledge is a challenge at all types of consulting firms. Alares is an example of such a firm where different knowledge management implementations are in place.

2. Knowledge management in public health

Organizations in public health are organizations where the view on knowledge management is relatively new, but extremely important. Examples where lots of professionals work and research are hospitals and care centers. Alares advises these organizations on different themes, for instance the digitalization of dossiers. Through these contacts it might be possible to find a knowledge management project in a public health organization.

3. Knowledge management at KEGG

The Koninklijke Effatha & Guyot Groep (KEGG)6 is an organization that provides education, care and services to deaf people and people that have trouble hearing or speaking. The organization exists of schools and care departments. With over 1800 employees – most of them professionals - in 70 locations through Holland the organization needs knowledge management between professionals and locations. Professionals are working on the same subjects without informing each other. Alares is adding expertise to a knowledge management implementation. A special department is set-up to monitor and spread the knowledge through the organization. In this department a knowledge manager is responsible together with a few knowledge workers to bring professionals in contact that research the same subject.

4. Knowledge management at Siemens ShareNet

Building a Knowledge Network (2002)7 describes the development of ShareNet, an innovative knowledge management system used by a division of Siemens. ShareNet attempts to capture the knowledge and experience of Siemens’ many dispersed sales and marketing units around the globe, making it available to all. ShareNet has to date been funded as a corporate initiative, free to all who use it. But as the telecommunications market has collapsed, the groups who run it are under increasing pressure to cut costs. As a result, they are considering charging users who subscribe to the tool in the belief that these users will willingly pay for it. This relies, however, on being able to demonstrate that the tool/system has a positive return on investment--a notoriously difficult task. Teaching Purpose: To analyze the design and construction of a knowledge management system; to explore the major issues in deploying these types of systems (e.g., creating incentives for use, ensuring relevant knowledge is stored); and to examine the return on investment from these types of systems.

5. Knowledge management at NASA

For NASA this means delivering the systems and services that will help our employees and partners get the information they need to make better decisions.8 There are three priority areas where KM systems and processes can help NASA's ability to deliver its missions:

6. Knowledge management with innovative systems

Alares is closely related to the initiative of Tresparc. Initiator Victor Wenting is developing a generic communication platform for organizations. This platform is innovative because of its functionality and technology. It focuses on communication and might therefore be an innovative example of ‘tacit’ knowledge management.

7. Knowledge management with rich media

Another organization out of Alares’ network is Byton. Founder Alexander van der Laan created a content management system for rich media like video. The advanced storing of video provides solutions to for instance television station. The use of video might be an innovative solution for ‘tacit’ knowledge management. An implementation of Byton’s system provides might also be an innovative application of ‘tacit’ knowledge management.

8. Knowledge management with EPROM

EPROM9 is a consultancy firm that develops software to support managers in saving agreements and appointments with their employees in a system. Alares is considering implementing software itself to keep track of appointments with employees. All though the software of EPROM is technological relatively simple, the goal of supporting managers in making appointments with their professionals can be beneficial to this research.

9. Knowledge management with RSS feeds

An implementation of RSS feeds for internal communication in an organization is not yet achieved. In his paper ‘RSS feeds as new technology for knowledge management’ Laurens Waling explains RSS and the possible functionalities it might have for internal knowledge management. Implementing RSS can be a very innovative project.

10. Knowledge management with Document Repository Systems

Different Document Repository Systems provide organizations with a place to share and store their documents online. These types of system become highly popular, and there are high quality open source alternatives available. Hippo is such an open source platform where companies can share documents. Perhaps a little bit too much focusing on explicit knowledge, but some benefits for tacit knowledge management can be found in these systems.

11. Knowledge management at Resence

Resence is a consultancy firm that comes with software to map the available knowledge in an organization. Based on categories an organization can indicate how much knowledgeable professionals they want for a certain subject. Resence provides a way to oversee the differences in what knowledge is in house and what is missing.

12. Knowledge management in universities

At universities like Delft University of Technology the best examples of how to deal with explicit knowledge can be found in publications. References and standard formats combined with categorizing make science a good example of how to manage explicit knowledge. However, tacit knowledge is not managed that well. It’s often heard that researchers do communicate too less and do not know about the practices from the other professionals. Managing tacit knowledge in academic environments is tried hard, but hardly achieved.

13. Knowledge management in academic education

In education knowledge management is becoming highly popular as well. More efficiency through reuse of learning objects is one of the important aims of Learning Content Management Systems. In academic situations the transferring of knowledge is currently shifting from a ‘teacher to student’ perspective to a perspective where ‘the student is central’. In this last perspective the students initiate communication with teachers, experts and fellow students to become the manager of their own knowledge processes. An implementation of an LCMS like Harvest Road Hive might provide examples for ICT-use in ‘tacit’ knowledge management. During his job at the faculty of TPM Laurens Waling developed and partly implemented such a system called E-trax.

14. Knowledge management in dental care

A famous dentist in Los Angeles uses the Internet to give weekly colleges to colleagues around the world. Using a high quality webcam he shows how to implement for instance new tooth, a very secure operation. Each paying over 100 euros to watch these colleges thousands of dentists from around the world follow these ‘tacit knowledge’ lessons.

15. Knowledge management in generic projects

Project management is a popular research subject. Especially the availability of project management software provides new possibilities. Scheduling resources and overseeing costs are the main functionalities of these systems, however they might provide solutions to store project decisions and therewith stimulate project knowledge management. Through Alares and its network access can be retrieved to different kinds of projects (for instance in the public transport sector) and project information management systems.

16. ‘Nomadisch werken’ program Nederland Breedbandland

The expert group Nederland Breedbandland focuses on initiatives to stimulate fiber broadband connections in the Netherlands. The group establishes many projects under which ideas to facilitate employees in broadband Internet connections and applications. Tacit knowledge management initiatives can very well be brought under these projects.

8 http://km.nasa.gov/whatis/index.html
9 http://www.eprom.nl

Artigo completo

Reflection of Tacit Knowledge - OSAKI Masaru

2006-04-17T07:53:00.000-03:00

(...)In this article the author focuses on and tries to scrutinize tacit knowledge. In communication activities “cognition” usually plays the main role, but “tacit knowledge” does not appear on the outside, like a kuroko or a kabuki stagehand dressed in black to be inconspicuous, supporting activities of cognition as a sceneshifter or stagehand, often unconsciously.

It is reasonable to think that “cognition” and “tacit knowledge” form a harmonious whole and interact with each other while communication is carried out.

The author calls “internalized knowledge” for the knowledge which has been acquired and accumulated inside the body since birth up to this moment through the channels of sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch etc. Internalized knowledge is not just knowledge, but includes information, experience, skill and knowhow.
(...) For example, in the definition of a dictionary, “yogurt is a thick liquid food that tastes slightly sour and is made from milk, or an amount of this.” (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 3rd ed.). If one has never eaten yogurt yet, he or she cannot imagine the taste of yogurt. The knowledge from a dictionary is “information knowledge.” The knowledge actually acquired by eating yogurt is “body knowledge”, and the explainable portion of the body knowledge by language such as “a little sour”, “slightly sweet” etc. is “externalizable and transmittable knowledge.” The remaining unexplainable portion of the knowledge is classified into the following “unexternalizable but transmittable knowledge” or “unexternalizable and intransmittable knowledge.”

Externalizable and transmittable knowledge” is transmittable to others by expressing what one intends through language, numbers, physical movements, colors, pictures etc. “Body knowledge” is transmittable by common experience (at the same time in the same place or at a different time in a different place), but it is limited to externalizable knowledge. In this article “externalizable and transmittable knowledge” is sometimes referred to as just “externalizable knowledge”, and it can be called also “explicit knowledge.”

“Externalizable and transmittable knowledge” exists as a continuum from “knowledge transmittable with ease” to “knowledge transmittable with difficulty.” Not all externalizable and transmittable knowledge can be transmitted with ease. The former can usually be transmitted when context such as the same language or values or world view exists between communicators. The latter cannot easily be transmitted firstly when little context exists between communicators. For instance, when one speaks to someone else in a certain language and he or she does not understand the language, they cannot communicate with each other well, but they may be able to communicate to a certain extent by gesture etc. Or in the days when everybody believed in the geocentric system, even if someone advocated the heliocentric system, people would not accept it easily.(...)

Artigo completo

The Tacit Knowledge of Interests - Dick Stenmark

2006-04-17T07:39:00.000-03:00

Our interests as professionals in a corporate setting govern our activities more than any formal job role description. However, it is difficult to precisely describe what we are interested in or what make a certain book or document interesting. It is, on the other hand, very easy to determine whether or not a given document is interesting just by giving it a quick glance. Based on Polanyi's theories of tacit knowledge, I claim that this is because we use tacit knowledge when making these decisions. By studying how an agent-based retrieval prototype was used, I deduct that such technology may be used to capture our interests and thus make tacit knowledge usable on an organisational level, without having to make it external. This approach has three advantages: First, instead of using a few keywords to describe an interest, one can give an example in form of a document. Second, an incentive to define an interest exists since it is rewarded in form of more accurate information retrieval. Third, as knowledge no longer needs to be externalised, there is less risk of users feeling they are being made obsolete.
Artigo completo

O conhecimento tácito

2006-04-14T10:31:00.000-03:00

O que faz um executivo ou um psicólogo, se comportar de forma inteligente no seu dia-a-dia? Para responder a essa pergunta, foram feitas entrevistas com pessoas desses dois campos, tão diferenciados de atividades, nas quais se perguntava: “O que se precisa para ser realmente bem sucedido no seu ramo?” Uma coisa ficou bem clara.

Nenhum dos entrevistados apontou o conhecimento formal adquirido na escola como responsável pelo sucesso. Os entrevistados disseram que importante mesmo era o conhecimento que ia sendo adquirido on the job: macetes, dicas e o que eles chamaram de Conhecimento Tácito. Um conhecimento adquirido no contexto, tal como vocabulários específicos e heurísticas para encurtar decisões (Baron&Sternberg, 1987:188). O sentido de contexto neste caso pode ser melhor compreendido através da metáfora do xadrez como colocado na citação a seguir:

“O significado emerge do contexto e conexões. Sem um contexto, nada faz sentido. Tentem imaginar o jogo de xadrez sem um tabuleiro, a língua sem uma gramática, jogos sem regras.” (Ferguson, M., 1980:288).

O Conhecimento Tácito pode ser visto como um composto de experiências condensadas, princípios, atitudes, comportamentos, informação contextual, experiência e insight experimentado.

Por servir de plataforma para novas experiências e informações, este tipo de conhecimento gera cada vez mais conhecimento quando usado por quem o possui. É o conhecimento adquirido ao longo do tempo que forma critérios e filtros, habilitando cada indivíduo a selecionar a relevância das informações de acordo com seus próprios mecanismos de seleção, como colocado na citação a seguir.

"A informação é um produto capaz de gerar conhecimento e a informação que um sinal transmite é o que podemos aprender com ela... O conhecimento é identificado com a crença produzida (ou sustentada) pela informação" (Nonaka&Takeuchi, 1995:64)

O Conhecimento Tácito por ser uma mistura de diversos elementos, não é algo simples nem trivial, sendo muito difícil de colocar em palavras para ser plenamente entendido em termos lógicos. O conhecimento que existe em cada pessoa faz parte da sua própria idiossincrasia, e portanto está sujeito ao seu temperamento, à imprevisibilidade de suas reações aos estímulos externos. Ou seja à maneira de ver, sentir e reagir, própria de cada um. A comparação abaixo nos ajuda a perceber um pouco mais o efeito dos estímulos sobre o conhecimento de cada indivíduo:

“Da mesma forma que uma partícula atômica pode parecer ser uma onda ou uma partícula, dependendo de como os cientistas a observam, o conhecimento pode ser visto tanto como um processo quanto como um ativo.”(Davenport&Prusak, 1998:6)

O Conhecimento Tácito pode ser identificado na relação mestre-aprendiz da luteraria, onde o mestre luthier orienta o aprendiz na fabricação de um instrumento de corda. Como na maioria dos processos de fabricação em que o grande diferencial é a qualidade, existe um conhecimento explicito que o aprendiz capta dos esquemas de fabricação e das fórmulas de preparação dos materiais, e existe um Conhecimento Tácito que o aprendiz só consegue adquirir se acompanhar o trabalho diário do seu mestre. Da mesma forma, se comporta o aprendiz do mestre cirurgião, o aprendiz do mestre carpinteiro, o aprendiz do mestre-cuca, o aprendiz de vendas e o aprendiz de atendimento a cliente. Só a interação social mestre-aprendiz que ocorre num acompanhamento diário pode tornar um dia o aprendiz capaz de realizar um estradivário do seu setor de atividade.

A perspicácia, a forma de colocar as perguntas e a maneira de comentar as respostas serve como indicativos para o Conhecimento Tácito. Pode ser que este conhecimento se desenvolva com a constante observância de virtudes como persistência, simplicidade, gentileza, prudência, humildade, tolerância e integridade. Como é um conhecimento que se adquire com a experiência, a sua verificação deve ser feita, de preferência, através de experimentos e simulações que façam com que ele apareça no momento em que se fizer necessário.

Trecho do livro “Transferindo conhecimento tácito"

©VSLins Consultoria

Tacit Knowledge and Intuition

2006-04-14T09:36:00.000-03:00

Tacit knowledge without intuition, precisely speaking

In our natural way of speaking, we usually do not usually call actions intuitions. Consider this dictionary definition:

Intuition is:
1a. The act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes; immediate cognition.
1b. Knowledge gained by the use of this faculty; a perceptive insight.
2. A sense of something not evident or deducible; an impression.

Notice that it’s all about knowing or sensing, not about action.

Yet TK clearly figures in many actions. When it does, we have TK operating without an intuition in the precise sense.

Suppose in a sport I've found a groove and settle into it and play well. Clearly this reflects TK. Yet it foregrounds action, the smooth engaged execution of the sports activity, rather than an insight or even an impression. It seems odd to speak of an intuition in such cases.

Or suppose, familiar with the feel of a rocking boat, having my “sea legs,” I stand on the deck and automatically shift my legs to keep balance. This reflects tacit knowledge accumulated from experience. It’s certainly tacit. I cannot explain to you what I do in order to keep my balance. I just do it.

But my actions don’t take the form of ideas or insights or judgments. My actions are bodily motions, not mental states. I'm not having intuitions, although one might say that I'm behaving intuitively or displaying intuitive actions.

Intuition without tacit knowledge, precisely speaking
TK precisely speaking involves knowledge. Perhaps the nonconscious reasons behind some intuitions aren’t properly knowledge. Then you could have an intuition without TK in the precise sense.

But what could the nonconscious reasons be if not knowledge? Well, our sense of logic or logical fit for example, when we arrive at conclusions that reflect less the content and more the form of something. Consider the classic syllogism:

Socrates is a man.
All men are mortal.
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Consider the feeling that the last line follows inevitably from the first two. Where does that feeling of inevitability come from?

Some philosophers speak of our logical intuitions. But is this knowledge? We do have knowledge of the meanings of “is” and “all.” But the feeling of inevitability doesn’t follow from either of those meanings alone. It follows from the way the syllogism puts the two together. That’s more like logic than knowledge—again, “logical intuition” might be a better term.

So, there you have it: intuition without TK, precisely speaking. Instead, it’s a “logical intuition.”

But wait a minute. In a loose sense, the feeling of inevitability comes from our knowledge of the meaning of “is” and “all” and how they fit together in the syllogism. So again, it’s pretty picky to say that TK isn’t involved. As in the previous section, it depends on how far one wants to stretch.

To repeat the warning ventured earlier, these quirks of usage should not mask the basic and robust relationship between TK and intuition. The two are partners in the same fundamental story, TK the resource and intuition the outcome, a story that holds up wonderfully well for prototypical examples and well enough along the edges, if we are willing to stretch usage a little bit.
D. Perkins, Monday, March 19, 2001

Extraído de How Tacit Knowledge and Intuition Relate to One Another

©VSLins Consultoria

Tese de Cláudio Terra

2006-04-14T09:23:00.000-03:00

3.1.3 Conhecimento Tácito e Intuição

Um texto clássico do cientista convertido a filósofo, Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension, publicado orginalmente em 1966, é um marco para a conceituação do que vem a ser o conhecimento tácito (Polanyi, 1997). A importância deste tema na literatura organizacional, acreditamos, tem sido bem explorada, primeiramente por Mitzenberg (1989), com seus trabalhos sobre o papel desempenhado pela intuição no processo de tomada de decisão gerencial e, mais recentemente por Nonaka e Takeuchi (1995), em sua obra The Knowledge-Creating Company, na qual estes autores elaboram um modelo de criação de conhecimento baseado no círculo virtuoso da interação entre conhecimento tácito e explícito.

Polanyi introduz o tema do conhecimento tácito a partir da frase we can know more than we can tell17. Com isto ele quer dizer que muito do que sabemos não pode ser verbalizado ou escrito através de palavras. Isto fica mais claro a partir dos exemplos cotidianos e científicos apresentados por ele. Como exemplos mais intuitivos ele cita:

nossa capacidade de conseguirmos distinguir o rosto de uma pessoa conhecida entre tantas outras, mas não sermos capazes de explicitar os particulares que compõem o todo. Daí os artifícios usados pela polícia que, para fazer retratos falados, utiliza uma vasta coleção de fotos de partes específicas do rosto, como narizes, bocas e outros detalhes;

o fato de pianistas virtuosos tenderem a ficar paralisados, quando fixam sua atenção ao movimento de seus dedos;

a habilidade de pessoas cegas, que usam a bengala como uma extensão de seu corpo.

Além disso, vários estudos em laboratório mostram a nossa capacidade de reação intuitiva a estímulos externos não compreendidos pela nossa mente consciente. Neste sentido, Polanyi cita os exemplos de testes psicológicos envolvendo "shock syllables" e "shock words". Nestes testes, verificou-se que as pessoas eram capazes de antecipar choques elétricos ao verem palavras e sílabas que, de fato, como parte da lógica do experimento, estavam associadas a choques, mesmo sem serem capazes, a posteriori, de explicitar a lógica do experimento. Verificou-se, também, em laboratório, através de câmaras escondidas de alta resolução, que muitos dos movimentos dos músculos, ditos "involuntários", poderiam ser, na verdade, estimulados externamente, mesmo sem a consciência humana.

Para Polanyi, o conhecimento tácito envolve, pois, uma relação entre duas coisas: um conhecimento específico, como "tocar piano", utilizar uma ferramenta, etc, que ele chama de distal e um outro, que ele chama de proximal, do qual só temos consciência na medida em que ele serve ao anterior. Ele compara ainda seus conceitos de conhecimento tácito aos resultados da gestalt. Esta seria o resultado de um esforço ativo e laborioso de busca de conhecimento, que envolveria o nosso corpo e todos os seus sentidos. Neste aspecto, a aquisição de conhecimento, seja intelectual ou prático, seria resultado de envolvimento e compromisso pessoal.

O conceito de conhecimento tácito também ajudaria a explicar por que a compreensão de assuntos complexos pode ser prejudicada, quando se busca fazê-lo, primordialmente, a partir de sua decomposição em partes e análises estritamente racionais. Não que isto não deva ser feito para se obter um aprofundamento sobre o tema em questão. O importante é não perder o foco no todo e isto só ocorre, quando a realidade é interiorizada e todos os detalhes recuperam seu significado e complexos relacionamentos. Dessa maneira, Polanyi expressa total rejeição a qualquer noção de conhecimento absolutamente objetivo, inclusive nas ciências naturais, pois mesmo a formulação de teorias, neste campo, envolveria o conhecimento tácito.

José Cláudio C. Terra
Extraído de http://www.terraforum.com.br/sites/terraforum/paginas/teses/teses.aspx
©VSLins Consultoria

A Organização que aprende

2006-02-02T16:49:00.000-02:00

Pensamento dos Gurus

"Daqui a dez anos, queremos que as revistas falem sobre a GE como sendo um lugar onde as pessoas podem ser criativas, um lugar que faça aflorar o melhor de cada um. Um lugar aberto e justo onde as pessoas se sintam importantes e onde essa sensação de realização seja recompensada tanto no bolso como na alma. Esse será o nosso boletim escolar." Jack Welch quando entrevistado pela HBR

Recomendações:

As principais forças de contenção ao nosso desenvolvimento são: (1)o medo de mais trabalho; (2)a percepção de resultado negativo; (3)necessidade de novos hábitos; (4)a falta de comunicação; (5)a incapacidade de alinhar a organização como um todo; (6)sentimento de ambigüidade que surge quando o familiar deixa de ser relevante.

Nas organizações tradicionais, em geral novas idéias são ignoradas e o lema é "só conserte o que estiver quebrado. Enquanto que na organização empreendedora incentiva-se a experimentação constante de novas idéias e as pessoas que assumem riscos e fracassam são estimuladas a tentar novamente.

Crie uma visão clara e convincente que mostre às pessoas que suas vidas vão melhorar; crie a necessidade de evoluir; busque os verdadeiros resultados de desempenho e crie vitórias desde o início; comunique, comunique e comunique um pouco mais; crie uma aliança forte e comprometida que inclua a alta gerência; as pessoas não resistem às suas próprias idéias.

As pessoas da organização acreditam que os acontecimentos econômicos, políticos e socioculturais são interconectados, uma condição que se aplica tanto dentro da organização quanto ao ambiente. Existe um compromisso conjunto em aprender e pensar sistemicamente e em entender como as coisas funcionam e, sobretudo, quais as conseqüências de suas ações ao longo do tempo.

A concepção do trabalho deve ser feita de modo que: as pessoas vejam uma conexão direta entre o que fazem e como sai o produto ou serviço final; realizem quase todas as tarefas de apoio necessárias a seu trabalho; controlem seu próprio ritmo de trabalho; decidam o que querem fazer; e que a resolução de problemas seja uma parte importante do trabalho de todos.

O papel da gerência deve evoluir de um estágio em que dizem às pessoas exatamente com as coisas devem ser feitas e depois as vigiam para garantir o cumprimento das normas para um estágio em que explicam os resultados necessários e ajudam seus subordinados a descobrir como farão o trabalho.

Os programas de Desenvolvimento Organizacional são criados para: alcançar desempenho superior e vantagem competitiva; melhorar o relacionamento com os clientes; evitar o declínio; melhorar a qualidade; compreender mais profundamente os riscos e a diversidade; criar inovação; promover o bem-estar pessoal e espiritual; gerenciar a mudança; possibilitar uma compreensão holística do ambiente.

O gerente precisa parar de se considerar responsável por dar ordens relativas ao seu próprio departamento, turno ou função e garantir o cumprimento das regras para se tornar um facilitador, que ajuda seus subordinados a ter sucesso, focalizando muita energia no que está acontecendo fora de sua parte na organização, estimulando a inovação, mesmo que isso signifique violar regras.

A organização empreendedora mantém um clima organizacional onde todos se sentem trabalhando em um pequeno negócio; onde muitos trabalham em unidades ou equipes que fabricam um produto completo ou oferecem um serviço completo; onde todos sentem uma forte identificação com o produto ou serviço final que sua unidade fornece; onde as funções de linha e de staff são inteiramente integradas

O aprendizado tem dois significados - adquirir conhecimento e adquirir habilidade. O conhecimento é o porquê, a parte conceitual do aprendizado - saber por que alguma coisa funciona ou acontece. A habilidade é o como, a aplicação - ter a habilidade de usar o porquê para fazer algo acontecer. Alguns Gurus argumentam que, no mundo real, especialmente no mundo dos negócios, saber "por que" e saber "como" são igualmente importantes.

O aprendizado mais eficaz, especialmente para adultos, resulta de um ciclo contínuo de experiência no próprio local de trabalho. (1)Vivemos experiências concretas no local de trabalho. (2)Refletimos sobre essas experiências, tentando compreender o que aconteceu e por que aconteceu. (3)Formamos conceitos abstratos e generalizações com base nessas experiências. (4)Testamos esses conceitos e generalizações através de novas experiências. (5)Em seguida, repetimos o ciclo, como se girássemos uma roda.

Extraído de BOYETT, Joseph & BOYETT, Jimmie.
O Guia dos Gurus: os melhores conceitos e práticas de negócios.
Rio de Janeiro: Editora Campus, 1999.

08/06/00

O leitor como observador pragmático

2006-01-10T10:36:00.000-02:00

O observador pragmático usa sua curiosidade para explorar e experimentar métodos eficazes de produzir resultados, valorizando o conhecimento já explicitado e mantendo elevado nível de flexibilidade. Em geral orienta-se para realizações de projetos de alta relevância e utilidade inquestionável. É aquele que esperava neste livro alguma demonstração direta de como aplicar os conhecimentos adquiridos e já formalizados, usando casos de aplicações das lições sinergéticas.

Esse leitor, poderá formular perguntas mais específicas, relacionando os conceitos aos desafios para aplicação de sinergia ao seu dia-a-dia. Poderá também apresentar os motivos que o leva a crer que o sucesso dos seus projetos depende de sinergia e, através de e-mail, manter contato com este autor para esclarecer suas dúvidas.

É o tipo de leitor que quer mais objetividade e se interessa por estudo de caso, aplicação de lições, ferramentas para o trabalho colaborativo, práticas sinergísticas, sinergia no mundo dos negócios e na realidade brasileira, contribuições da Gestão do Conhecimento, etc.

Trecho EPÍLOGO do livro "Sinergia" do professor Sérgio Lins

Ikispiração

2006-01-10T10:26:00.000-02:00

Segundo Yoshiro NakaMats precisamos de “ikispiração” que implica em disposição para vencer os três desafios da criação: suji, pika e iki. Suji refere-se ao conhecimento necessário para despertar a imaginação; Pika corresponde à inspiração criativa; e Iki significa o desafio da viabilidade operacional e comercial que ocorre com a colocação do fruto da criação em prática.[31]

Esses desafios, em geral subjetivos, quase que confirmam as palavras de um dos mais bem sucedidos líderes comunitários do mundo que fez grandes mobilizações econômicas e sociais no Sri Lanka:

"Quando tentamos realizar mudanças em nossas sociedades, somos tratados primeiramente com indiferença, depois com ridículo, depois com abuso e depois com opressão. E, finalmente, o maior desafio nos é lançado: Somos tratados com respeito. É esse o estágio mais perigoso.”

[31] THOMPSON, Charles ‘Chic’. Grande Idéia.! Como desenvolver e aplicar sua criatividade. São Paulo: Editora Saraiva, 1992.

Trecho EPÍLOGO do livro "Sinergia" do professor Sérgio Lins

Heterogeneidade

2006-01-10T09:51:00.000-02:00

O envolvimento de indivíduos de culturas diferentes na realização de um trabalho colaborativo, é um dos grandes desafios da liderança na busca por soluções integradoras. Em geral, quanto mais heterogênea for a cultura de um grupo, mais tempo se leva para formar uma equipe de alto desempenho.

A homogeneidade cultural parece tornar o grupo capaz de mais rapidamente identificar problemas e apresentar soluções nas primeiras semanas de realização de um projeto. Contudo, essa vantagem cultural, vai desaparecendo à medida que vai crescendo o sentimento de interdependência.

Experiências, comparando o efeito da heterogeneidade sobre o desempenho, têm demonstrado que após 13 semanas os grupos heterogêneos igualam seu desempenho com o dos grupos homogêneos. Após 17 semanas, já não se percebe qualquer vantagem de desempenho decorrente da homogeneidade.[10]

Parece inclusive que a heterogeneidade traz a reboque o aumento da capacidade de examinar os problemas sob um número maior de ângulos e geração de uma quantidade muito maior de alternativas para solucioná-los. Por isto, pode-se dizer que colaboradores oriundos de culturas diferentes são difíceis de integrar, porém quando se consegue a integração percebe-se que os esforços foram compensadores.

[10]KOUZES, James M. & POSNER, Barry Z. O Desafio da Liderança. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Campus, 1995.

Trecho do capítulo 9 do livro "Sinergia" do professor Sérgio Lins

Necessidade de explicitar conhecimento tácito

2006-01-08T08:17:00.000-02:00

O Conhecimento Tácito não é encontrado em manuais, livros, bancos de dados ou arquivos. É um conhecimento que se instala nas mentes pelo hábito, pelas crenças, pela aplicação de valores. É em parte transmitido informalmente nos papos dos corredores, onde as pessoas se encontram para contar casos e histórias sobre relacionamentos com parceiros de negócios.

Hoje, além da transmissão informal dos corredores temos uma grande massa de conhecimento transmitido de forma escrita em chats e e-mails, possibilitando alguma recuperação futura através de software tipo email Analyser.[1]

Infelizmente, grande parte desses conhecimentos são desprezados devido a paralisia paradigmática[2] enquanto outra parte é vítima de preconceitos e crenças anacrônicas.

Independentemente da sua validade ou da vantagem de mantê-lo, é preciso explicitar o Conhecimento Tácito. Se isso não for feito, ele não poderá ser examinado, aperfeiçoado ou compartilhado.

[1] E-mail Analyser é um software desenvolvido pela IBM para analisar e-mails em busca de informações que contenham determinados conceitos chave.
[2]BARKER, Joel (1993) - Paradigms: the business of discovering the future. New York: Harper Business.

Notas de aula do professor Sérgio Lins. Curso MBKM RJ10 CRIE/COPPE/UFRJ

Visão Unificada

2005-12-24T11:32:00.000-02:00

As parcerias e trabalhos colaborativos entre músicos famosos, engenheiros, arquitetos, pintores, comediantes, e até mesmo cantores de música sertaneja, mostram que cada um parece não se afetar com a mudança de humor ou temperamento atípico dos outros. É como se a colaboração entre eles estivesse acima de certos problemas que ocorrem normalmente em relacionamento não colaborativos.

Talvez se possa dizer que o sucesso de uma colaboração não depende de amizade ou de um gostar mútuo. Parece que as emoções colaborativas tendem a ser meramente função do que se está criando, analisando, testando, ensaiando, ou fazendo em conjunto. Isto faz com que os sentimentos mais importantes sejam respeito mútuo, confiança, tolerância e responsabilidade.

Assim como amizades, romances e outras relações humanas básicas, os padrões de colaboração têm resistido ao teste do tempo. Há uma continuidade no processo que é realmente impressionante. Não existe uma receita para uma colaboração bem sucedida, da mesma forma que não existe receita para uma boa amizade. Todavia, ingredientes como senso de propósito compartilhado, maturidade, responsabilidade, comunicação aberta, respeito e confiança mútua são definitivamente indispensáveis para o sucesso de um processo colaborativo.[14]

Além disto, não se pode dispensar o importantíssimo papel do líder que compartilha com todos a responsabilidade pelo estímulo à flexibilidade e adaptabilidade, aprendizagem contínua e adoção de procedimentos eficazes de trabalho com ênfase na criação a partir das diferenças.

[14]SCHRAGE, Michael. Shared Minds: The New Technologies of Collaboration. New York: Random House, 1990.

Trecho do capítulo 9 do livro "Sinergia" do professor Sérgio Lins

Senso de propósito compartilhado

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Os colaboradores em geral se esforçam bastante para expressar suas idéias de todas as formas que conseguem, tendo sempre em suas mentes um propósito comum, um mesmo resultado que pretendem atingir, um mesmo produto final esperado.

Isto pode acontecer com qualquer grupo e independente da especialidade. Ocorre tanto com cientistas de organizações de pesquisa como a Fiocruz, quanto com equipes de projeto de uma empresa de informática.

Mesmo antes de o resultado final estar configurado objetivamente, os colaboradores já compartilham as linhas gerais dos benefícios esperados e os padrões de qualidade aceitáveis.

Compartilham, por exemplo, o esboço do projeto de um equipamento especial que querem construir, a linha melódica de uma grande peça musical, ou o resultado de negócio que se pode esperar de um programa inovador para o atendimento a cliente.

Trecho do capítulo 9 do livro "Sinergia" do professor Sérgio Lins

Receita universal de negociação

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(...)O mesmo pode acontecer com uma idéia em que se assume uma posição baseada em determinados paradigmas que se não forem apresentados, a discussão em torno da idéia pode se estender por horas a fio. As verdades de cada um têm que ser conhecidas, e para que isso ocorra há que haver um afastamento da posição tomada e uma busca pelo que está por trás da mesma. Cada um deve se colocar na posição do outro e tentar compreender a essência do que está sendo desenvolvido. Dentro dessa linha de pensamento, o processo de negociação deve usar uma receita universal[05] em que os ingredientes básicos podem ser usados em quatro fases:
Fase 1 Usar todos os recursos de comunicação possível para reduzir ou eliminar qualquer desentendimento anterior, criando um relacionamento cordial e aberto.
Fase 2 Aproveitar o relacionamento criado para desenvolver um clima de empatia a tal ponto que cada um possa ver através do ponto de vista do outro.
Fase 3 Apresentar questões chave, exprimindo interesses, necessidades e preocupações da outra parte, tão bem ou até melhor do que ela poderia fazer.
Fase 4 Determinar idéias candidatas à aceitação de todos, descobrindo em seguida algo novo, que não surgiu de ninguém especificamente e sim do grupo como um todo.
[05]FISHER, Roger & URY, William. Getting to YES: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving ln. New York: Penguin Books, 1981.

Trecho do capítulo 9 do livro "Sinergia" do professor Sérgio Lins

Paradigmas

Wisdom - Peter Russel View

Modelos Menatis

Mudança de paradigma

Paradigma na Wikipédia

Cultura da Mudança

Learning

lnstinct

Understanding

FLATLAND

Ethnovention

Environment suitable for knowledge sharing

Knowledge Sharing Environment

The Dark Side of Tacit Knowledge

Varieties of Tacit Knowledge

Five Challenges for the Next Five Years

Knowledge acquisition technique glossary

Knowledge acquisition technique glossary

DIKW - Russell Ackoff's view

Corporate Culture

Aquisição do Conhecimento

Typical Use of KA Techniques

Inteligência segundo Sternberg

Inteligência Prática

Innovation Process: Diversion and Conversion of Ideas

Divulgar

Transferir

Compartilhar

New Ways to Work

Tacit knowledge is far less tangible

Publicly Defined Innovation Process

Barriers to the Sharing of Tacit Knowledge

Tipologia de Conhecimento Tácito

The Tacimometer

Knowledge Management and AI

Tecnologia para a conversão do conhecimento

Knowledge Harvesting: A proprietary solution to knowledge creation

Organizational forms and dominance of knowledge types

The Many Meanings of Tacit Knowledge

The acquisition and activation of knowledge

Diferenciação competitiva

Tacit knowledge as a resource

What is Knowledge?

Tacit Knowledge as a Source of Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Tacit Knowledge as a Source of Competitive Advantage

Maintaining competitive advantage by exploiting TK

Managing Collective Tacit and Explicit Knowledge

O Conhecimento tácito é inato?

Hierarquia DIKW

An Emerging Knowledge Organization

Perception and Recognition

Competence

Conhecimento Tácito versus Gestalt

Os componentes P e D da dimensão tácita

Especificidades do Conhecimento Tácito

Hábito

O mito da aprendizagem pela experiência

Conhecimento explícito

Informação muda o estado de incerteza

Dados são registros de eventos

Lógica cristalina com uma intuição poderosa

Tacit knowledge, tacit knowing or behaving?

Confiança

Metaphors and Analogy

Practical Intelligence in Everyday Life

Raciocinando sem pensar

The Intelligent Organization

Chapter 1: The Intelligent Organization

CONHECIMENTO TÁCITO

INTELIGÊNCIA CULTURAL

Know-how - De Bono

The Use of ICT-Systems in Managing the Tacit Knowledge of Professionals - Laurens Waling

Reflection of Tacit Knowledge - OSAKI Masaru

The Tacit Knowledge of Interests - Dick Stenmark

O conhecimento tácito

Tacit Knowledge and Intuition

Tese de Cláudio Terra

A Organização que aprende

O leitor como observador pragmático

Ikispiração