Avoiding the "army of professional amateurs" paradox: capturing tacit knowledge in our workforce

Defense AT&L, March-April, 2008 by Doug McCallum

Tacit knowledge may seem a simple idea, but its implications are large and far-reaching. If important knowledge is tacit, then it is difficult to effectively spread throughout an organization. This often means that useful knowledge will not be able to reach those who need it without direct, face-to-face contact. It also means that training newcomers in an organization is very time consuming because newcomers must learn their new job while simultaneously perform their new job duties. This results in a high degree of inefficiency, slowness of job execution, and increased costs of making mistakes, whether these mistake are in combat or in the acquisition community's cost-schedule-performance environment. These costs could otherwise have been avoided through capturing the wisdom gained by others and transferring it to the new leader.

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Timely, Costly Knowledge Capture Methods

The Army has many ways it has transmitted tacit knowledge--from the observer controller in the combat training centers, to the publications of the Center for Army Lessons Learned, to what was one of my favorite readings--the series of e-mails sent to the field relaying issues important to top leadership called Random Thoughts While Running by the former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Dennis Reimer.

Even though DoD and the Army have frameworks in place to capture and transfer hard-won experience, those methods are typically highly resource- and time-intensive methods of transferring tacit knowledge directly to emerging leaders--schooling or a combat training center rotation, for example. These methods are also typically branch-, rank-, or unit-specific, and they may not be directly applicable to those moving into staff jobs involving the administering of DoD programs.

Flattening the Knowledge Transfer Methods

The figure above provides a few examples of the Army's evolution of tacit knowledge technology. The flattening effect shows increased applicability with lower costs. The forces causing this flattening effect are the

same as those described by Thomas Friedman in his book, The World is Flat. Friedman's context is a discussion of the new age of globalization and how 10 phenomena, or "flatteners," have enabled, empowered, and enjoined individuals and small teams to have transformational impact on their global competitiveness. Specifically, this new-world flat platform is a convergence of the personal computer, fiber optic cable, and newer forms of hardware and workflow collaborative software, which allows for the building of the knowledge worker. This convergence now provides the opportunity to access highly efficient, low-cost technologies that can exponentially increase the Army's and DoD's ability to capture tacit knowledge and transfer it to developing leaders.

There have been a number of technologies enabling or facilitating explicit knowledge management practices such as document management systems, shared files and folders, portal-based digital environments, and organizational knowledge flows (process charts and continuity books).