When you’re are an expert in your respective field, much of what you know is hidden from your consciousness, making it difficult to teach others your craft.
Consider the example of a professional baseball player who is up at bat. The time it takes for the eye to assess the trajectory of the ball once it is thrown, send a signal to the brain which subsequently sends a signal to the arm to move, is equivalent to the time required of the ball to travel to the point of contact with the bat. The only way the batter can accomplish this feat is by estimating the speed of the ball before it leaves the pitcher’s hand. The batter’s experience with different pitchers in different settings, however, enable him to read the nuanced signs of the pitcher’s body language, such as his glare, the stance of his feet and his grip on the ball. The rest of us would miss these signs, but to the experienced baseball player these are tell-tale signs of the kind of ball the pitcher is going to throw.
If you asked the batter to explain how he knew when to swing the bat, he wouldn’t be able to tell you. And herein lies the mystery of expertise or what scholars refer to as tacit knowledge. Much of it is unconscious. And yet, there is a very real, observable and measurable response that occurs because of the batter’s tacit knowledge of when to hit the ball. For more on tacit knowledge read the previous post.
In much the same way, retiring employees who have amassed critical knowledge and experience over the span of their careers, cannot just tell their replacements everything they know before they retire because much of what they know is hidden from consciousness.
Because we are not always aware of how we perform certain work-related tasks, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to articulate the mechanics of our efforts to others. Remember, if we asked our baseball player how it is that he knows when to swing the bat, chances are he wouldn’t be able to tell us.
So how do we transfer tacit knowledge?
What we cannot verbally convey we must demonstrate. This process is called guided practice. For example, let’s say your company is negotiating a merger and acquisition. A senior leader in your firm would negotiate the agreement, and a junior employee would have the opportunity to observe the process. Once complete, the junior worker would negotiate her own deal, on a smaller scale of course, while the senior employee oversaw the process. The objective of this exercise is for the mentor to provide feedback to the protégé on her performance. This process enables the protégé to develop her skills in a timely and efficient manner. Of course, tacit knowledge transfer takes time, patience and a commitment from both parties for it to be successful.
Guided observation is another method used to transfer tacit knowledge and provides the student an opportunity to question why the teacher favours a particular method or conveys information in a particular sequence. Much like the example above, the protégé observes the mentor and then they meet to discuss and reflect on the learning process. The advantage of this approach is that the protégé has the opportunity to tap into the mentor’s knowledge bank by asking questions, which permits the mentor to access knowledge he may not even know he had, until it is called forth as a result of being asked. The question then leads to a discussion between the mentor and protégé and fosters reflection and active learning. The beauty of this process is that sometimes it unearths some outdated assumptions on the part of the mentor that he did not even know he had.
As you can see, tacit knowledge cannot be cultivated overnight. And because it is context specific it cannot be imported from elsewhere. So in essence, it cannot be bought on the open market.
What does that mean for you?
If a large number of your employees are retiring in the next few years, it is time to start thinking about whose knowledge you need to transfer, and who would make for a good mentor. However, I want to caution you, just because you have a very knowledge and experienced employee, it doesn’t mean she will want to transfer her knowledge or that she will make a good teacher. More on that in the next post.
Until then, start thinking about who in your organization is a key player – pivotal to the workings of your business. It may be the employee who has a relationship with your biggest client, the technician who intuitively recognizes that a product’s failure is the result of how it was assembled, or the executive who has a gut feeling about when to enter a foreign market. This knowledge requires time to nurture. So get to work!
Don’t miss out. Every week, I write new articles on work, retirement & living a purposeful life. If you don’t want to miss a thing, sign up for our newsletter.
Dr. Gill is the founder of rewire to retire, a corporate training company dedicated to helping pre-retirees successfully transition from work to retirement, while ensuring businesses retain their organizational knowledge.