Knowledge and thinking together

A group of people, especially if they are on the same team, can be taught how to mobilize, share and use the knowledge they have together. This involves the ability to check the content and dependability of knowledge, and it involves the ability to generate and test knowledge together.

The basis for this approach is the idea that most knowledge can be seen as dialogical. That means that most knowledge can be seen as based in the interactions that go on in the human mind and in the interactions amongst humans. Experiences and ideas interact in the same person, but also play a role in the interactions between people.

The result is that people have many bits of content, and connections between all that content, in their minds. In order for that to be knowledge, so that person and others can dependably act on it, the content has to be tested. This happens through further experiences and through communicating with other people.

Perhaps one could say that in order for people in organizations to share knowledge, they need to have productive processes through which content is tested and made applicable.

Sometimes, you hear of a hesitation to interfere with people's tacit knowledge, as if making tacit knowledge explicit takes the magic away from it. But that does not have to be the case, as long as "making explicit" is not understood in the bureaucratic way in which the creativity of the individual would be stifled as it has to fit forms and procedures which make it explicit. But there are many ways of making tacit knowledge explicit and experimenting with those ways can be seen as one of the aspects of sharing knowledge, which will empower the individual with the tacit knowledge, rather than diminish the value of his knowledge.