What is Knowledge Management?
Steven Johnson, author of Where Good Ideas Come From, suggested that the main
ingredient behind successful innovation was not a clever way of thinking or
brainstorming. Instead, it was a place where people could share ideas, let them bump
into each other, and in so doing, evolve into new, more powerful forms. The coffee-
shops of Paris served this purpose during the Enlightenment, allowing for fantastic new
scientific and philosophical concepts to be born.
The Japanese, during the 70s, applied this concept to businesses. How, they asked, does
knowledge flow, and how can managers and business leaders help? Philosopher Ikujiro
Nanaka and others developed a model of knowledge creation that captures all the ways
knowledge moves and morphs within a network, and the one main technique that
managers can use to encourage its development.
The SECI Model Explained
The model suggested by Nanaka’s team details the ways that knowledge changes hands
and transforms. To begin, he divides knowledge into two types: Explicit
Knowledge, which can be described with numbers, science, or manuals, and Tacit
Knowledge, the emotional, difficult-to-describe variety. Both kinds of knowledge are
necessary, both for everyday living and for business ventures. These two kinds of
knowledge interact with four processes: Socialization, Externalization, Combination,
and Internalization (SECI).
The SECI Model
Socialization
Socialization is the process where tacit knowledge it transmitted between people.
Because tacit knowledge is rarely successfully expressed, socialization simply involves
spending time with coworkers, enjoying their company and conversation until you learn
how they think feel. You learn how they look at their tasks, their perspectives. It’s
possible – and necessary – to do this with your customers, too. Those who are in a
position to interact with the customers directly need to learn the skills needed to see
how they think and feel, and through the other processes in the model, transmit that
model to other parts of the organization.
Externalization
This process allows tacit knowledge to be morphed into explicit knowledge. Through
interaction between an individual and other groups in the organization, the individual’s
tacit knowledge is expressed through whatever terms are possible, such as metaphors
and stories. Effective communication skills are a necessity; developing these and
increasing opportunities for externalization are the main ways managers can encourage
this process.
Combination
Through teams, or a creative individual, the explicit knowledge injected into the
organization is transmuted through the process of Combination. Knowledge throughout
the organization is collected and compiled into a more effective form of explicit
knowledge, allowing the more refined forms to be distributed throughout the
organization. An example would be a team in a tech firm whose job is to publish reports
of successful products made throughout the company.
Internalization
Internalization is where the model comes full circle: as we started with an individual
sharing tacit knowledge, it ends with the same individual converting the explicit
knowledge supplied either by the firm or outside sources into personally applicable tacit
knowledge. An HR official runs through this process when he reads the company’s
training manual for conflict resolution, then puts it into practice. Internalization doesn’t
just refer to an individual; the collective tacit knowledge of the organization is morphed
from its explicit knowledge through internalization.
Ways to Create and Share Knowledge
1. Use technology and software that allows people to store information and share it
with others
2. Publish directories that list:
what employees do
how they can be contacted
the type of knowledge they have
3. Develop informational maps that identify where specific knowledge is stored in
the company
4. Create chief information officer and chief learning officer positions for cataloging
and facilitating the exchange of information in the company
5. Require employees to give presentations to other employees about what they
have learned from training programs they have attended
6. Allow employees to take time off from work to acquire knowledge, study
problems, attend training, and use technology
7. Create an online library of learning resources such as journals, technical
manuals, training opportunities, and seminars
8. Design office space to facilitate interaction between employees
