How to Get the Most Out of



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Declarative Knowledge


Declarative knowledge consists of meaningful concepts, categories, definitions and assumptions.

Deep Smarts


The ability some people can possess to see the whole picture and zoom in on a problem that others have not identified. Almost intuitively, they make the right decision. They combine expertise in individual areas with a systems view. According to Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap45, these are people with deep smarts. Their judgment and knowledge are stored in their heads and hands. They bring very important knowledge to the table, so much so that, organizations cannot do without them. These people know the business, customers and product lines overall and in depth but their insight is neither documented nor evaluated. When such people leave their jobs or move on to a new role, their absence is keenly felt. Experience is the obvious reason that these deeply knowledgeable people make swift, smart decisions. Having encountered a wide range of situations over the years, they become a storehouse of knowledge and can reason swiftly and without a lot of conscious effort. They can identify patterns, trends and anomalies effortlessly.

Defensive Reasoning


A concept introduced by Chris Argyris, a former professor of Harvard Business School. As expounded by Argyris46, defensive reasoning encourages individuals to keep private the assumptions, inferences and conclusions that shape their behavior and to avoid testing them in a truly, independent, objective fashion. When asked to examine their own role in an organization’s problems, most people become defensive. They put the blame on someone else. Defensive reasoning keeps people from identifying and admitting openly what has gone wrong. Companies need to help managers understand, analyze and reason about their behavior in more effective ways. Only then can the defenses that block organizational learning be broken.

(See also: Chris Argyris, Organizational Learning)

Desktop Conferencing


Videoconferencing using a desktop PC. A small camera (webcam) is usually mounted on top of the user’s display screen. As communication technology improves, greater bandwidth becomes available and costs come down, desktop conferencing can be expected to take off, especially as it is a more effective way of transferring knowledge than simply using e-mail or searching through a repository. Where bandwidth availability is an impediment to transmitting video documents, audio can be used.

Dialectics


A form of thinking process that emphasizes managing change and transcending opposites. Dialectics goes back to ancient Greece. It is a method of discovering the truth of ideas by discussion and logical argument and by considering ideas that are opposed to each other. The starting point of the dialectical movement is a thesis. In the next stage, comes anti-thesis, when the thesis is shown to be inadequate and inconsistent. In the third stage, synthesis, the previous thesis and anti-thesis are reconciled and transcended. The new thesis then becomes the basis for another dialectical movement.

According to Takeuchi and Nonaka, knowledge is created by synthesizing what appears to be opposites and contradictions. It goes through seemingly opposing concepts such as tacit and explicit, chaos and order, micro and macro, self and other, mind and body, part and whole, deduction and induction, creativity and control, top-down and bottom-up, etc. Dialectical thinking can facilitate knowledge creation by transcending and synthesizing such opposites. For example, tacit and explicit knowledge are portrayed as polar ends. But they are complementary to each other, and also inter dependent. The exercise of one form of knowledge requires the presence and utilization of the other form. There is some tacit knowledge in every piece of explicit knowledge and some explicit knowledge in every piece of tacit knowledge. Takeuchi and Nonaka pointed out that organizations do not merely use information to solve problems. Organizations create and define problems, develop and apply knowledge to solve the problems, and then further develop new knowledge through problem solving. In short, an organization is far more than an information processing machine. It is an entity that creates knowledge through action and interaction. Dialectic knowledge creation occurs as people in an organization synthesize tacit and explicit knowledge through interactions with others and the environment.

Dialogue


The role of conversations in creating knowledge is often underestimated. Through dialogue, differences in perspectives can function as a “thinking device,” creating new meaning. According to Nonaka and Takeuchi, the tacit knowledge of an individual or group can be articulated into explicit knowledge through dialogue. Healthy dialogues share some common attributes. They allow room for revision or negation. Participants can express their views freely and candidly. Disagreement for the sake of disagreement is not allowed. There is some degree of information redundancy. Dialogues play a key role in organizational knowledge creation. Yet their role in knowledge creation and sharing is often underestimated.

Digital Rights


The rights and conditions of use for a piece of digital content. These rights may be part of the product’s wrapper, or may be embedded in the product. Digital rights are used to prevent illegal copying.

DIKAR Model


An approach that seeks to define the discrete components of the knowledge value chain.

Data, information, knowledge, actions and results (DIKAR) make up the knowledge value chain.

Data

Information



Knowledge

Actions


Results
The conventional approach starts with data, which through a series of value adding steps, becomes knowledge. Peter Murray47 however, suggests that in a more dynamic environment, it may be better to work backwards. Given the desired results, what actions are needed? What knowledge is needed to perform these actions? What information is needed to create this knowledge? What is the data to be collected for generating the necessary information? The role of knowledge management is to marshal knowledge and experience and to integrate them and develop new capabilities that the market will value.


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