I see that some people, including my favorite dictionary and some who have
replied on this list, want the definition of "knowledge" to be
essentially: "whatever is learned." I still resist this expansion of the
term. The crux of my belief about the non-equivalence of organizational
learning and knowledge management is quite simple: we learn more than
"knowledge." For example, we can learn a skill or an attitude or a
procedure. Sometimes we confuse ourselves by referring to skills as
"know-how" but that doesn't mean skills and knowledge are equivalent. The
same dictionary that would equate "knowledge" with "learning" also has
this definition of "know-how": "The knowledge and skill required to do
something correctly." Notice the inclusion of "and skill." Other words
used by dictionaries to define "knowledge" and "know" include:
"perceive," "grasp in the mind," "awareness," and "understanding." To
me, these words don't always apply very well to the result of learning a
skill nor an attitude nor a procedure. A couple of weeks ago, in a
related thread, I wrote:
Organizational learning can exist in structures, processes, and systems in
addition to in information, data, and in the awareness and understanding
of individuals. The fact that a "process" exists within an organization
(e.g., that the way incoming orders are handled is by first doing x, then
y, then z, etc.) is not what I call "knowledge." The DESCRIPTION of the
process (words saying, in effect, "First we do x, then we do y, then we do
z, then ...") -- if it is explicitly captured and "stored" somewhere in
the organization -- would be knowledge (to my mind.) But such words do
not even have to exist in order for an organization to be following a
process; processes evolve over time without being documented in such ways.
I guess I would choose not to call processes knowledge. Similarly I would
not describe as knowledge a skill, nor a habit, nor an attitude of an
individual person. And I believe organizations can have "attitudes"
(which, even in individuals, are inferences from behavior) and while I
wouldn't call these attitudes "knowledge" I would contend that attitudes
are learned.
More importantly, system dynamics has shown me that what may be most
important in understanding and changing how an organization acts (or what
its results will be) may be its structure -- the pattern of positive and
negative causal loops and how they are interconnected. If we capture this
structure in a causal loop diagram or, better, a stock-and-flow computer
model, the diagram or the model could become part of the organization's
knowledge. But if we don't (and even if we do -- "the map is not the
territory" after all), the structure I've described is not what I would
choose to call knowledge. Yet that structure changes over time, can be
changed by explicit policy decisions or by other changes in how people act
within the organization, and therefore is a result of what I call
"organizational learning."
I have sympathy with the fact that we don't have very good language to
describe such things as processes, systems, (causal) structures, attitudes
and the like -- so I understand the desire to broaden our definition of
"knowledge" to include such things. But until we agree, as a community,
to use "knowledge" in this broader way, I'm not willing to be sloppy in
the use of the term. Not because I'm a language purist, but because I am
afraid of the consequences of this sloppy usage. I have in mind, for
instance, those in the KM community who would seem to want us to believe
that everything we need as a learning organization can be provided by
computer "memory" systems that capture organizational "knowledge" (I'm
exaggerating a little here.) I don't believe that is true -- it's
important to capture knowledge, but it's not everything that an
organization learns nor everything it needs to learn.
John W. Gunkler
jgunkler@sprintmail.com
--"John Gunkler" <jgunkler@sprintmail.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>