carolyn austin

1 March 2011

Capturing and benefiting from tacit knowledge within law firms

An interactive facilitated session

Is "capturing tacit knowledge" an oxymoron?

"Tacit knowledge is the wealth of know-how that resides in people's heads, deeply rooted in their life experience and learning."

Verna Allee, 2000

SECI model (Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995)

Socialisation Externalisation

Internalisation Combination

Tacit tacit

Explicit tacit

Tacit explicit

Explicit explicit

Ecological model (2010)

– "Stop creating and using recipes – instead, educate chefs." (Snowden)

– Invest in connecting people to enable knowledge flow

Capturing tacit knowledge?

– Mentoring– Active learning– Collective intelligence

• Communities, networks and collaborations

Barriers to tacit knowledge sharing

The expert– It's hard to articulate– No one has ever tried to articulate it– Incentives to keep the knowledge tacit

Barriers to tacit knowledge sharing

The learner- Objectives not aligned with the expert- Not ready to absorb it- Different thinking style preferences- Lack of proximity to expert

Modes of knowledge transfer

Socratic questioning

Stories with a moral

Rules of thumb

Directives/presentations

Active learning

Passive reception

Guided experience – some examples

– The elder statesman– The "page turn" – Flexible work practice

You are what you share – 3 "C"s

- Collaboration

- formal

- informal- Communities and networks- Conversation and storytelling- How does the "social network" of the firm shape collaboration?

"…People want to go online and check out their friends, so why not build a website that offers that? Friends, pictures, profiles, whatever you can visit, browse around, maybe it's someone you just met at a party. Eduardo, I'm not talking about a dating site, I'm talking about taking the entire social experience of college and putting it online."

- The Social Network

Exploring knowledge within law firms

– Knowledge within law firms is not restricted to legal advice or precedents

– It includes:• "Formal" advice and precedents• Knowledge of clients• Knowledge of the business• Knowledge of the industry• Knowledge of competitors

– This knowledge can be captured in systems (explicit) or held tacitly

Facilitated workshop

– Break into 4 groups– Each group to discuss a "case study"

exploring the different aspects of KM discussed today

– The group has 15 minutes to discuss – Present back their recommendations (5

minutes)

The group of 4: focus

– Each group to tackle a specific issue– Breaking down the "silos"

G1 G2 G3 G4

Questions

Further information

Carolyn Austin | National Precedents Manager

T: +61 2 9513 2438

E: carolyn.austin@middletons.com

Michael Hubble-Marriott | National Information Services Manager

T: +61 3 9205 2127

E: michael.hubblemarriott@middletons.com

syddocs 2334759