More than ever, the ability to share tacit knowledge and expertise is integral to today's military. The asymmetric nature of our enemies is such that their tactics are ever changing, making it imperative that Soldiers adapt their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) by exploiting recent observations, insights, and lessons learned from theater to apply to relevant tailored training in order to become agile and adaptive leaders. Without effective knowledge management, these valuable lessons learned, TTPs, and best practices can go to waste, potentially putting lives at higher risk. One of the main problems is that tacit knowledge is difficult to capture. Tacit knowledge often involves skills so well learned and familiar that an expert may not even be consciously aware of using them in the course of performing difficult tasks or reacting to stressful situations requiring near instantaneous decisions. This knowledge is often so deeply embedded that it requires specially trained interviewers to get at the processes that Soldiers have difficulty articulating. Because this technique is costly and time-consuming, many organizations have tried to acquire tacit knowledge through other more affordable, yet less effective means. This study took an in-depth look at the challenges faced by over 50 Soldiers ranging from Squad Leaders to Corps Commanders during recent deployments to either Iraq or Afghanistan. These Cognitive Task Analysis interviews gave us insights about how to harness tacit knowledge in the field more effectively and efficiently. Soldiers and units can then take that knowledge and adapt, adopt, or discard knowledge within the context of their mission, location, and training requirements. Using the facilitated professional forums, collaborative tools, and storage and retrieval capabilities of the Battle Command Knowledge System (BCKS) empowers leaders to retrieve that knowledge in a way that promotes effective learning through development and use of high quality vignettes.
Discovering the Invisible: Using Tacit Knowledge to Develop Agile and Adaptive Leaders
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