What Is Tacit Knowledge? Meaning, Examples and How to Capture It

Tacit knowledge is what a person knows how to do but cannot easily put into words. An experienced planner sees that a schedule will slip before anyone has checked the numbers. A sales rep hears on a call that a client is about to leave. Neither of them could write down exactly how they know. At work, tacit knowledge is the part of a job that leaves with the person when they go.

Where the term comes from

The philosopher Michael Polanyi introduced the idea in The Tacit Dimension (1966). He summed it up in one line: "we can know more than we can tell". His example was a face. People recognise a face they know among thousands of others. Most of them cannot say how they do it.

The opposite is explicit knowledge. That is knowledge that is written down or easy to write down. A price list. A procedure. The steps to approve an invoice in the finance system.

The two are easy to tell apart in practice. Explicit knowledge can be handed over by sharing a file. Tacit knowledge is handed over by working together, or by someone asking the right questions until the person puts it into words. Our definition of knowledge transfer explains how knowledge moves between the two.

The three kinds of tacit knowledge

The sociologist Harry Collins split Polanyi's term into three kinds in Tacit and Explicit Knowledge (2010). The split matters at work. Each kind needs a different kind of handover.

• Relational tacit knowledge. Things a person could describe if someone put in the effort. Nobody has asked yet, or the person does not see that it is worth saying. Which supplier needs a phone call before an order. Why the weekly report runs on Tuesday.

• Somatic tacit knowledge. Things the body can do that the person cannot describe. Collins uses balancing on a bike as the example. At work it is the feel of a machine that is running out of tune, or the touch needed for a clean weld.

• Collective tacit knowledge. Knowledge that belongs to a group. Collins uses the rules of a language. At work it is how formal to be with a certain client, what counts as urgent in this team and when a "yes" in a meeting means maybe.

The first kind is the one a handover can do the most about. It only needs the right questions. The second and third kinds need time spent doing the work alongside someone.

12 tacit knowledge examples from real jobs

1. Accounts payable. Knowing which supplier always sends invoices with the wrong order number, and who to call to fix it.

2. Sales. Hearing from the tone of a renewal call that the client is talking to a competitor.

3. Project management. Seeing that a plan is too tight because one team reports everything on track until the last week.

4. Customer service. Knowing which complaint has to go to a manager straight away, even when the script says it can wait.

5. IT operations. Knowing that a nightly job fails in months with 31 days, and how to restart it.

6. Maintenance. Hearing from the sound of a pump that a bearing is wearing out.

7. HR. Knowing which managers need a reminder two weeks before a review deadline.

8. Finance. Knowing which numbers the finance director will question in the monthly report, and preparing the answer in advance.

9. Procurement. Knowing that a supplier gives a better price when you call before their quarter closes.

10. Software engineering. Knowing which part of an old codebase nobody touches without running the full test suite first, and why.

11. Team management. Knowing who in the team needs a direct conversation and who prefers an email.

12. Logistics. Knowing that a customer's loading dock closes early on Fridays, although the system says it is open.

None of these are in a process document. Each one is the kind of thing a successor finds out by making the mistake. Most of them are relational. Someone could have written them down if anyone had asked.

How to tell if knowledge is tacit

Ask three questions about a task.

1. Could a new person do it from the documentation alone, the first time?

2. When you ask the expert "how did you know?", do they answer with a story or with "you just see it"?

3. Does the task go wrong when the usual person is on holiday?

If the answers are no, yes and yes, the task runs on tacit knowledge. That task belongs at the top of the list when someone leaves.

Why it matters when someone leaves

In a 2018 survey of US workers by Panopto and YouGov, 42% of institutional knowledge was unique to the individual. It had been learned for their current role, and none of their coworkers shared it. The same survey found that workers lose 5.3 hours a week waiting for information from colleagues or working out again what someone already knew. We collected the figures that hold up in our knowledge loss statistics.

Gallup found in 2019 that new employees take around 12 months to reach their full performance in a role. Each piece of tacit knowledge captured before the last person left is one less thing the new person has to learn by trial and error.

How to capture tacit knowledge

Tacit knowledge rarely comes out when someone is asked to "write down what you know". People write down what they can already see. The rest needs a different approach.

Ask about real cases. The psychologist Gary Klein and his colleagues built an interview method for this in the late 1980s, working with fire commanders. Their Critical Decision Method has the expert walk through one real event that was out of the ordinary. The interviewer then asks follow-up questions about each decision in it. A story brings out cues that a general question never reaches.

Ask for the exceptions. "When does the normal process not work?" brings out more than "how does the process work?". The exceptions are where the tacit knowledge sits.

Ask how they knew. Every time the expert says they noticed something, ask what they saw. The answer often turns a hunch into a rule a successor can follow.

Let someone else write it up. A person cannot see the gaps in their own knowledge from the inside. Someone who does not know the work should do the asking and the writing. The expert then checks the result. We wrote about the agreements nobody wrote down and why self-documentation misses them.

Plan time for the rest. Somatic and collective knowledge will not fit in a document. Plan overlap, shadowing or a few weeks of work with a colleague who can give feedback.

Our 42 knowledge transfer interview questions are a starting point for the interviews. Book the first one early. The first 72 hours after a resignation are when the most time is left.

Frequently asked questions

What is tacit knowledge in simple terms?

Knowing how to do something without being able to explain fully how you do it.

What is the difference between tacit and explicit knowledge?

Explicit knowledge is written down or easy to write down, so it can be shared as a document. Tacit knowledge sits in people's heads and habits. It is passed on by working together or by structured questions.

Is tacit knowledge the same as implicit knowledge?

The terms are often used for the same thing. Some writers keep "implicit" for knowledge that could be put into words but has not been yet. That comes close to what Collins calls relational tacit knowledge.

Can tacit knowledge be transferred?

Much of it can. Relational tacit knowledge can be put into words through interviews about real cases. Somatic and collective knowledge are passed on through shadowing and practice.

What is an example of tacit knowledge in everyday life?

Riding a bike. Most people who can do it cannot explain how they keep their balance. Recognising a friend's face in a crowd is another.

Want the tacit knowledge captured before someone leaves? See how Rinto interviews the people who leave, asks the follow-up questions and turns the answers into onboarding for the next person.

Sources

• Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension, 1966, p. 4.

• Harry Collins, Tacit and Explicit Knowledge, University of Chicago Press, 2010.

• G. A. Klein, R. Calderwood and D. MacGregor, Critical Decision Method for Eliciting Knowledge, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, vol. 19, no. 3, 1989, pp. 462-472.

• Panopto and YouGov, Inefficient Knowledge Sharing Costs Large Businesses $47 Million Per Year, 17 July 2018. Link

• Gallup, Creating an Exceptional Onboarding Journey for New Employees, 2019.