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Three major examples of disruption in tacit knowledge are the Pyramids of Egypt, Africa; Stonehenge of Wiltshire, England, and the Rapa Nui Moai Statues of Easter Island, Chile. Thousands of years later, today’s scientist can only speculate about how these behemoth structures were built. The ancient societies did not have modern-day cranes nor other commercial equipment for the heavy lifting and volume of masonry. Somewhere in the lifecycle of those societies, the tacit knowledge of “how-to build” these incredible structures was not transferred and lost forever! Unless you know how to build a pyramid from scratch…LOL
Don’t think this is a real issue in the 21st century?
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Let’s look at more contemporary examples ...
Ratlif studied the impact of not transferring tacit knowledge from Baby Boomers to the younger generations in the 45th Space Wing of the U.S. Airforce. The Eastern Launch Range manages the systems that support critical space missions such as the launching of commercial and military satellites, solar system research flights, and crew-occupied shuttle missions. The gap in the knowledge transfer between the generations became evident when, in 2013, workers in space tried to retrieve information on how to solve for problems previously resolved by the Baby Boomers but with no success. The previous residents did not leave a repository of tacit knowledge behind … because there is no such repository. Tacit knowledge is not codifiable, difficult to harvest because it is a soft skill in the minds of knowledge holders and is shared in informal interactions, via observation, and not stored in physical databases. The younger engineers had to reinvent the wheel, figure some things out, WHILE IN SPACE!
Ratlif studied the impact of not transferring tacit knowledge from Baby Boomers to the younger generations in the 45th Space Wing of the U.S. Airforce. The Eastern Launch Range manages the systems that support critical space missions such as the launching of commercial and military satellites, solar system research flights, and crew-occupied shuttle missions. The gap in the knowledge transfer between the generations became evident when, in 2013, workers in space tried to retrieve information on how to solve for problems previously resolved by the Baby Boomers but with no success.
The previous residents did not leave a repository of tacit knowledge behind … because there is no such repository. Tacit knowledge is not codifiable, difficult to harvest because it is a soft skill in the minds of knowledge holders and is shared in informal interactions, via observation, and not stored in physical databases. The younger engineers had to reinvent the wheel, figure some things out, WHILE IN SPACE!
