# Tacit Knowledge ## The Idea in Brief Some knowledge can't be written down. You can read every book on riding a bicycle and still fall off. Tacit knowledge is the know-how you only get from doing—the feel, the intuition, the judgment that comes from experience. It's why experts often can't explain how they do what they do, and why reading about a skill is no substitute for practice. --- ## Key Concepts ### Explicit vs Tacit **Explicit knowledge** can be codified, written down, transferred in documents. Recipes, formulas, procedures. **Tacit knowledge** resists articulation. It's embedded in practice, learned through experience, transferred through apprenticeship. The master craftsman knows when the dough "feels right" but can't give you a formula. ### Polanyi's Paradox "We know more than we can tell." Michael Polanyi's insight explains why automation is hard—many human skills depend on tacit knowledge we can't specify. A radiologist sees patterns; asked to describe them, she struggles. The knowledge is real but not explicit. ### Why Tacit Knowledge Matters **It's a barrier to entry.** Competitors can copy your explicit processes; they can't copy your tacit know-how. Toyota published the Toyota Production System; competitors still couldn't replicate it because the tacit knowledge was in the people. **It explains expert intuition.** Experts aren't magic. They've accumulated tacit knowledge through thousands of repetitions. Their "gut feel" is pattern recognition below conscious awareness. **It's why learning requires doing.** Reading about negotiation doesn't make you a negotiator. You need the bruising experience—the feedback, the failures, the gradual calibration. ### Transferring Tacit Knowledge Since you can't write it down, tacit knowledge transfers through: - **Apprenticeship** — watching and working alongside experts - **Deliberate practice** — repeated attempts with feedback - **Stories and examples** — not rules, but illustrations of judgment in context - **Immersion** — being in the environment where the knowledge lives --- ## Implications **In hiring:** You can test explicit knowledge (credentials, interviews). Tacit knowledge is harder—you need work samples, trial periods, or references from people who've seen them in action. **In training:** Classroom learning transfers explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge requires on-the-job experience, mentorship, and time. Don't confuse training completion with capability. **In strategy:** Industries with high tacit knowledge content are harder to disrupt. The knowledge is locked in experienced people, not in systems that can be copied or automated. **In forecasting:** Tetlock's superforecasters develop tacit knowledge through practice—the "feel" for calibrating probabilities. Reading about forecasting isn't enough; you have to forecast. --- ## Sources - [[Superforecasting]] — Learning to forecast requires forecasting; books on forecasting are no substitute for "bruising experience" - [[The Origins of Efficiency]] — Industrial improvement often depends on tacit knowledge accumulated through production experience - [[Black Box Thinking]] — Experts develop tacit pattern recognition, but it needs to be coupled with feedback systems to avoid entrenchment - [[Why Information Grows]] — Knowhow resides in nervous systems, not books; it's trapped in people and the networks they form - [[Deviate]] — True knowledge is embodied understanding; we have to act in the world to understand it --- ## See in Field Notes - [Decision Architecture](https://www.anishpatel.co/decision-architecture/) — Preserving knowhow: what the business thought they did vs what they actually did. Build light scaffolding to protect tacit knowledge.