Tacit Knowledge, Explicit Knowledge
31 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
in Explicit Knowledge Tags: knowledge, learning, time, subjective, learn, understanding, action, tacit, formal, individual, experience, root, reasoning, know, personal, vast, world, objective, describe, form, deep, difference, systematic, explicit, base, immediate, define, Use, oppose, term, thing, book, arise, true, kind, scientific, intuition, conscious, arrive, dictionary, thorough, Webster
One way to describe tacit knowledge is in terms of intuition. Tacit knowledge is personal, intuitive knowledge, whereas explicit knowledge is the kind of knowledge that can be learned from a book. There is a vast difference between book learning—explicit knowledge—and experience-based learning—tacit knowledge.
Intuition is defined in Webster’s New World Dictionary as “the immediate knowing of something without the conscious use of reasoning.” There are times when we know something to be true but we do not know why or how we arrived at the understanding. One form of intuition arises because we know something so well and so thoroughly that we do not have to reason things out again but we immediately know it. This is tacit knowledge, as opposed to explicit knowledge, which is “formal and systematic.” Tacit knowledge is “deeply rooted in an individual’s action and experience.” It is intuitive and subjective whereas explicit knowledge is scientific and objective.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.
Desires and Results
30 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
in Desires and Results Tags: annoy, avoid, awkward, belief, believe, benefit, betrayal, beyond, bury, calm, change, contemplate, continue, delivery, desire, despair, disappoint, disappointment, disillusion, enable, expectation, favor, feel, follow, gap, happen, have-nots, head, hope, idea, interest, involve, lack, manager, People, program, prospect, raise, reality, really, relief, result, return, rhetoric, sand, sense, status quo, storm, temporary, tendency, threaten, turn, understanding, vested, view, word
When there is a gap between rhetoric and reality a change program may annoy all the interests involved:
o The ‘haves’ with a vested interest in the status quo may feel threatened by the prospect of change.
o The ‘have-nots’, who hope to benefit from change, may in return be disappointed by the lack of results.
o When the rhetoric continues, those in favor of the status quo may view the lack of results as no more than a temporary relief, or calm before the storm.
o The disappointment of the ‘have-nots’ can turn to disillusion, despair, and even a sense of betrayal, where the rhetoric has raised expectations beyond the prospects of delivery.
Managers have a tendency to follow their beliefs rather than the words. Burying your head in the sand may enable you, for a time, to avoid contemplating awkward realities. Understanding what people really believe gives you some idea of what you may be in for. Some managers may just not believe that it is going to happen.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.
Independent Thinking
29 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
in Independent Thinking Tags: accomplishment, achieve, action, addition, alone, aspect, base, better, capacity, challenge, change, connect, context, contribute, creative, creativity, crowd, deal, decision, definition, different, doing, employee, encourage, fact, failure, fault, fulfill, great, Human, impact, important, independent, individual, infinite, judge, judgment, learn, logical, method, mind, Mission, objective, opportunity, optimum, Organization, personal, physical, positive, possible, process, progress, provide, rational, regard, responsible, self, significant, source, strong, success, teamwork, think, thinking, thought
All employees are challenged to use their individual minds to their optimum to make rational decisions. In this context, each of us is responsible for what we do and who we are. In addition, creativity is strongly encouraged and only possible with independent thought.
We learn a great deal from each other. Teamwork is important. However each of us thinks alone. Our minds are not physically connected. In this regard, each of us must be willing to make an independent judgment of the facts based on our capacity to think logically. Just because the “crowd” says it so, does not make it so.
In this context, each of us is responsible for our own actions. Each of us is responsible for our personal success or failure, i.e., it is not the bank’s fault if someone does not achieve his objectives.
All human progress by definition is based on creativity, because creativity is the source of positive change. Creativity is only possible to an independent thinker. Creativity is not about just doing something different. It is about doing something better. To be better, the new method/process must be judged by its impact on the whole organization, and as to whether it contributes to the accomplishment of the mission.
There is an infinite opportunity for each of us to do whatever we do better. A significant aspect of the self-fulfillment which work can provide comes from creative thoughts and action.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.
Attitudes and Behaviors
27 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
in Attitudes and Behaviors Tags: absentee, actual, alternative, Analysis, argue, associate, attitude, Behavior, careful, certain, considerable, construct, current, disagreement, employee, entire, exist, focus, general, hard, important, inappropriate, individual, insight, investigate, job, keep, like, logical, particular, Performance, produce, productivity, promising, proper, rather, reflect, relationship, relative, satisfaction, set, specific, specificity, term, toward, turnover, word, yield
Currently, there is considerable disagreement over the relationship between attitudes such as job satisfaction and behaviors like performance, turnover, and absenteeism. However, carefully constructed analyses yield promising insights into these relationships.
In particular, it can be argued that it is inappropriate to investigate relationships between a general attitude such as job satisfaction and specific behaviors such as productivity. Alternatively, logical relationships might exist between a specific attitude, such employee’s attitude toward working hard on a given day, and the actual behavior reflected by work produced on that day. In other words, specific attitudes toward certain behaviors are more likely to be associated with the entire set of behaviors rather than with individual ones. Hence, it is important to keep the attitude and behavior properly focused in terms of their relative specificity.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.
Production Management
25 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
in Production Management Tags: air, allow, Analysis, analytic, assemble, automation, available, batch, bid, bought, business, buy, classification, commercial, commercialization, component, condition, containerization, continuous, convert, custom, Customer, decision, department, design, determine, Development, distance, evaluate, final, finished, firm, follow, generation, high, highway, idea, include, involve, key, lower, machine, management, manager, manufacturing, Marketing, mass, material, method, mode, need, new, operation, order, outside, part, People, piggyback, pipeline, price, Product, production, purchasing, Quality, rail, raw, receive, recognize, request, revolution, roughly, screening, section, select, semi, service, ship, specification, stage, standard, standardize, step, success, supplier, supply, synthetic, test, time, transportation, Use, vendor, versus, water
Production is the use of people and machines to convert materials into finished products and supply these products to customers. Production includes three key stages: product development, purchasing, and manufacturing.
The development of a new product involves six steps: idea generation, screening, business analysis, product development, test marketing, and commercialization. Roughly, one in 58 new product ideas becomes a commercial success.
When the product development department designs a new product, a make-buy decision determines which components will be bought from outside suppliers and which will be made by the firm itself.
The six steps in purchasing raw materials and semi-finished and finished parts are 1) recognizing what is needed, 2) developing specifications, 3) requesting bids and selecting a vendor, 4) following up with the vendor, 5) receiving the order, and 6) evaluating the vendor.
Mass production and automation have revolutionized manufacturing methods and have made higher quality, standardized products available at lower prices.
The three classifications of manufacturing operations are standard versus custom manufacture, continuous versus batch process, and analytic versus synthetic process.
Once final products are assembled, the transportation section must ship them to customers on time and in good condition. The managers here use one of the five modes of transportation: highway, rail, air, water, and pipeline. Developments such as piggyback service and containerization allow a business to use two or more transportation modes to move shipment over long distances.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.
The Utilities Created by Marketing
21 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: add, Advertising, available, between, buyer, cereal, change, complete, consider, Consumer, convenient, create, credit, delivery, easy, example, exchange, existence, fact, finish, form, fresh, fruit, function, goods, grain, help, hour, inform, information, installation, locate, make, Marketing, move, Open, packaging, part, perform, place, possession, price, process, Product, production, provide, raw material, refer, sale, seller, service, supermarket, time, turn, type, usually, utility, Value, want, warranty, winter, wish
All of marketing’s functions are performed to move goods from products to consumers. During this process, marketing adds utility (value) to goods and services. There are five types of utilities: 1) form, 2) time, 3) place, 4) possession, and 5) information.
1) Form utility: refers to the changing of raw materials into a finished product. Taking grains and turning them into cereal is an example of form utility. Form utility is usually considered a production function rather than a marketing function.
2) Time utility: it helps consumers by making products available when the consumer wishes. Supermarkets that are open 24 hours a day provide time utility. Making fresh fruit available in the winter is also a form of time utility.
3) Place utility: it makes sure that the goods and services are conveniently located where consumers want them.
4) Possession utility: it helps make the exchange of goods between buyers and sellers easy. Anything that helps complete the sale – delivery, installation, warranties, credit – is considered part of possession utility.
5) Information utility: it informs buyers of the product’s existence, how to use it, the price, and other facts. Such information is provided through advertising, salespeople, and packaging.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.
