Much of what we know is 'tacit'. Remember the nice, cutely-humorous tv commercial featuring Adibah Noor, 'ambitiously'-clad in her diving gear, 'curiously-snorkeling' in the muddy river looking for 'crocodile-hunter'? I bet all of us do. It was simply nice and funny. When informed that the crocodile-hunter had gone snake-hunting, she suspiciously asked, "How do you know...? The informer, unperturbed by her tone, though 'innocently' adamant, replied : " I know lah...".
Well, my own memory may have failed me in 'reliving' the 'exact' scene, but the matter of concern I'm raising now, is of 'tacit' knowledge, as implied in the " I know lah..." reply. It is a common practice to disregard the significance of this 'tacit' knowledge since it is by its very nature, indescribable, unobservable and unquantifiable; hence not easily understood and believable, to the 'quantitative' people especially, as they solely rely on 'hard' evidence as source of 'valid' and 'reliable' information.
I wrote earlier about 'experiential learning'. Make no mistake; it is actually the 'source' of tacit knowledge. I talked about how we come to make our judgment of people; of how through experiences we come to develop and sharpen our instincts, our hunches, which may to a substantial extent, determine our decision regarding 'people' issues.
Of course, I do not want you to simply 'take my words' of 'superficially' describing to you the importance of relying on your tacit knowledge. Rather, I prefer to illustrate 'explicitly' what I mean about tacit knowledge and how to develop it and apply it in real contexts. In doing this, I have to rely on some 'guiding' principles and in this case, in the tenets embedded within the theory of 'systems thinking'.
Simply described, within the threshold of 'systems thinking', the postulation is to view things, issues, happenings, etc in a 'holistic' manner, as a 'system' rather than as 'disconnected' separate parts. This perspective closely identifies itself with the 'Gestalt' theory of perception, whereby the tenet is that the 'whole is greater than the sums of the parts'.
Thus, to apply 'systems thinking' in making judgment of people is to 'explicitly' identify, classify and categorize our tacit knowledge about people based on our experiences; i.e. of the good and bad encounters or of the right and wrong decisions. These may include, among other things, the 'contexts' of experience (e.g. good/bad, positive/negative, neutral/political, etc.); types of behavior exhibited in both contexts (e.g. facial expressions, tone of voice, etc.); the expected or unexpected outcomes in both contexts; and many other more, which could not be possibly listed and discussed here.
'Self-reflection' is then needed for us to identify what or where we went wrong or being right in making judgment about people based on our 'reviews' of the 'processes' as mentioned above. Upon reflection, (i.e. intra-personally), we come to realize that we may need to 'self-regulate' our own behavior or modify our thinking to suit the 'contexts' of our current experience of interaction (i.e. inter-personally), to come at better conclusion or judgment. 'Context', undoubtedly, is the 'frame of reference' that we should always use as a guideline in making decisions.
So, dear leaders, a quote by Henry B. Adams, " All experience is an arch, to build upon", beautifully sums up the role of experience in enhancing our leadership skills. Nevertheless, of equal importance is for us to also learn from the experience of others since we may not live long enough or be 'lucky' enough to experience ALL.
Note: For a better understanding of systems thinking, read Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline.
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