Is Imposterhood a barrier to accessing Tacit knowledge?

Suzanne Mercier - Saturday, July 10, 2010

As a result of reading "The 2020 Workplace" (Jeanne C. Meister & Karie Willyerd, 2010), I have been thinking about workplaces today and in the future.  According to the authors, the 2020 workplace will be a whole new game driven by 5 generations in the workplace together, mobile technology, individuation of work conditions and incentives, acceptance of lifetime learning and corporate social responsibility.  The concept of the knowledge economy will shift and the more technical work will demand what the authors call "conceptual tacit skills".

Tacit knowledge and skills are personal skills that are hard to transfer to others.  The individual may not naturally recognise and appreciate these skills as valuable or unique.  Examples of tacit skills and knowledge include habits and culture that form the backbone of the way we interact with the world around us, or riding a bicycle, or a child learning a language.  The authors define the key tacit skills  in an organisational context as problem solving, judgement, listening, data analysis, relationship building, collaborating and communicating with co-workers.

Where the tacit knowledge and skills are considered valuable by an organisation, there is considerable motivation to transform those tacit skills into explicit skills which can then be transferred to others.  And this is where the Imposter Syndrome comes in.

The Imposter Syndrome hits talented and successful people.  However, people who are in the grip of feeling like a fake or fraud do not value their strengths or accomplishments.  At a core level, they don't think they're good enough; that don't measure up. They often believe that if they can do something, it's not exactly rocket science.  And the less tangible something is, the more likely they are to be uncertain about whether it is of value and whether they measure up.

If organisations are going to successfully tap into the tacit knowledge and skills of their talented employees, they need to help people understand the value of who they are as well as what they know.  That means they will need to help us value ourselves as human beings so we can actively contribute to organisational performance.  While many are doing this already with concepts like "talent management", most organisations are not and may get left behind well before 2020!

What do you think?  I'd love to know.
All the very best
Suzanne