The three types of knowledge and how startups can use them三种知识类型及其在初创企业中的应用

Say your company’s basic processes are documented — thanks to experience and repetition, your employees have now found better ways of accomplishing those processes. If that information only lives in their heads, you’re missing out on valuable insights that could be helping others.

Those documented processes are known as explicit knowledge, and the information that lives in your employees’ heads is known as implicit knowledge or tacit knowledge. Understanding these knowledge types and how to categorize them, apply them, and use them is called metaknowledge.

When you can apply metaknowledge to how knowledge is stored and shared within your company, you can help your company improve productivity. You can also reduce the likelihood of knowledge getting lost when employees move in and out of roles. 假设你公司的基本流程已经记录在案——得益于经验和重复实践，你的员工现在已经找到了完成这些流程的更好方法。如果这些信息仅存在于他们的脑海中，你就错失了本可以帮助他人的宝贵见解。那些已记录的流程被称为“显性知识”，而存在于员工脑海中的信息则被称为“隐性知识”或“默会知识”。理解这些知识类型以及如何对其进行分类、应用和使用，被称为“元知识”。当你能将元知识应用于公司内部知识的存储和共享方式时，就能助力公司提升生产力。你还可以减少因员工岗位变动而导致知识流失的可能性。

As people spend more time in their roles, they gain experience and know-how that could benefit others through knowledge sharing. Understanding the three kinds of knowledge is key to being able to categorize and share knowledge within your organization.随着员工在岗位上投入的时间增加，他们会积累经验和诀窍，通过知识共享，这些经验和诀窍可以造福他人。理解这三种知识类型，是能够在组织内进行知识分类和共享的关键。

Key attributes: Explicit knowledge is a knowledge type that is easily recorded, documented, codified, stored, accessed, and shared. It’s often obvious what is categorized as explicit knowledge because it simply makes sense to store information in a way that’s accessible for the whole team. You may also hear explicit knowledge referred to as factual knowledge, propositional knowledge, declarative knowledge, or descriptive knowledge. 关键属性：显性知识是一种易于记录、文档化、编码、存储、访问和共享的知识类型。显性知识的分类通常很明确，因为将信息以全团队可访问的方式存储是非常合理的。你可能也会听到将显性知识称为事实知识、命题知识、陈述性知识或描述性知识。

Benefits: Explicit knowledge is fact-based, easy to document, easy to access, and easy to share.

Examples: Instructional documents/videos, FAQs, reports, one-sheet flyers, diagrams, slide decks, textbooks, manuals, databases, guidelines, business rules, and intellectual property.

Think of it as: Knowledge that comes directly from the documentation. 益处：显性知识基于事实，易于记录、访问和共享。示例：教学文档/视频、常见问题解答（FAQ）、报告、单页传单、图表、幻灯片、教材、手册、数据库、指南、业务规则和知识产权。可以将其理解为：直接来自文档的知识。

Key attributes: Tacit knowledge is a knowledge type that is more difficult to explain and is sometimes tied to feelings or a company’s culture or practices. It’s not always obvious when this information should be documented or made explicit. It’s typically shared face-to-face or person-to-person within a company and gained through personal experience or personal knowledge. You may also hear tacit knowledge referred to as conceptual knowledge or situated knowledge. 关键属性：默会知识是一种更难解释的知识类型，有时与情感、公司文化或实践相关联。这类信息何时应该被记录或显性化，并不总是显而易见的。它通常在公司内部通过面对面或人与人的交流进行共享，并通过个人经验或个人知识获得。你可能也会听到将默会知识称为概念知识或情境知识。

Benefits: Tacit knowledge provides context to help employees work more efficiently and record all aspects of a company that are hard to write down — how team members communicate, positioning with competitors, history of a customer relationship, and speed of execution, etc.

Examples: Information about competitors and how your company maintains competitive advantage; information about working with clients, vendors, or other departments; knowledge of company culture; observations from personal interactions; and understanding when a prospective client is ready to commit to being a customer.

Think of it as: Knowledge that comes from interacting with people. 益处：默会知识提供了背景信息，有助于员工更高效地工作，并记录下公司中难以书写的方方面面——例如团队成员的沟通方式、竞争定位、客户关系的历史以及执行速度等。示例：关于竞争对手及公司如何保持竞争优势的信息；关于与客户、供应商或其他部门合作的信息；公司文化知识；个人互动中的观察结果；以及了解潜在客户何时准备好成为正式客户。可以将其理解为：来自人际互动的知识。

Key attributes: Implicit knowledge is a knowledge type that is gained through applying and experiencing explicit knowledge but hasn’t yet been documented. When using various types of explicit knowledge, there is often new knowledge gained through completing the process that’s considered implicit until it is documented. You may also hear implicit knowledge referred to as procedural knowledge or posteriori knowledge. 关键属性：隐性知识是一种通过应用和体验显性知识而获得，但尚未被记录下来的知识类型。在使用各种显性知识时，人们往往会在完成流程的过程中获得新知识，这些知识在被记录之前都被视为隐性知识。你可能也会听到将隐性知识称为程序性知识或后验知识。

Benefits: Implicit knowledge can provide additional insights to already-documented knowledge to increase efficiencies.

Examples: Improvements to instructions that haven’t yet been made but were learned through doing the task, and updates to business rules that were learned over time haven’t yet been made.

Think of it as: Knowledge that comes from experience while repeatedly using documented explicit knowledge. 益处：隐性知识可以为已记录的知识提供额外的见解，从而提高效率。示例：对尚未改进但通过执行任务学到的操作说明的优化，以及随着时间推移学到但尚未更新的业务规则。可以将其理解为：在重复使用已记录的显性知识的过程中，从经验中获得的知识。

When figuring out what to document, consider the following path. 在确定记录内容时，请考虑以下路径。

If you’re just starting out creating a knowledge base or you feel that your existing knowledge base could be improved, focus on the easiest pieces first — the explicit knowledge. Make sure your company’s policies and procedures, onboarding documentation, HR information, training documents, and instructions for job functions are in place. 如果你刚开始创建知识库，或者觉得现有的知识库有待改进，请先关注最简单的部分——显性知识。确保公司的政策和程序、入职文档、人力资源信息、培训文档以及工作职能说明书都已就位。

Documenting explicit knowledge is obvious and straightforward because, generally, people have lots of experience using this type of information. Despite the fact that it’s easy, it may also be a heavy lift because of the amount of information that’s included in this category. 记录显性知识是显而易见且直截了当的，因为人们通常在使用这类信息方面拥有丰富的经验。尽管这很容易，但由于该类别包含的信息量巨大，这可能也是一项繁重的工作。

Next, figure out which types of tacit knowledge you might be able to document and turn into explicit knowledge. This might be things like implementing a system of updating customer notes documents, which are observations or notes from discussions with customers that can help make it easier for others working with them. 接下来，找出哪些类型的默会知识可以被记录并转化为显性知识。这可能包括实施一套更新客户记录的系统，即记录与客户讨论时的观察结果或笔记，从而帮助其他与该客户对接的同事更轻松地开展工作。

For example, a coworker has been assigned to work on an account with you, and you begin sending them an email with a few tips on working with the client. You start listing out things like what days and times they prefer to hold meetings, how they feel about the language used to describe their product, the aesthetic they want to emanate with their brand. The email gets lengthy. This is a good time to make this knowledge explicit by documenting it and including it in that customer’s notes file.

Keep in mind that not all tacit knowledge is able to be made explicit. Sometimes it’s information that’s intuitive and based on feelings, such as knowing when it’s a good time to propose a new project or ask for a budget allocation. 例如，一位同事被分配与你共同负责一个账户，你开始给他们发邮件，提供一些与该客户合作的建议。你开始列出诸如他们偏好的会议日期和时间、他们对描述其产品的用词的感受、他们希望通过品牌传达的审美等信息。邮件变得很长。这时就是将这些知识显性化的好时机，将其记录下来并包含在该客户的笔记文件中。请记住，并非所有的默会知识都能显性化。有时，这些信息是直觉性的，基于感觉，例如知道何时是提出新项目或申请预算分配的最佳时机。

One way to think about your implicit knowledge is by considering it as the maintenance phase of your knowledge base. If you realize the method you use to complete a regular task differs from the existing instructions because you’ve found ways to be more efficient, it’s time to make that knowledge explicit by updating the instruction document.

Similarly, if you have business rules for a request process within your organization and learn over time that they would benefit from some specific updates, it’s time to update those business rules. Make that implicit knowledge you gained from going through the process explicit by documenting it. 思考隐性知识的一种方式是将其视为知识库的维护阶段。如果你意识到自己完成常规任务的方法与现有说明不同，因为你找到了更高效的方法，那么是时候通过更新说明文档将这些知识显性化了。同样，如果组织内部的请求流程有业务规则，并且随着时间推移你发现它们可以从某些特定更新中获益，那么是时候更新这些业务规则了。通过记录下来，将你在执行流程过程中获得的隐性知识转化为显性知识。

1. Use a knowledge management system — Put all of your company knowledge in a single place, so you have one hub of company information that makes it simple for your employees to access. Look for a tool that provides features and flexibility that will allow you to easily incorporate many types of knowledge and documents. 使用知识管理系统——将你所有的公司知识放在同一个地方，这样你就拥有了一个公司信息中心，让员工可以轻松访问。寻找一个提供灵活功能和特性的工具，以便你能轻松纳入多种类型的知识和文档。

2. Create categories or content buckets — Align the categories or content buckets within your knowledge base with your organizational structure and make sure information is placed within the correct area. This can help make things easier to find when employees go searching for the information they need. 创建类别或内容桶——将知识库内的类别或内容桶与组织结构保持一致，并确保信息被放置在正确的区域。当员工寻找所需信息时，这有助于使查找过程更简单。

3. Prioritize readability and ease of use — Use headings, bullets, white space, images, and formatting to make content easy to read. This will help employees find and digest the specific information they’re looking for, which also makes it more likely that they will consistently use the knowledge base. 优先考虑可读性和易用性——使用标题、项目符号、留白、图像和格式来使内容易于阅读。这将帮助员工查找并消化他们正在寻找的具体信息，从而也更有可能让他们持续使用知识库。

4. Peer review your documentation — Have other employees review the documentation in your knowledge base. They can provide feedback so you can ensure that everything is written and explained clearly, and information is thorough. This is most effective through successful cross-functional team collaboration. 对文档进行同行评审——让其他员工审阅知识库中的文档。他们可以提供反馈，确保所有内容书写和解释清晰，信息详尽。通过成功的跨职能团队协作，这种方式最为有效。

5. Assign responsibilities — Choose a small set of specific employees who are responsible for and have access to your knowledge management system. Having a regular set of individuals who are tasked with maintaining your knowledge base can help you make sure that the information is added and formatted in a consistent way. 分配职责——选择一小部分特定员工负责并拥有访问知识管理系统的权限。拥有固定的专人负责维护知识库，有助于确保信息的添加和格式化保持一致。

6. Make time for maintenance — Check the information and documents in your knowledge base and make regular updates. Information that’s out of date isn’t useful, and the less useful your knowledge base, the less your employees will use it. 腾出时间进行维护——检查知识库中的信息和文档，并进行定期更新。过时的信息毫无用处，知识库越没用，员工使用的频率就越低。

7. Consider ways to boost knowledge sharing — Think about ways you can incentivize employees to share their knowledge so it can be documented in your knowledge base. Make knowledge sharing an integral element of your company culture and give employees the time they need to document their knowledge. 考虑促进知识共享的方法——思考如何激励员工分享知识，以便将其记录在知识库中。将知识共享作为公司文化的一个组成部分，并给予员工记录知识所需的时间。

8. Make use of metrics — Check the metrics of your knowledge base regularly. If pages are used infrequently, determine if it’s because they need to be updated or if they’re out of date and can be deleted. This will help prevent your knowledge management system from getting bogged down in excessive amounts of information that are not useful.利用指标——定期检查知识库的指标。如果某些页面的使用频率很低，请确定是因为它们需要更新，还是因为已经过时可以删除。这将有助于防止知识管理系统陷入大量无用信息的泥潭。

It’s important to invest time and effort in understanding how knowledge can best be cataloged within your company and commit to following best practices to document that knowledge. By doing so, you can increase productivity, saving you money and helping you get an edge on your competition. When information is well documented with an easy-to-use knowledge management system, you can train new employees faster and help existing employees stay informed. Notion can help you get there.

Not sure where to start? Take a look at our company wiki template to see an example and get going.投入时间和精力去理解如何最好地对公司内部知识进行编目，并承诺遵循最佳实践来记录这些知识，这一点至关重要。通过这样做，你可以提高生产力，节省成本并帮助你在竞争中获得优势。当信息通过易于使用的知识管理系统得到妥善记录时，你可以更快地培训新员工，并帮助现有员工保持信息同步。Notion 可以助你一臂之力。不确定从哪里开始？看看我们的公司维基模板，参考示例并开始行动吧。