Know, Show, Grow in KM

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The US Army uses a neat little phrase to delineate the three focus areas within it's Knowledge Management Framework -

• Know, 
• Show, 
• Grow

The Know dimension is about the tacit “head knowledge”. The Army say (in their publication on Knowledge Management Operations published in 2012) that "All individuals have a unique, personal store of knowledge gained from life experiences, training, and formal and informal networks of friends and professional acquaintances. It includes learned nuances, subtleties, and work-arounds. Intuition, mental agility, effective responses to crises, and the ability to adapt are also forms of tacit knowledge. Leaders use tacit knowledge to solve complex problems and make decisions. They also routinely engage subordinates’ tacit knowledge to improve organizational learning and enhance unit innovation and performance".

The Show dimension is about the explicit knowledge that is written down and documented to be shared with others, described as follows; "Explicit knowledge consists of written or otherwise documented information that can be organized, applied and transferred using digital (such as computer files) or non-digital (such as paper) means....Examples of explicit knowledge include dictionaries, official department publications (field manuals, technical manuals, tactics, techniques, and procedures manuals, Department of the Army pamphlets) and memorandums. Explicit knowledge is primarily used to support situational awareness and shared understanding as it applies to decision making".

The Grow dimension represents collaboration toward innovation which sparks new knowledge. Knowledge creation is described as " the process of developing new knowledge or combining, restructuring, or repurposing existing knowledge in response to identified knowledge gaps. Knowledge comes from a variety of sources, such as new technology, answering the commander’s critical information requirements, or the sharing of information that others need to know. Knowledge is also created when organizations learn, which in turn enables organizations to adapt".