Creating a Knowledge Sharing Culture
Susan Coward (in red) with RECOVER team members at the City of Edmonton’s fall 2019 Cultural Commitment Awards Ceremony
This is a post by Dr. Jennifer Long at MacEwan University, a long time partner of the City of Edmonton’s RECOVER Urban Wellbeing team.
The Fall 2021 Ethnographic Research Methods class at MacEwan University had an opportunity to collaborate with the City of Edmonton’s RECOVER Urban Wellbeing initiative to explore tacit knowledge, with former Project Lead, Susan Coward. She retired in October 2021 after being a public servant for approximately 32 years. Susan wore many hats at the City of Edmonton, in the Office of the City Mayor and in the Citizen Services Department. As the Project Lead for RECOVER Urban Wellbeing, she made space for the whole team to learn together, encouraging courage and curiosity to experiment and rethink approaches. She truly spearheaded a new way for urban wellness.
“At the very core of capturing tacit knowledge is the principle of honouring people and the wealth of knowledge and experience that every individual carries from their journey in life in a way that respects them.”
Over 10 interviews, Susan was asked a series of questions about her time working at the City, and with RECOVER, including: “Tell me about a time when you struck out. Tell me about a time when you were successful,” and “When do you work within the language of the system vs. when do you lean into the moments of disruption?” My goal with these questions was to uncover the breadth and depth of Susan’s knowledge about her approach and experiences of ‘work’ and of the institution known as the ‘City of Edmonton’.
Why is this project important? Classen (2011) argues that “when an employee leaves an organization, the knowledge they possess often goes with them”, thereby having the potential to negatively affect the productivity and quality of the organization (p. 6). Classen’s work has also determined story-telling as an effective means to elicit tacit knowledge.
“…it is not a one-time deal exercised when one “retires” from a position, rather it is an ongoing practice in the ritual of honouring people throughout their lives and service.”
Wait...what is tacit knowledge? Kothari, Rudman, Dobbins et al. (2012) define tacit knowledge as the kind of knowledge that accumulates over time through previous experience, knowledge-building activities, and professional expertise. Supanitchaisiri, Natakuatoong, and Sinthupinyo (2020) argue that tacit knowledge is often held by experts in ‘key job positions’ and that this deep knowledge is incredibly important to an organization to maintain sustainable growth and development. Tacit knowledge is different from explicit knowledge because of the knowledge holder’s ability to adapt and deal with new and exceptional circumstances, their expertise (i.e., their know-how, know-why, and ‘care-why’) and their ability to collaborate by facilitating a shared organizational vision and culture (Supanitchaisiri, Natakuatoong, & Sinthupinyo 2020). As you might guess, losing a tacit knowledge holder is like losing a library of books, stuffed not only with vast knowledge about people and processes, but their ability to contextualize, characterize and ‘read’ both people and situations.
The RECOVER team and I are curious about the tacit knowledge Susan carries with her that has helped her navigate the complexity of the City’s efforts to recover its urban wellbeing.
How does this project relate to MacEwan’s Ethnographic Research Methods course? This project is a mash-up of single-participant ethnographies (of the early 1980s and 1990s), that integrated feminist ideologies and what’s known as either organizational or institutional ethnography.
Single-participant ethnographies: Marjorie Shostak wrote a book titled Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman, which combines Nisa’s self-account with the author’s commentary living as a woman, wife, and mother (among other roles) in Botswana in the late 1970s. Over the course of 21 interviews, Nisa told her life story that Shostak worked to contextualize in everyday political and cultural contexts. Although Shostak interviewed many women from Nisa’s community and conducted participant observation, Nisa’s account was the only account written into Shostak’s book. Like Nisa’s life history, we’ve collected 10 semi-structured interviews with Susan, and an additional six interviews with current RECOVER team members.
Institutional ethnographies (IE): This work also incorporates institutional ethnography which investigate “people’s work as embedded within institutional orders” to explore “system-level co-ordination of people’s everyday work experiences” to understand how everyday activities produce ‘social order’ (Quinlan 2009, p.628). Methodologically, IE moves from “particular experiences” to the “general analysis of the social relations” by taking a ‘standpoint’ of the “sum of experiences of everyday practices embedded in an institutional order” (Quinlan 2009, p. 628).
The importance of stories: As described in a previous blog post about Storytelling as a Mutual Experience, stories are impactful and valid forms of data and evidence. As the students work through the interviews collected for this project, they will also add their own experiences and interpretations of Susan’s and the RECOVER team’s knowledge in an effort to mobilize and make real, these important practice-based lessons.
What do we hope the outcomes from this work will be?
Recognizing and honouring people
Valuing a critical discipline
Appreciating unseen and yet ongoing impacts
At the very core of capturing tacit knowledge is the principle of honouring people and the wealth of knowledge and experience that every individual carries from their journey in life in a way that respects them. Second, is the recognition and respect for the discipline of uncovering tacit knowledge; it is not a one-time deal exercised when one “retires” from a position, rather it is an ongoing practice in the ritual of honouring people throughout their lives and service. Third, is the necessary appreciation of and recognition that every individual's momentary efforts will have lasting impacts that ripple out; it is an acknowledgement that people’s work and contributions have the potential to benefit society beyond their scope of influence.
What are the tangible outputs we are creating?
A transcript of Susan’s (and colleagues’) stories,
A code book of important themes,
An analysis of the data as it relates to RECOVER’s Wellbeing framework, and
Prototyped artifacts.
Artifact possibilities include (but are not limited to): a what-would-Susan-do deck of cards, a meeting-prep forget-me-not list, or perhaps a Susan “Playbook”.
Whatever comes from this work, we’re hoping that Susan will help us look back and forward to help make sense of the present. Check back on this blog for an update on this project!
“…losing a tacit knowledge holder is like losing a library of books, stuffed not only with vast knowledge about people and processes, but their ability to contextualize, characterize and ‘read’ both people and situations.”