The Collective Tacit Knowledge Series

Every organisation runs on more than data and dashboards. The real drivers of strategy are often invisible: the collective tacit knowledge of leaders, managers, and employees. This lived expertise, intuition, and judgment can determine whether sustainability and profitability align—or drift apart.

At go-tkm.org we explore how tacit knowledge shapes strategic decisions, how easily it can be lost, and how leaders can harness it for resilience and growth.

This series of articles highlights different challenges where tacit knowledge makes the difference.

📖 Articles in the Series

1. Why Sustainable Strategy Demands the Collective Tacit Knowledge of Your Leadership Team

Sustainability cuts across every function. No one executive sees the whole picture. This article explains why boards need collective tacit knowledge to spot early misfits, balance ESG with financial resilience, and avoid costly blind spots.

2. Read This to Understand Collective Tacit Knowledge

What is tacit knowledge, really? And how can boards apply it? This article defines CTK, shows why it matters for sustainable strategy, and outlines practices leaders can use to surface and share it.

3. Are Employees Happy to Leave Your Company?

Head-hunters don’t just recruit skills—they take tacit knowledge, often pulling entire teams with them. This article explores why employees may be happy to leave, and what leaders can do to protect and value the tacit knowledge they carry.

4. 5 Ways to Lose Critical Tacit Knowledge (and How to Avoid Them)

Tacit knowledge is fragile. Over-reliance on dashboards, failure to recognise contributions, silos, poor succession planning, and neglected networks all erode it. This article shows how leaders can avoid the most common traps.

5. Reverse Mentoring: The Tacit Knowledge of Younger Employees

Younger employees may not carry decades of experience, but they hold vital tacit knowledge about cultural shifts, digital behaviours, and emerging expectations. This article explains how reverse mentoring brings those insights to the boardroom.

Why this series matters

Tacit knowledge is not just an HR issue—it is a strategic asset. When surfaced and shared across leadership teams, it provides early warning signals, balances trade-offs, and builds resilience. When neglected, it drains away silently, leaving gaps no system can fill.

👉 To explore methods for applying collective tacit knowledge—and to connect with peers who face the same dilemmas—join the ongoing go-tkm.org series of events and congress opportunities.