What is tacit knowledge?

Michael Polanyi, was an influential advocate for what he termed 'tacit' forms of knowing. Tacit knowledge is knowledge that is understood, but is unspoken and implicit.

His argument, which was developed around acts of creativity and discovery, is that the educated guesses, hunches and thoughts that we use during discovery are motivated by what he called 'passions'. Importantly these passions cannot always be talked about in formal terms.

In Polanyi's words: "we can know more than we can tell". In our words, we can know more than we have the words to express. But, while an individual may not be able to talk this tacit mix of concepts, feelings and images, they can and do draw upon this knowledge in an attempt to make sense of the world. It's similar with other aspects of a person's lived experience – a person can tacitly know and feel things but does not have, or cannot find, the words to describe what they know and feel.

What this means for CCS facilitators

The CCS is a tool that helps participants describe their lived experiences – even those they don't have words for. As participants work through the CCS process and make their CCS choices, sometimes without even knowing why they are choosing certain images, they begin to find ways to talk about these tacit understandings.

The CCS process gives participants the opportunity to readily bring the resources of their tacit knowledge to all manner of personal and organisational learning and development situations. This is a feat that might otherwise require much more time-consuming and skilful facilitation.

What is appreciative inquiry?

Developed by David Cooperrider, appreciative inquiry is a technique for organisational change and development that has people focus upon what works in an organisation or in life. In general "it assumes that every living system has many untapped, rich and inspiring accounts of the positive."

The approach works by bringing people together to tell stories, reflect, analyse, interpret and create images of the future "out of grounded examples from an organisation's positive past." (adapted and cited from David Cooperrider , 2000).

As its two word name implies, appreciative inquiry, is a positive (appreciative) questioning (inquiry) approach to change and development. "It should begin with appreciation, should be applicable, should be provocative, and should be collaborative. The basic process of appreciative inquiry is to begin with a grounded observation of the 'best of what is', then through vision and logic, collaboratively articulate 'what might be', ensuring the consent of those in the system to 'what should be' and collectively experimenting with 'what can be' (Gervase R. Bushe, 1998).

What this means for CCS facilitators

The positioning of the CCS as a tool for appreciative inquiry is almost unavoidable. The CCS seeks to draw out of our understanding, the elements, ideals, emotions and experience that we all hold within us which encourages us to engage in dialogue about what we discover. It can be used to provoke participants to recall the best of their relevant lived experience, and then to collaborate with others in bringing about positive change.

A key use of the tool (as scripted in the CCS group process in the Facilitators Manual) is in fact to have participants produce a visual collage of their collective ideal and then to consider how best to bring that to fruition in their daily practice – or to use this as a primer to considering new content in learning programs.

In addition, the CCS provides participants with a unique way to understand and appreciate one another, promoting respect and connection. This is important, since despite the obvious benefits, it is often difficult for people, particularly work colleagues, to offer each other genuine appreciative remarks or compliments. It is usually possible however, to have them thumb through their CCS vision pack and pick a card to share something genuinely positive about another person with both parties feeling the benefits of the shared observation and comments (we have an activity known as CCS picture positives).

What is action learning?

Developed by the late Reginald Revans, action learning is an educational process in which a person examines their own actions and experience in an effort to improve their performance.

Revans asserts that we learn from two sources:

• other people – 'programmed knowledge' – documented and recorded knowledge of experts. He suggests that this kind of knowledge is necessary but not sufficient for people to cope with complex life situations.
• ourselves – by questioning ourselves about our own tacit knowledge. This knowledge includes insights about ourselves (including what we know and don't know) and the world in which we live. This kind of knowledge is believed to be the basis of wisdom.

The action learning process is usually carried out with others in small groups. The insights that surface are then used to guide future action.

What this means for CCS facilitators

The CCS is well-placed as a tool for action learning. Of Revans' two learning sources it is of course for the latter – ourselves – that the CCS has the prime application.

The CCS is not for providing content. It is a tool that helps participants to connect with what they already know and to uncover what they don't know that they know – or at least have not yet been able to articulate. The CCS process gives participants an insightful way to fully consider their own experience and then naturally and often easily, communicate the essence of this experience to others.

Furthermore, the CCS group process offers an efficient and reliable way for a facilitator to encourage small groups (called "action sets" in action learning terminology) to share and combine their insights to bring about learning and change.

The need for reflection as part of a learning process is well accepted. A good example of the positioning of reflection in the learning process is shown in the regularly cited Lewin/Kolb learning cycle. The cycle has 4 stages:

• concrete experience
• reflective observation
• abstract conceptualisation
• active experimentation.

In the reflective observation stage, the learner recalls, recreates and evaluates their experience. They then look for known rules and concepts that can be linked and applied and experimented with as a way to modify or improve subsequent similar experiences.

Reflection can also give the learner an opportunity to determine whether what they have learned, and hold to be true, is still justified in their present circumstances [adapted from Jack Mezirow, 1990]. If they determine that their current understanding is no longer justified, the reflection may be enough to motivate a shift in perspective and behaviour.

What this means for CCS facilitators

The CCS can enrich the reflective observation stage by helping participants to more accurately and holistically recall and recreate their lived experiences including feelings and emotions – even in a training room situation. The CCS cards provide participants with self-selected representations that they are able to link to all the associated concepts, feelings, words and actions that were part of their lived experience. Armed with this clearer picture, a participant is better able to reflect upon their action – to examine the elements of an experience, to learn from it and to use this understanding to improve their behaviour.

In addition the CCS gives a participant an easy way to share and compare their findings with others – even in very large groups – thereby increasing the scope of the reflection.

What is metaphor?

Metaphor is the use of one kind of idea or object in place of another for the purpose of suggesting a likeness between the two [MSN Encarta]. People use metaphors to help them make sense of their life experiences.

Metaphors "act as a way of organising perceptions, a framework for selecting, naming and framing characteristics of an object or experience." They can also provide a way to express something that we cannot express with literal language. [adapted and cited, Srivastva and Barrett]. This is because the metaphor provides a real world practical entity that a person can use to better make sense of something or to allow for a fuller, richer description of an experience or thing.

Metaphors also influence our behaviour. While often implicit, metaphors have an effect on our behaviour, decision making, problem solving and perhaps even prevent us from seeing other views. The term, generative metaphors, is often used in this context. In other words, the model or paradigm we have of something will affect the way we act upon it. And this may lead us in the right or wrong direction. Moreover, the use of one metaphor may trigger or generate a completely new metaphor that leads to discoveries or learnings that may otherwise not have been tapped.

What this means for CCS facilitators

The field of metaphor and the CCS cross paths in three related ways:

1. the images within a CCS vision pack provide a participant with metaphorical triggers. When a participant is shuffling through a vision pack considering a topic, many of the images trigger thoughts, stories and feelings and what we believe is described by Donald Schön as an "unarticulated sense of similarity" to the meanings and ideas they are trying to construct in their mind and ultimately share with others. In short, the images are metaphors – a compact, rich expression of the participant's associations, concepts and ideas. Once chosen, the images can be laid out, sorted, prioritised and reconsidered to support the participant in saying what they may or may not have been able to say without the help of the cards.
2. the CCS can also be used to support a group in identifying the metaphors its members hold about a topic and then work together to create a collective, and perhaps entirely new, metaphor that encapsulates the understanding of the whole group. This is not to suggest that the images contained in a CCS vision pack will, themselves, represent all possibilities, all possible metaphors. What they provide are cues or catalysts for people to elicit dialogue, explore questions and multiple perspectives and perhaps cultivate new perceptions and understandings.
3. it is also possible that through metaphor, the CCS will at times provide the trigger for the identification of generative metaphors. Participants regularly report selecting images just because "they seemed relevant" or "it just seemed to jump out!" And then, in the process of talking about the image the participant is struck with a completely new idea or possibility – occasionally even an ah-ha or eureka kind of breakthrough. This kind of response echoes Schön's reference to an "unarticulated sense of similarity with the moment's experience" – when someone gets the sense that something is relevant but with no explicit idea of how it is relevant and what its practical implications are [in Johan Hovelynck]. CCS facilitators will want to be on the look out for these kinds of potentially creative moments in their sessions. Participants can be supported to provide deeper responses, to go with hunches and gut feelings. In addition, participants can be encouraged to generate new possibilities through metaphors.

Of the 5 senses, the three that are most prominent in communication between people are: sight, hearing and touch. It is generally accepted that individuals seem to have a natural preference for the style in which they receive, manage and convey information. This model of learning preference is usually referred to as visual-auditory-kinaesthetic learning styles (or VAK).
Essentially:

• visual learners like to: see what you mean and make assessments by how things look, they like to read, see diagrams, pictures, charts – all things visual.
• auditory learners like to: hear ideas and make assessments based on how those ideas sound, they like to talk about things and listen to others.
• kinaesthetic learners like to: touch things and do things. They prefer to experience what is being talked about and decide by how things feel to them.

What this means for CCS facilitators

visual: The image-based nature of the CCS is ideal for visual learners. The images give participants a myriad of visual references and matches their "I see that now" or "I get the picture" way of communicating. Visual learners will also respond very well to sessions that include use of CCS jumbo vision packs, CCS vision stickers and templates as visual records.

auditory: The CCS gives participants an easy way to talk about their ideas and a structured way to listen to others. The system readily stimulates auditory opportunities for participants such as relating stories or anecdotes. It is good practice for CCS facilitators to build in time for participants to share their choices with at least one other person before discussing their views with the wider group. This gives the auditory participants a chance to hear what they themselves say and what others say – helping them to clarify their views. Also, when working with groups, auditory learners will respond well when the facilitator highlights common and unique views around the room and gets participants to share their views with the whole group.

kinaesthetic: The CCS cards themselves are very tactile. Kinaesthetic learners (and just about everyone else) enjoy sorting, shuffling, sifting and organising the cards. It helps them to think about and organise their thinking. These participants also respond well to grasping their selected cards and moving around the room relating their choices with other participants. Facilitators should be sure to exploit this physical nature of the vision packs, jumbo vision packs and vision stickers in their sessions.