The Nonaka Takeuchi Knowledge Spiral

Nonaka and Takeuchi asserted that, when you create new knowledge, you can respond quickly to customer demands, create new products and ways of working, and sustain a competitive advantage. So they created a model, the Nonaka and Takeuchi Knowledge Spiral, to show how knowledge can be generated, transferred and recreated within organizations.

They describe their model as a spiral, rather than a circle, because it represents the continuous forward movement of knowledge.

Nonaka and Takeuchi call the process by which knowledge is shared and created "SECI": Socialization, Externalization, Combination, and Internalization. We explore SECI in more detail, below.

Two types of knowledge are commonly defined within business and knowledge management: explicit and tacit. Explicit knowledge is formal knowledge that is contained in manuals and procedures and can be easily shared. Tacit knowledge is personal, informal knowledge or a skill that is learned by experience, and is rarely shared through documents or processes. For example, the best way to pass on your skill at riding a bicycle is to show someone how to do it, rather than give him or her an instruction book.

Making tacit knowledge explicit means that it doesn't get locked into one individual, and you don't lose it if that person leaves your organization. Formalizing knowledge also significantly reduces the time it takes for new team members to learn how to do their jobs, meaning that the organization can scale more quickly.

Sharing Knowledge With "SECI"

Nonaka and Takeuchi proposed four ways that knowledge can be shared and created. And as knowledge is shared, it can move from tacit to explicit or from explicit to tacit, or remain as either. They called this process "SECI," which stands for Socialization, Externalization, Combination, and Internalization.

• Socialization (tacit to tacit): knowledge is passed from one person to another through shared experiences, imitation, observation, and brainstorming.
• Externalization (tacit to explicit): your tacit knowledge becomes explicit when you express your ideas, which allows it to be spread more easily through the organization.
• Combination (explicit to explicit): this is the simplest form of knowledge sharing because practical sources of knowledge, such as documents, are combined, sorted and categorized to create new knowledge.
• Internalization (explicit to tacit): as knowledge is shared and used throughout the organization, it becomes part of people's knowledge. It can then become tacit knowledge as they "internalize" it and add it to their own ideas and experiences, so creating new knowledge.

Reproduced with permission from Professor Hirotaka Takeuchi.

The diagram above illustrates how knowledge is shared and transferred with SECI. The process should be viewed as a spiral rather than a circle, as it represents the continuous creation and forward movement of knowledge.

Applying the Tool

Here are six activities that can help you to encourage and support knowledge creation for your organization, expanding on ideas from Enabling Knowledge Creation by Georg von Krogh, Kazuo Ichijo, and Ikujiro Nonaka:

1. Identify the People You Want to Be Involved. Try to involve the largest possible number of people in creating knowledge, and empower them to participate. Certain individuals, such as those with specialized expertise, will trigger the creation of knowledge and can also inspire everyone who's involved.
2. Plan Knowledge Management. Think about what your organization needs to know to make it more competitive. Once you understand its vision and how it expects to grow, you can work out what tacit knowledge needs to be made explicit. For example, a person in accounting may have years of experience that can be turned into an innovative new approach to budgeting, which can be shared with others to cut costs.
3. Create the Right Context. Build and maintain good connections and relationships within your team. For example, make time available for team members to discuss their ideas, create quiet spaces and places for them to talk, and offer technical support for knowledge management initiatives.
4. Provide a Framework for Conversations. People need to have the opportunity to talk about their knowledge regularly. When they do, they can share information, offer different points of view, and create new perspectives. Talking about the knowledge spiral can also help them to understand the importance of turning tacit knowledge into an explicit form that everyone can use.
5. Make Local Knowledge Available. Specialized knowledge often remains isolated in one part of the organization or with one person, which could cause real problems if he leaves. Make the knowledge you have in your team available to everyone, so that they have the information they need, when they need it.
6. Codify Explicit Knowledge. People who want access to explicit knowledge have to know where to find it. So make sure that it is documented appropriately. For example, create documents, learning resources and L&D programs – and deliver on them.

To understand your organization as a whole and how that affects you, see our article, Deming's System of Organizational Knowledge. To make the most of your knowledge, see our article, Leverage.