Knowledge Dimension
The Knowledge dimension is based on the process by which knowledge moves through an organisation, and indicates where in that process a person is naturally best at adding value.
What is this dimension analysing, and why does it matter?
The process runs from how knowledge is created, through how it is passed on, to how it is implemented by others. It has three phases, each containing three steps, nine knowledge dimensions in total:
| Phase | What happens | Steps |
|---|---|---|
| Uncertain knowledge | Something unexpected happens; a problem is identified and solutions are sought and tested | Inventiveness · Explorative · Concretize |
| Implicit knowledge | The solution is categorised, examined, tested and evaluated with others; it becomes “how we do it” but stays hard to articulate | Catalyst · Questioning · Convincing |
| Explicit knowledge | The implicit knowledge is crystallised into formal systems that can be passed on and used elsewhere | Documenting · Investigating · Implementing |
Why it matters:
- It explains why good solutions do not spread. Most organisations solve the same problem repeatedly in different corners because knowledge never gets past the implicit phase. This dimension shows who can move it and who cannot.
- It is the organisational-learning diagnostic. A company that cannot document is a company where knowledge leaves when people do. A company that cannot invent is efficient at repeating itself. The gap is visible in the aggregate profile of the people in it.
- It shows where a person adds value, not how good they are. Someone strong at Inventiveness and weak at Documenting is not a worse employee than the reverse, they belong at a different point in the process.
- It maps to real organisational phases. Early-stage companies live in the uncertain phase; scaling companies fail when they cannot move to explicit. Hiring against the phase you are entering is more useful than hiring against the phase you are in.
How do I read the chart?
The navy bars show where in the nine-step process the respondent naturally adds value.
Read the shape by phase first. Is the person concentrated in uncertain, implicit or explicit knowledge? That is the headline, and it places them in the organisational lifecycle.
Then read the steps within the phase. Two people can both sit in uncertain knowledge and do genuinely different things, one inventing, one testing.
Look for the gaps. A phase with no coverage tells you what this person will not do. In a team map, a phase nobody covers tells you where the organisation’s learning breaks down.
The orange bars show the same steps under disempowerment; the talent table shows which primary talents drive or suppress each step.
Phase One: Uncertain Knowledge
The process of experiencing something unexpected, observing and identifying a problem, and searching and testing for solutions. It typically begins with a change in the business environment, or with someone hitting an obstacle that challenges their assumptions about reality. The solution is often a step towards a business goal, better margins, better product design, process optimisation.
Inventiveness
Becoming aware that there is an issue and that new knowledge is needed, then starting to create that knowledge for oneself. The knowledge here is experimental, inventive, unconventional and uncritical.
What it contributes: the recognition that the existing answer no longer works, and the willingness to build a new one from nothing. Note the word uncritical in the definition, this step requires suspending judgement, which is precisely why the people who are good at it are often poor at the later evaluative steps.
How to apply it: take the problems where no established method exists. Give yourself permission to be wrong at this stage, the uncritical quality is a feature. Pass the output to a Questioning profile before it goes further.
Watch for: invention where a known solution already existed. Check what has been tried before you build.
Explorative
Seeking new knowledge. The knowledge here is seeking, creative, imaginative and not restricted.
What it contributes: the search outward. Where Inventiveness creates, Explorative goes and finds, across domains, disciplines and sources that the organisation would not normally look at.
How to apply it: own the scan. Look outside the industry deliberately; the unrestricted quality is what produces the transferable answer. Set a time limit, because the search has no natural end.
Watch for: searching as a way of not deciding. Gathering feels productive and produces nothing on its own.
Concretize
Using the new knowledge just found or created to try it and see if it solves the problem. The knowledge here is intuitive, qualifying, energetic and testing.
What it contributes: the bridge from idea to evidence. This is the step where something is actually attempted, which is where most organisational learning stalls, plenty of ideas, few tests.
How to apply it: build the smallest real test rather than the full solution. Report the result honestly, including when it did not work; a failed test is knowledge and this step is how the organisation gets it.
Watch for: treating a single successful test as proof. Intuitive and qualifying is not the same as validated.
Phase Two: Implicit Knowledge
The process of categorising uncertain knowledge by examining, testing, assessing and evaluating the problem and solutions, often producing a viable process for solving similar issues in future. This knowledge is only available to the individuals who have used it. It is fluid, non-conscious and intuitive, hard to put into words, and built on subjective experience. The classic example is a company’s “way of working”: deeply ingrained, and explained as “it’s just the way we do it around here”.
Catalyst
Where the previous step was successful to some degree, bringing it to other individuals. The knowledge here is challenging, confrontational, feedback-seeking and visionary.
What it contributes: the push that gets a working solution out of one person’s head and in front of others. Note that the definition includes confrontational, this step requires disturbing the existing way of working, and it does not happen quietly.
How to apply it: take the internal advocacy. Bring the thing to people who will challenge it rather than to people who will agree. Frame it as a proposal to be tested, not a conclusion to be adopted.
Watch for: the confrontation becoming the point. The objective is uptake, not being right.
Questioning
Individuals together seek to qualify the knowledge and ensure it is the best available. The knowledge here is best-practice oriented, relating and qualifying.
What it contributes: the collective stress test. This is where a solution that worked once is checked against whether it is actually the best available and whether it generalises.
How to apply it: run the comparison against external best practice, not just internal opinion. Involve the people who will have to use it, the relating quality of this step is not decorative, it is how the qualification actually happens.
Watch for: qualification extending until the moment has passed. Set a decision point.
Convincing
The individuals can now apply the knowledge and bring it into play. The knowledge here is intuitive, non-conscious and rhetorical.
What it contributes: actual adoption. The step where a qualified solution becomes something people use, which depends far more on persuasion than on the quality of the solution.
How to apply it: make the case in the terms the audience cares about. This step is explicitly rhetorical, the substance was settled in the previous step, and what determines uptake now is how it is presented.
Watch for: persuading people into something that had not actually been qualified. This step is powerful and content-agnostic.
Phase Three: Explicit Knowledge
The process of crystallising implicit knowledge into formal systems of information that can be passed on and used in other domains of the company, typically by codifying it into guides or manuals.
Documenting
For companies to leverage implicit knowledge, it must be formalised and structured so it can be passed on and used by others. The knowledge here is codifying, noting, documenting and conserving.
What it contributes: the point at which knowledge stops belonging to a person and starts belonging to the organisation. This is the least glamorous step in the process and the one with the highest long-term return.
How to apply it: document as the work happens rather than afterwards. Write for someone who was not there, the test is whether a new joiner can use it unaided.
Watch for: documentation nobody can find or that nobody updates. Conserving includes maintenance.
Investigating
Other individuals can now seek information within the formalised knowledge. The knowledge here is understanding, assessing, critical and guided.
What it contributes: the retrieval side. Documentation only has value if someone can find and correctly interpret it, and this step is that capability.
How to apply it: be the person who checks what already exists before new work starts. Improve what you find as you use it, the critical quality of this step is meant to feed back into the documentation.
Watch for: treating documented knowledge as automatically correct. The step is explicitly critical for a reason.
Implementing
Others have now accepted the knowledge and it can be applied and leveraged. The knowledge here is consistent, normalised and scalable.
What it contributes: the point where the original solution becomes standard practice across the organisation. This is where the value from the whole nine-step chain is finally realised.
How to apply it: take responsibility for consistent application, not just for the rollout. Watch for local variation that undermines the normalisation, and decide deliberately which variation is acceptable.
Watch for: implementing something whose original purpose has expired. Consistency preserves practice, including practice that has stopped making sense.
Reading the whole process
The nine steps form a chain, and a chain fails at its weakest link. The most useful applications of this dimension are diagnostic:
For an individual: identify your phase and stop treating the other two as personal failings. A strong Inventiveness profile who cannot document does not need a documentation course, they need a Documenting colleague and a clean handover.
For a team or organisation: map everyone and look for the phase nobody covers.
| Gap | What it produces |
|---|---|
| No uncertain-knowledge coverage | Efficient repetition; nothing new gets solved |
| No implicit-knowledge coverage | Individuals solve things privately; nothing spreads |
| No explicit-knowledge coverage | Knowledge leaves when people do; the same problem is re-solved every two years |
| Weak at Catalyst | Good solutions stay in one person’s head |
| Weak at Documenting | The most common gap in fast-growing companies, and the most expensive |
| Weak at Implementing | Well-documented practice that nobody follows |
A note on organisational stage. Early-stage companies are almost entirely uncertain-knowledge organisations, and that is correct for them. The transition to scale is precisely the transition into implicit and then explicit knowledge, and it usually fails because the people who built the company are concentrated in phase one and experience phase three as bureaucracy. Naming that pattern is one of the most valuable things this dimension can do.
Summary
- Explain the process before the profile. The nine steps mean nothing without the chain they belong to.
- Lead with the phase, then the step. Phase places the person in the organisational lifecycle; step describes their specific contribution.
- Frame gaps as position, not deficiency. Nobody covers all nine, and the three-phase structure makes that obvious.
- Use it in aggregate for organisational learning questions. This is the dimension that explains why the same problem keeps recurring.
- Cross-read with Team Behaviour and Work Behaviour. All three describe contribution to collective work from different angles; consistent signals across them are strong, inconsistent ones are worth exploring.