Learning is not the accumulation of knowledge.
It is the process of discovering, evaluating, understanding, and applying it.

Through this process, we build human and social capital—
and with it, our adaptive capacity to respond and evolve in a complex world.

Documentation is often seen as progress.
If it’s written down, it must be understood.
If it’s standardised, it must be right.

But in complex environments, the opposite is often true.

Structure brings clarity — but too early, it freezes learning.

When we codify too soon:

• Our partial understanding becomes policy.
• Our evolving insight becomes fixed rules.
• Our questions disappear, replaced by compliance, and sometimes, complacency.

What was once a hypothesis becoming something to be defended.

This is not knowledge creation.
It is learning interruption.

Nonaka showed us that knowledge is created through a dynamic interaction between tacit and explicit knowledge — not by capturing one and freezing it (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 2007).

Polanyi reminded us that:

“We know more than we can tell”  (Polanyi, 1966).

What we write down is always incomplete.

And in complex systems, as Snowden has long argued,
premature codification creates fragility by locking in interpretations before the system has revealed enough of itself (Snowden, 2003).

The real risk is subtle.

When knowledge is codified too early:

• people stop thinking and start following,
• learning is replaced by compliance,
• and judgement begins to atrophy.

Organisations appear aligned —
but become less able to respond.

What is written too early becomes defended too quickly.

Learning requires:

• space for ambiguity,
• iteration and correction,
• and time for experience to shape judgement.

Codification has a role.
But only after patterns stabilise — not before.

Organisations do not fail because they lack documentation.
They fail because they lose the ability to learn.

Efficiency repeats what worked.
Learning questions whether it still does.

 

 

Nonaka, I., & Takeuchi, H. (2007). The knowledge-creating company. Harvard business review, 85(7/8), 162.

Polanyi, M. (1966). The Tacit Dimension (Edition 2009 with a new forward by Amartya Sen). In: Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

Snowden, D. J. (2003). The knowledge you need, right when you need it. Knowledge Management Review, 5, 24-27.