← Quora archive  ·  2011 Jan 26, 2011 06:29 AM PST

Question

What patterns of behavior have proven to be most helpful in knowledge transfer?

Answer

As Jeff Bezos once said, "The only way I know to transfer knowledge is to transfer people."

This principle has been validated time and again. Move people, not bits.

That's the top best behavior pattern.

  • Knowledge of laser technology mostly spread via people from the first lab that developed it.
  • Knowledge of entrepreneurship spreads when early employees of one startup go off to start another (the "sons of eBay" or "sons of Google" phenomenon).
  • Japan industrialized and modernized mostly by importing Western expats for several years (Dutch in particular)
  • Knowledge of modern fighter tactics spread via top pilots learning them from instructors like John Boyd at Nellis Air Force Base, and then taking the methods back to their home squadrons.

The second best behavior pattern is translation. The exercise of translation enforces discipline and organization without discipline and organization being the entire point. Since comprehension (in fact deeper comprehension than a native-language reading would need) is required, it cannot be done by bureaucrats attempting to codify/systematize in dumb ways. Quite the opposite. The translator has to worry about the foundations.

  • The Arab Golden Age was sparked by translations of Greek, Persian and Indian texts into Arabic and the Arabs building on them between about 800 AD and 1000 AD (they were the best knowledge-system integrators of their day).
  • The European Renaissance in turn was sparked by translations of these Arab sources (both "pass through" double-translation stuff and original material added by the Arabs) in Latin,

The third best behavior pattern is... teaching :).

Easily the worst method is a bunch of "knowledge managers" attempting to get knowledge out of one set of heads on one end by haranguing them to "document" their work, and then trying to get another (usually younger) set to help "curate" that knowledge.