Their learning behaviors tend to be uninhibited. Inhibition seems
to occur with the formal knowledge patterns that emerge. The
hope is that all this unfettered learning behavior will build a
knowledge repertoire that will be benefited by those early child-
hood learning activities and will create a knowledge base that will
continue to inform and inspire learning and doing behaviors. The
problem is that knowing gets in the way.
Knowingis the platform for learning, but if knowing is left
unchecked and unexamined, it tends to slow down, if not drive
out, learning. The now well described knowing-doing gap is the
consequence of this knowing-dominating process.^2
The Knowing-Learning DynamicThe process of being engaged is the activity essential to learning. It
is doing, exploring, experimenting, designing, and creating.
The individual challenge is to shape and sustain the knowing-
learning dynamic throughout a person’s lifetime. The challenge
is exacerbated because knowing rather than knowing-learning
has become the primary focus of much of our formal education
process. Beginning in first grade, the emphasis is on knowing, facts,
figures, and specific answers. Knowing the answer is more impor-
tant than understanding why the answer is what it is. The issue is
not that one is more necessary than the other but rather how the
knowing-learning dynamic can be kept alive and vibrant (see Fig-
ure 17.1). There are many knowing organizations and institutions.
Colleges and universities come quickly to mind, followed by law
firms, engineering firms, accounting practices, and countless
knowledge-based enterprises. These organizations play a vital role
in our contemporary lives, and yet they have a tendency to become
stuck in their knowing and hence less effective than they might
be. Knowing requires less energy and is more efficient than learn-
ing, which by its nature is unpredictable, imaginative, and often
incomplete.
186 LEADINGORGANIZATIONALLEARNING