Published: July 2026
Every organisation sits on two kinds of knowledge. One is neatly documented in handbooks, SOPs, and training decks. The other lives in people’s heads — the instincts, shortcuts, and hard-won judgements that never quite make it onto a slide.
Understanding the difference between tacit and explicit knowledge isn’t just an academic exercise. For Learning & Development professionals, it’s the difference between building training that actually transfers to performance and building training that gets ticked off and forgotten.
This guide breaks down both concepts, brings them to life with real workplace examples, and explains what L&D teams can do to capture and activate each one.
Tacit, explicit, and implicit knowledge: the short answer
Explicit knowledge is anything that can be written down, codified, and transferred — manuals, SOPs, handbooks, training decks. It’s structured, shareable, and searchable.
Implicit knowledge is explicit knowledge put into practice. It’s the capability that develops when someone applies documented processes repeatedly across different contexts — not yet intuitive, but no longer dependent on consulting the manual.
Tacit knowledge is the deepest layer: the expertise people carry but can’t easily articulate — the instincts, judgements, and skills built through years of doing, failing, and refining. It resists documentation by nature.
Most L&D programmes are built to deliver explicit knowledge. Most of what actually drives performance is implicit or tacit. That gap is the problem this guide addresses.
- What is explicit knowledge?
- What is tacit knowledge?
- What is implicit knowledge?
- Tacit, explicit, and implicit knowledge: the key differences
- Why the distinction matters for L&D
- How to capture and transfer tacit knowledge
- Common mistakes L&D teams make
- How Thirst helps you activate all three types
- FAQ
What Is Explicit Knowledge?
Explicit knowledge is anything that can be written down, codified, and easily transferred from one person to another. It’s structured, shareable, and searchable — the knowledge that lives in your organisation’s documents.
Explicit knowledge is relatively straightforward to capture and distribute. If you can articulate it clearly in writing or on screen, it’s explicit. That’s what makes it the default territory of traditional L&D — courses, modules, and documentation are all vehicles for delivering explicit knowledge at scale.
Explicit knowledge in the workplace — examples: A new customer service rep can read the escalation policy and understand exactly which call types go to which team. A new sales hire can study the product one-pager and learn the key features. A finance team member can follow a documented process for month-end closing. These are all instances of explicit knowledge doing its job — removing ambiguity and giving people a repeatable framework to follow.
What Is Tacit Knowledge?
Tacit knowledge is harder to define precisely — because it resists definition by nature. It’s the knowledge people carry but can’t always articulate: the expertise that comes from experience, intuition, and practice over time.
The philosopher Michael Polanyi coined the phrase “we know more than we can tell” to describe this phenomenon. A seasoned engineer knows when a machine sounds off before they can explain why. An experienced manager reads the room in a difficult conversation and adjusts in real time. A senior salesperson senses when a deal is going cold and knows instinctively how to re-engage. None of that is written in a handbook. It’s built through years of doing, failing, adjusting, and refining.
70%
of workplace learning comes from on-the-job experience — not formal training — according to the 70:20:10 model developed at the Center for Creative Leadership. Almost all of that 70% is tacit knowledge being built in real time.
Tacit knowledge shows up across every role and industry. Here are four concrete examples of how it drives performance — without ever appearing in a job description or training manual.
Customer service
A call centre veteran who knows how to de-escalate an angry customer purely through tone and pacing — something no script can fully capture. The skill is real and highly valuable. It’s also entirely undocumented.
Project management
A project manager who instinctively knows which stakeholders need to be brought into a decision early to avoid delays later. The RACI matrix doesn’t capture this. It comes from reading patterns across dozens of projects.
Technical roles
A software developer who can spot a likely bug source from a symptom before running a single diagnostic. The technical knowledge is explicit; the diagnostic instinct that takes years to develop is entirely tacit.
Operations & craft
A chef who can adjust a dish mid-recipe based on how the ingredients smell and feel, without measuring anything. Or a warehouse supervisor who knows which machine is about to need attention from the sound it makes.
What Is Implicit Knowledge?
Implicit knowledge sits between the other two. It’s explicit knowledge put into practice — the capability that develops when someone applies documented processes repeatedly, across different contexts, until following the procedure no longer requires consciously consulting it.
The distinction is important. A new hire who has read the sales playbook has explicit knowledge. A rep who has run fifty demos and can now adapt the pitch to different buyer types on the fly, without checking the deck, has implicit knowledge. The information started as explicit. The applied, internalised capability is implicit.
Philosopher Gilbert Ryle captured this as the difference between “knowing that” and “knowing how”. Knowing that an effective cold call requires a strong opening hook is explicit. Knowing how to deliver one, in real time, with any prospect — that’s implicit.
Sales & negotiation
A sales rep who has studied negotiation techniques (explicit) and now applies them instinctively across different deal types and buyer personalities — without consciously running through the framework each time.
People management
A manager who trained on a feedback framework (explicit) and now delivers feedback naturally in the moment — adjusting tone, timing, and approach fluidly, rather than following a structure step by step.
Transferable skills
Conflict resolution, structured decision-making, stakeholder communication — skills that start as learnable frameworks and become fluent capabilities a person carries from role to role.
Process fluency
An experienced operations manager who no longer needs to reference the SOP for a complex process — not because they’ve memorised it, but because repeated execution has made the logic second nature.
Implicit knowledge is easier to transfer than tacit knowledge because it has an explicit starting point — the framework, playbook, or process that was its origin. The L&D challenge is creating enough structured practice opportunities for that explicit knowledge to become internalised capability, rather than just recalled information.
Tacit, Explicit, and Implicit Knowledge: The Key Differences
| Tacit Knowledge | Implicit Knowledge | Explicit Knowledge | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nature | Experience-based, intuitive, deeply personal | Applied explicit knowledge, internalised through practice | Documented, codified, structured |
| Origin | Built over years of experience — no documented starting point | Starts as explicit knowledge, becomes fluent through use | Created through research, process design, or documentation |
| Transferability | Hardest — requires proximity, storytelling, or observation | Medium — needs structured practice opportunities | Easiest — shareable through content at scale |
| L&D approach | Mentoring, shadowing, scenario-based, storytelling | Repeated application, role-play, on-the-job practice | Structured content, courses, documentation |
| Risk | Lost permanently when a person leaves | Atrophies if not applied; partly recoverable from source material | Becomes outdated if not maintained |
| Measurability | Performance observation against behavioural criteria | Demonstrated in applied tasks and role-play assessments | Knowledge checks and structured assessments |
42%
of institutional knowledge is unique to the individual, according to research from Panopto. The majority of that 42% is tacit — which is why it’s almost impossible to recover once someone leaves. See also: why tribal knowledge is costing your business →
The SECI model: how the three types of knowledge interact
The most useful framework for understanding how knowledge moves between these three forms is the SECI model, developed by Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi in their 1995 work The Knowledge-Creating Company. It describes four processes through which knowledge is created and transferred in organisations:
Tacit → Tacit
Socialisation
Tacit knowledge shared directly through observation, imitation, and shared experience. Apprenticeships, shadowing, and on-the-job mentoring work this way.
Tacit → Explicit
Externalisation
The hardest conversion: turning tacit knowledge into something documentable, through storytelling, case studies, and structured knowledge-capture interviews.
Explicit → Explicit
Combination
Combining existing explicit knowledge to create new explicit knowledge — synthesising research into a report, updating an SOP to reflect a process change.
Explicit → Implicit/Tacit
Internalisation
When explicit knowledge is applied repeatedly until it becomes internalised capability — a new manager who studies a feedback framework and eventually uses it fluently.
The SECI model is useful for L&D teams because it reframes knowledge transfer as a cycle, not a transaction. Training doesn’t end when someone completes a course (combination). It ends when that knowledge has been applied, practiced, and internalised (internalisation) — and ideally when it contributes to new tacit expertise that can then be externalised and shared again.
Why the Distinction Matters for L&D
The gap between tacit and explicit knowledge is one of the most persistent challenges in organisational learning — and one of the most underappreciated.
Most traditional L&D programmes are built around explicit knowledge. They document processes, codify information, and deliver it through structured content. That’s valuable, but it misses a huge portion of what actually drives expertise in most roles. When a top performer leaves the business, it’s rarely the documented processes that walk out with them. It’s the tacit knowledge — the judgements, the instincts, the relational intelligence — that disappears and is almost impossible to replace quickly.
This matters in two directions. First, in how learning is designed. L&D teams that understand this distinction ask better questions: not just “what do people need to know?” but “what do people need to be able to do, and how does that knowledge get built over time?” That shift changes how you design programmes, select delivery methods, and define what success looks like.
Second, it matters for knowledge retention. Explicit knowledge training — a compliance module, an onboarding course — faces the fundamental problem of the forgetting curve. Without application and reinforcement, most information is forgotten rapidly after a formal learning event. Tacit knowledge, because it’s built through doing rather than taught through content, is inherently more durable — but it takes longer to develop and requires deliberate conditions to transfer.
L&D programmes that ignore tacit knowledge end up with a training library that looks comprehensive but a workforce that still defers to the same three people for anything that requires genuine judgement. See also: how competency-based training measures demonstrated capability rather than course completion.
How to Capture and Transfer Tacit Knowledge
You can’t turn tacit knowledge into an e-learning module and call it done. But you can create the conditions for it to be surfaced, shared, and gradually transferred.
1
Use structured knowledge-capture interviews
When a high-performer is being promoted or offboarded, conduct a structured interview focused on knowledge transfer — not a standard exit interview. Ask questions that surface mental models and heuristics rather than process: “What would you do in the first five minutes of a difficult client call?” These interviews surface the judgements and instincts that can be turned into stories, scenarios, or coaching prompts.
2
Build mentoring and shadowing into the learning journey
Tacit knowledge transfers best through proximity. Structured mentoring programmes and job shadowing give learners access to expertise that no content can replicate. L&D’s role is to design the programme, equip mentors with the right frameworks and prompts, and create space for reflective conversation after observation. See also: building learning paths that combine content with structured experience.
3
Use scenario-based learning to simulate judgement calls
You can’t document tacit knowledge, but you can create situations that develop it. Scenarios should not have a single right answer — they should reward nuanced thinking, force trade-offs, and prompt reflection on the reasoning process rather than just the outcome.
4
Capture knowledge through storytelling and case studies
Expert practitioners often can’t explain why they make a decision — but they can tell you about a time they made it. Ask your best people not “how do you do X?” but “tell me about a time you had to handle X.” The story reveals the mental model.
5
Create communities of practice
Peer learning communities give people a space to share tacit knowledge in real time. L&D’s role isn’t to control this — it’s to create the conditions for it to happen consistently, curate the best examples, and amplify what emerges.
Common Mistakes L&D Teams Make
Treating all learning as a content problem
The default L&D response to most capability gaps is to build or buy a course. That works for explicit knowledge, but not for tacit knowledge, where the gap isn’t in what people know but in what they can do under pressure, with incomplete information. A module on “difficult conversations” is useful context — it doesn’t produce the skill. Practice does.
Only capturing tacit knowledge at the exit door
Many organisations only think about tacit knowledge capture when someone hands in their notice. By then, a two-week notice period and an exit interview don’t restore years of judgement and context. The conversation becomes rushed, shallow, and incomplete.
Measuring completion instead of capability
A training completion report tells you how many people clicked through a course. It tells you nothing about whether judgement has improved or people are performing differently as a result.
How Thirst Helps You Activate All Three Types of Knowledge
Most learning platforms are built for explicit knowledge — content libraries, structured courses, completion tracking. They do that job well. But they often leave implicit and tacit knowledge stranded, with no infrastructure for surfacing, sharing, or transferring either at scale.
Thirst is an AI-powered learning platform for growing businesses, designed with all three knowledge types in mind.
For explicit knowledge: Thirst’s AI-powered content recommendations surface the right explicit knowledge at the moment of need. Role-specific learning paths built in Thirst Spaces deliver structured content in sequence, with knowledge checks that verify understanding rather than just tracking completion.
For tacit knowledge: Thirst supports the social and collaborative learning that tacit knowledge transfer depends on. Internal subject-matter experts can contribute knowledge as articles, video, or audio — so the expertise of your best people gets structured into the platform. Community spaces create the conditions for organic peer knowledge sharing, continuously rather than in one-off sessions.
For knowledge visibility: Thirst Insights gives L&D and leadership teams real-time visibility of where knowledge is well-distributed and where gaps remain. When tacit knowledge is captured and mapped to skills, the gap between “we think people know this” and “we have evidence they can demonstrate it” starts to close.
Understanding tacit vs explicit knowledge isn’t just a theoretical distinction. It shapes how you design learning, how you plan for knowledge retention, and how you measure whether your programmes are actually building the capability your organisation needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is tacit knowledge?
Tacit knowledge is the expertise people carry but can’t always articulate — the instincts, judgements, and skills built through years of experience, practice, and refinement. Michael Polanyi, who coined the phrase “we know more than we can tell”, described it as knowledge that resists codification.
Examples: a manager who reads the room in a difficult conversation and adjusts in real time; a salesperson who senses when a deal is going cold before anything explicit has been said; a technician who recognises an equipment problem from sound before running diagnostics.
What is explicit knowledge?
Explicit knowledge is anything that can be written down, codified, and transferred from one person to another. It’s structured, shareable, and searchable — the knowledge that lives in documents, courses, manuals, and systems.
Examples: an employee handbook, a product training module, an SOP for a compliance process, a troubleshooting guide, a FAQ database.
What is the difference between tacit and explicit knowledge?
Explicit knowledge is documented, codified, and easy to share through content. Tacit knowledge is experience-based and intuitive — demonstrated through practice, difficult to fully articulate, and built over time rather than taught in a session.
The practical difference for L&D: explicit knowledge can be delivered through a course and assessed through a knowledge check. Tacit knowledge transfers through mentoring, shadowing, and peer learning — and is measured through performance observation rather than tests.
What are examples of tacit knowledge in the workplace?
A call centre veteran who knows how to de-escalate an angry customer through tone and pacing alone. A project manager who instinctively knows which stakeholders to bring into a decision early. A chef who adjusts a dish mid-recipe based on how the ingredients smell and feel. A software developer who spots a likely bug source from a symptom before running a diagnostic.
How do you capture tacit knowledge in an organisation?
Five approaches: structured knowledge-capture interviews focused on mental models rather than process steps; mentoring and shadowing programmes; scenario-based learning that develops judgement through ambiguous situations; storytelling and case studies that capture the “why” behind expert decisions; and communities of practice where peer knowledge sharing happens organically.
The key principle: tacit knowledge can’t be fully converted into a document, but it can be made more accessible through the right conditions for transfer.
Why is tacit knowledge important for L&D?
Because most of what drives expertise in any role is tacit, not explicit. The 70:20:10 model estimates 70% of workplace learning happens through on-the-job experience.
When top performers leave, it’s rarely the documented processes that walk out with them — it’s the judgements, instincts, and relational intelligence that are irreplaceable.
What is the 70:20:10 learning model?
Developed by Lombardo and Eichinger at the Center for Creative Leadership, the model proposes that approximately 70% of workplace learning comes from on-the-job experience, 20% from interactions with others, and 10% from formal training.
It’s a framework rather than a scientific law — its value is in challenging the assumption that formal training is the primary driver of capability development.
What is implicit knowledge?
Implicit knowledge is explicit knowledge put into practice — the capability that develops when someone applies documented processes and frameworks repeatedly until they no longer need to consciously follow them.
Reading a negotiation framework is acquiring explicit knowledge. Using that framework successfully across fifty real negotiations until you no longer consult the model is developing implicit knowledge.
What is the SECI model?
Developed by Nonaka and Takeuchi in The Knowledge-Creating Company (1995), it describes four processes: Socialisation (tacit to tacit), Externalisation (tacit to explicit), Combination (explicit to explicit), and Internalisation (explicit to implicit/tacit).
For L&D teams, it’s useful because it reframes knowledge transfer as a cycle rather than a transaction — the goal is to design for the full cycle, not just the Combination phase.
How do you convert tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge?
Fully converting tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge isn’t always possible — some expertise genuinely resists codification. But you can surface and partially transfer it through structured interviews, case studies, observation and annotation, and scenario-based content.
The goal isn’t to reduce expertise to a checklist. It’s to make tacit knowledge more accessible — so fewer critical decisions depend on one or two individuals who happen to still be in the building.
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