We’ve all seen it happen. A company spends millions on a shiny new Knowledge Management (KM) platform. Dashboards are built, databases constructed, and folders nested. “Lessons learned” are collected, and critical knowledge captured. And then… almost nobody uses it!
Why? Because traditional KM treats knowledge like a commodity, a bag of potatoes. Something to be harvested, sorted, stored, and shipped. Or, in KM terminology, something that needs to be captured, made explicit, categorized, stored in a SharePoint or similar system, made searchable, and easily retrievable.
Dave Snowden, the architect of the Cynefin framework, turns this thinking on its head. His 7 Principles of Knowledge Management (often called the “principles of acts of knowing”) remind us of something we intuitively know but systematically ignore: Knowledge is deeply human, contextual, and cannot be forced.
Let’s walk through each principle and see what it means for KM strategy.
1. Knowledge can only be volunteered, not conscripted
You can’t order someone to share their wisdom. You can’t mandate insight. Knowledge emerges when trust exists, when a colleague feels safe, respected, and personally motivated.
KM Mistake: Creating mandatory “knowledge sharing” KPIs.
What works instead: Cultivating psychological safety. Recognizing volunteers. Making sharing feel human, not like a compliance tick-box.
2. We only know what we know when we need to know it
Ever had an “aha!” moment in the middle of a crisis? That’s the principle in action. Most of our knowledge is dormant, triggered by specific contexts and clues, not by searching a static FAQ.
KM Mistake: Building exhaustive databases “just in case.”
What works instead: Designing pull systems, search by role, problem, or urgent need. Use cues and scenarios to trigger recall.
3. In the context of real need, few people will withhold their knowledge
When a colleague is drowning and asks for help, people step up. Abstract requests (“Please document your expertise”) get ignored. Real needs unlock generosity and cooperation.
KM Mistake: Asking for knowledge out of context.
What works instead: Creating live problem-solving forums, “clinics,” or rapid-response huddles around actual operational pain points.
4. Everything is fragmented
Knowledge is not a tidy, unified whole. It lives in clusters, islands, and micro-communities. The sales team knows different things from engineering. The Chennai office knows different things from Berlin.
KM Mistake: Trying to build a single source of truth.
What works instead: Connecting the islands, not flattening them. Use boundary spanners, cross-functional storytelling, and social network analysis.
5. Tolerated failure imprints learning better than success
Success breeds confidence. Failure breeds wisdom. We remember the project that imploded far more vividly than the one that sailed smoothly. “Worst practices” are often better teachers than best practices.
KM Mistake: Only celebrating wins and hiding mistakes.
What works instead: Running pre-mortems, failure reviews, and “worst practice” libraries. Make it safe to share what didn’t work.
6. The way we know things is not the way we report we know things
After a decision, we craft a tidy, rational story. But the real knowing was messy, intuitive, emotional, and fragmented. The after-the-fact narrative is fiction dressed as fact.
KM Mistake: Relying only on post-project reports.
What works instead: Capturing in-the-moment sense-making. audio logs, decision diaries, or “what really happened” roundtables before the rationalization sets in.
7. We always know more than we can say, and we will always say more than we can write down
This is the classic iceberg of tacit knowledge. What fits in a document is the tip. Beneath it? Experience, judgment, muscle memory, intuition.
KM Mistake: Obsessing over document management.
What works instead: Investing in narrative, mentoring, storytelling, and apprenticeship. Use stories, especially stories of failure, to carry tacit knowledge across time and space.
What This Means for KM Strategy
Snowden isn’t anti-technology. He’s anti-illusion. The illusion that knowledge can be conscripted, codified, and commodified.
If you walk away with one thing from this Intellobics.com blog post, let it be this:
- Stop pushing knowledge. Start pulling it.
- Stop worshiping success. Start learning from failure.
- Stop building databases. Start fostering trust and narrative.
In the end, knowledge management is not about managing knowledge. It’s about curating conditions. Conditions where humans feel safe enough, interested enough, and connected enough to share what they truly know.
*Illustration by: Marija Savić Lopičić
Dobrica Savić
QUESTION (2026-05-05):
Martin Kellerhals
Aviation Safety & Knowledge Leadership | Board‑level decision quality in complex systems | CEO, KM Knowledge Management International
You’re putting your finger on the real failure mode of many KM initiatives.
They don’t break because of a lack of content, but because they are designed as if knowledge were just better data.
Snowden’s principles are still such a sharp antidote to that mindset: knowledge as volunteered, contextual, fragmented, embodied in practice rather than in repositories.
In my advisory work I often see exactly this gap you describe: highly sophisticated systems, very poor alignment with how people actually recall, share and use what they know in real situations.
That’s why I’m very interested in your article:Which of the seven principles do you currently see most systematically ignored in organizations—and why do you think that is?
MY REPLY (2026-05-06):
Thank you for taking the time to read my article, show interest, and share your comments. Your question about the most ignored KM principle in organizations is a very valid one, not only for me, but, I believe, for all of us. We should each reflect on one area, one task, or one set of actions that, if addressed promptly, could have the greatest impact. In doing so, we can use our time and efforts more effectively.
My first instinct is that the psychological and cultural environment is the most important. This relates to Principle #1: Knowledge can only be volunteered, not conscripted. Creating a culture of mutual respect, along with a safe space for making mistakes or discussing weaknesses and missed opportunities, remains a common challenge in many organizations.
That said, I am also aware that changing organizational culture is difficult and requires time, as well as strong support from top management. Therefore, I would like to highlight another principle that may be easier to implement: Principle #4: Everything is fragmented. While I did not want to modify any of Snowden’s original seven principles, this is the one I would be most inclined to slightly adapt, reframing it as “Everything is fragmented but still interconnected.”
I suggest this not to loosely invoke quantum theory, but to emphasize that within an organization, every action, or inaction, has consequences elsewhere. For example, dismissing or laughing at an unusual comment or suggestion from a colleague, perhaps someone perceived as unimportant or typically reclusive, could eventually contribute to a significant technical or financial failure. That individual may have held a fragmented piece of knowledge, which ultimately pointed to a much larger issue that could have been prevented if the organizational culture had been more inclusive and if knowledge had been treated as deeply interconnected.