Turn Knowledge Into Performance

“Knowing-doing gap: a gap between what companies KNOW and DO; the greater the gap, the more distorted the organizations from the expected performance they aspire to BE.”

Why does knowing-doing gap exist?

In this rapidly changing market place, many organizations are wondering why their knowledge management initiatives do not give the result as expected. There is little to no increase in the organization’s overall performance though trainings, workshops, and other development programs have been done.

It turns out that this is due to the unimplemented knowledge within the organizations. Most of them have not understood that knowledge is a potential power, which means it can be turned to a great power only it is applied. It will have little value if it is idle.

Based on a Think Paper published by Know and Do, This condition is called a knowing-doing gap. There is a gap between what companies KNOW and DO. Knowing-doing gap is an important issue to companies today, because if they are unable to maximize the knowledge they have, they can’t perform better.

Turn Knowledge Into Performance

The following factors may help organizations to minimize the knowing-doing gap:

1. Understand “why” before acquiring “how”

It is best to understand the “why” first before acquiring the “how” and other best practices. The “why” helps us to direct our focus in the most important part of acquiring the knowledge: “why we need it?”.

2. Knowing is a result of practice, practice, and practice

Knowing can be expanded through a lot of practice. From practices we can learn what works and what doesn’t, and it grows more everytime we implement it.


As a standard for cyber security system, ISO/IEC 27001 is the international standard for Information Security Management System that can be implemented in organization. This standard is integrated with other IT Management System and able to be adapted into any kind of organization. Aside from implementing a standard, assessment shall be performed on a regular basis, for instance Vulnerability Assessment, Penetration Testing, or IT Audit. These kind of measures are part of a Cyber Security System.

3. Plan have no value without action

Plan and action must go hand-in-hand to achieve goals more effectively. Without action, plan is meaningless, as action counts more and it isn’t grounded on a real-life experience.

4. Embrace mistakes and learn from it !

Mistake is an essential part of doing. Many organizations fear of doing because they are afraid to making mistakes. Therefore, as part of action, we must embrace mistakes—but learn from it!

5. Fear supports knowing-doing gaps, so take out fear

Fear is the root-cause to many problems happening in organizations. Leaders have to support the culture of people first and drive out fear to downsize the knowing-doing gaps.

6. Promote collaboration, not competition

It is a bad idea to put competition within the organization as part of the managing process. Through collaboration, the result is a product of common effort, the goal is shared, and each member’s success is linked with every other’s.

7. Measure what is essential

Measuring is very essential to evaluate whether the organizations have achieved the expected performance. Measure what is essential and has direct impact to the basic business model to avoid confusion.

8. What leaders do, how they spend their time and how they allocate resources, matters

Leaders have to understand that their most important task is not necessarily to make strategic decisions. Their task is to help build systems that facilitate transformation of knowledge into action in a smooth, reliable way.

9. Continous learning in the organization

As the world is rapidly changing, leaders have to promote continuous learning culture within the organization to keep being relevant with the industry.

10. Development of competences and management based on competences

To achieve a higher performance, organization must develop their human resources and manage it based on each specific competences.

It is the organization’s overall goal to turn knowledge into performance through minimizing knowing-doing gaps within their organization.

This is what we at Multimatics do at best. We help organizations to turn knowledge into performance. As the most thriving professional services specializing in IT Management and Strategy, our consultants will guide you to maximize the knowledge your organization has into an overall better performance. Our consultants will not only provide you with proven advices and insights, but also with a thorough action plan to implement the knowledge—thus minimizing knowing-doing gaps. Supported by widely recognized frameworks and best practices, we will help you to achieve more of your business goals.

(source: KnowAndDo Think Paper )

Scroll to Top