ABSTRACT
This chapter argues for the importance of an organizational commitment to shaping and nurturing a tacit knowledge sharing culture. It illustrates the potential downstream effect of dysfunctional organizational knowledge sharing on the ability of front-line practitioners to benefit from tacit knowledge, sometimes described as 'what the knowers know'. The multi-tiered US healthcare system includes several layers to its organizational blunt end, thus adding to the complexity of communicating information and evidence. The blunt end operationalizes decisions made by external entities that shape regulations, policies, and procedures that impact the sharp end and the delivery of care. For the purposes of this discussion, they are the organizations considered to be on the blunt-blunt end of the healthcare system. Leadership must persist in coordinating knowledge exchange across professional groups within complex adaptive organizations. Robust strategies will provide opportunities to create connections, networks, and developmental models that include tacit knowledge sharing efforts and goals to connect them with the changing external environment.
