People-focused knowledge management

Many Mental Models Are Based on Metaknowledge
The role of metaknowledge in personal behavior is crucially
important and provides the basis for many of our more abstract and
general mental models.
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However, metaknowledge often is neglected
because its structure is elusive and tacit and because only within the
last decade has its importance been widely explored and it is still not
well known. As a result, for most people, the concept, nature, and
roles of metaknowledge are in many cases misunderstood, generally
unknown, or even considered irrelevant for practical purposes (Kuhn
2000).
Metaknowledge has often been considered to be limited to the
knowledge a person has about the knowledge that he or she pos-
sesses. Metaknowledge may not be considered by itself. Instead, it
may be oriented toward addressing challenges or tasks that have pur-
poses and goals. As we now understand it, relationships between
kinds of metastrategic knowing and two kinds of metaknowledge are
indicated in Figure 3-10 and are explained further in Appendix C.
On the highest abstraction level, metaknowledge consists of metacog-
nition, which Kuhn (2000) indicated can be divided into:
Metastrategic knowing, which provides strategies to address
task goals.
Metatask knowing, which provides specifics on the task goals
themselves.
Metacognitive knowing, which is metaknowledge about declar-
ative knowing.
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Actions Are Initiated by Knowledgeable People
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On the lowest abstraction level, metaknowledge can be 
divided into:
Procedural metaknowledge, which is about know-how and
strategies for how to proceed toward the task goal.
Declarative metaknowledge, which is about know-what and
knowing what is known.
People build metaknowledge automatically in their minds without
being aware of it (by implicit learning), but part of metaknowledge
can also be taught explicitly, and this has important practical impli-
cations. For example, by learning about procedural metaknowledge,
a person can build mental models of different methodological
approaches suitable for different types of problems. The relationships
between metaknowledge and topic knowledge — as we understand
it at present — are indicated in Figure 3-10 with selected knowledge
examples from insurance industry topics. Some important aspects are
that metaknowledge-based mental models:
Provide people with tacit mental strategy models for procedural
(methodological) and declarative (topic) knowledge.
Provide greater work effectiveness by leading to:
— Greater innovation and creativity by providing powerful
strategies and broad and abstract perspectives that allow
development of new patterns.
— Increased ability to “go straight for the goal” and “do the
right thing the first time” instead of procrastinating or
making errors.
— Better understanding of, and ability to exploit, the processes
in which they are engaged.
— Fewer false steps.
Help people to be aware of the intellectual processes in which
they are engaged and of alternative strategies that may be better.
Make people explicitly cognizant of how they think — and may
allow themselves to think — when engaged in situation-
handling under many different conditions.