Research by Richard E. Clark, EdD, and others, about the non-conscious nature of knowledge – shows that approximately 70% of decision-making knowledge is automated, and actions that anyone can observe themselves doing are about 35% non-conscious. They are simply inaccessible to any of us regardless of our awareness of that, and regardless of how hard anyone tries to overcome that to tell us, or share with us “how to do” the performance or to provide advice.

The good news, according to Dick, is that we each know a different 30% and 65%, and so to get more accurate, complete, and appropriate content/advice, we need to avoid reliance on just one person, one expert, and we need to work with 4-5 experts per Dick’s advice.

We shouldn’t avoid top performers/experts and focus on average or novice performers – for reasons that I think are obvious.

Dick has contributed a boatload of articles and papers at HPT Treasures, under the heading of: “Cognitive Task Analysis and Automated Knowledge” – available for free download here.

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