The Critical Differences Between Knowledge, Skill, and Attitude

As students of effective positive change, it is always interesting to observe how organizations and individuals strategically plan for change. Or, in a significant number of cases, how they fail to plan and strategize the best and most effective path to achieve their desired goal. In organizational and business settings, this greatly impacts both the "teacher" and the "learner." For example, how do banks move their generations of clients from a "paper system" to an electronic system of transactions? How does Amazon move the masses from walking into stores to buying online? The truth is that it far more complicated than the adage, "If you build it, they will come."

How do health related businesses and organizations such as ours introduce an app to generations of vastly different aged and experienced populations?

The keys to success in "market moving" and "benefit expansion" lie in the clear and critical distinction between knowledge, skill and attitude. Homegrown definition of the three elements as they relate to planning, launching, and successfully maintaining a new app in the healthcare industry demonstrate the role of each of the three elements.

Knowledge

Knowledge is the key and fundamental information about the subject. It is from the "books" and includes the academic definitions of terms and processes. It is the book on how to hit a home run, how to play piano scales, how to backpack in Europe, how to assess consumer wants and needs. In planning an app for the healthcare industry, knowledge answers questions such as: Why are we considering creating an app? What type of app should it be? How will it benefit our business model? What are the common elements of successful apps? What resources does it take to build, launch, and maintain an app? What app components would I list as mandatory and what would I list as "not mandatory, but nice to have?". Do I know enough about the idiosyncrasies of the desired markets to change a significant element of how I currently conduct my business? In essence, do I have enough knowledge about apps and designers, my motives, my staff and the marketplace to move forward. Am I dreaming or scheming?

Skill

Skill is the process of successfully applying that knowledge. It takes into consideration the unique elements of the populations who need to agree to accept and incorporate that knowledge. How technically knowledgeable need the market be to buy into the requested action? What are the common generational beliefs of a given market regarding buying into the requested action? How can the requested action be framed to reflect as a benefit to the target markets? How does the factor of "trusting the source" impact the desired buy in? How effective are staff in listening and truly hearing the questions or issues of patients and clients about using an app? How effective are staff in interpreting the new app to clients in terms of benefits it will provide to them.

Attitude

Attitude, in this construct, suggests that having the knowledge AND the skill still requires the ability of all involved to identify their own resistances to change and hopefully deal with them prior to engaging other with a new plan. Generally, these resistances show up as generalizations, such as:

• Our clients will never go for this!
• Old people don't use apps!
• We're too busy to do this now.
• I can't even balance my checking account, how am I going to help explain the new app to our patients?

The winning recipe for change exists in the ingredients. In the proper amounts of Knowledge, Skill, and Attitude.

Our combined history or over 50 years in the healthcare industry continues to show that new concepts, ideas, programs. and processes (and yes, even apps) can be developed and launched successfully. Positive Change can occur without the 3 R's (revolution, resistance, and rage!).

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