Undercurrents surfaces insights from leaders driving capacity-building
and performance improvement beyond traditional L&D
to explore where learning happens and where it’s headed.
By Mark Britz
The terminology around knowledge management can sound formal, even academic. Yet the work Kayla Harrison, a Knowledge Management Specialist with Turner Fleischer, a design studio based in Toronto, Canada, describes is grounded in something far more practical.
When people ask what she does, she rarely leads with her title. Instead, she reframes it in simpler terms. She describes herself as an information professional who helps the organization capture, organize, and share its knowledge so that people can make better decisions, innovate, and build on what already exists. That shift in language matters because it brings the work closer to where it actually lives inside everyday decisions, conversations, and workflows.
“I help my organization capture, organize, and share its knowledge so that studio members can make better decisions, innovate, and build on what we already know,” she said.
What became clear early in our conversation is that knowledge management, like many of the roles supporting change, is not something most people intentionally pursue. It is something they discover, often by stepping into a problem that doesn’t yet have a clear owner.
An Opportunity That Didn’t Exist… Until It Did
Kayla’s path into knowledge management reflects that pattern. She began as a project coordinator, already working close to information, organization, and coordination across teams. The turning point came not through a formal assignment, but through curiosity.
Her studio has an internal intranet platform called Newton, and she found herself drawn to it. She began contributing content on her own, experimenting with how information could be structured and shared more effectively. That initiative did not go unnoticed. Leadership saw the value in what she was doing, and more importantly, she recognized something in the work itself.
She found that she enjoyed working with subject matter experts, capturing what they knew, and shaping it into something others could use. Over time, that interest evolved into a role.
In 2021, when the pandemic forced the organization into a fully remote environment, the importance of knowledge management became more visible: “Any time spent searching for an answer is time lost.”
The intranet shifted from a useful tool to a critical system for communication and continuity.
In that moment, the need for a team to focus on how knowledge was captured and shared became undeniable. Kayla’s role did not emerge overnight, but rather through a combination of timing, organizational need, and a broader effort to formalize how knowledge could better support the practice.
Beyond Documents & Into Meaning
One of the more persistent misconceptions about knowledge management is that it revolves around documents. Files are stored, categorized, and retrieved, and the function is often reduced to maintaining that system.
Kayla described something quite different. Much of her team’s work is centered on creating shared understanding, particularly when multiple stakeholders are involved. Each person brings their own perspective, assumptions, and ways of communicating, and those differences can make even simple information difficult to align.
Her role often involves listening carefully to what people are actually trying to communicate, identifying the underlying intent, and then shaping that into something coherent and usable. In that sense, the work is as much about interpretation as it is about organization.
This is where her description of designing the experience of knowledge becomes particularly relevant. Knowledge is not simply stored and retrieved; it is encountered by people who are trying to accomplish something. The way it is structured, written, and presented determines whether it helps or hinders that effort.
The Shape of Knowledge in Practice
Inside their intranet, this philosophy shows up in deliberate choices about how information is structured and presented. Pages are designed to be consistent so that users develop familiarity over time. Language is simplified wherever possible to reduce ambiguity. Taxonomy is treated as a tool for shared meaning rather than just classification.
In an environment like architecture, where specialized language and acronyms are common, this becomes especially important. New studio members are not just learning processes; they are learning how to interpret the language of the organization itself. Making that language visible and accessible becomes a critical part of onboarding and day-to-day effectiveness.
The introduction of AI into their platform has added another layer to this work. Their intranet includes AI-powered search summaries that allow users to ask questions and receive synthesized responses based on internal content. While this capability improves access, it has also surfaced gaps in the underlying knowledge base.
In reviewing more than a thousand pages to support AI-driven search, Kayla and her team discovered inconsistencies, missing terminology, and areas where the content did not fully reflect how work was being done. Rather than replacing knowledge management, the technology reinforced its importance by making those gaps more visible.
Where Knowledge Breaks Down
According to Kayla, a common area where knowledge tends to break down in organizations is communication. In fast-moving, hybrid environments, even small misalignments can have a ripple effect. Information can be interpreted differently depending on context, timing, or location, and those differences can compound over time.
The challenge is not always a lack of information, but a lack of shared understanding. When teams operate across offices, disciplines, or cultural contexts, the same message can carry different meanings. Without intentional effort to align language and expectations, those differences can create inefficiencies that are difficult to trace back to a single source.
“A huge part of my work is creating
Kayla Harrison
shared understanding.”
Knowledge management, as she described it, acts as a connector within that system. It helps ensure that information flows more clearly and reaches the right audience in a way that makes sense to them. At the same time, it does not replace the need for direct communication. Systems can support clarity, but they cannot fully substitute for conversation.
People, Not Just Content
Another theme that emerged throughout our conversation is that knowledge management is not solely about connecting people to information. It is also about connecting people to each other.
Even in an environment with extensive documentation, there are moments where the most effective path forward is speaking with someone who has direct experience. Recognizing when to rely on content and when to rely on people is part of what makes a knowledge system effective.
This perspective also shapes how success is understood. Metrics such as search efficiency or content usage provide some insight, but they do not fully capture the impact. Instead, success is reflected in how easily people can find what they need, how confident they feel in using it, and whether they know where to go when they need more context.
Where Learning Fits
The relationship between knowledge management and learning and development surfaced naturally in our discussion. While the two functions are closely related, they play distinct yet complementary roles.
Learning and development tends to focus on building individual capability, often through structured experiences. Knowledge management takes a broader view, looking at how information, processes, and experiences are connected across the organization.
Kayla described this in terms of organizational memory, which includes not only documented information, but also the patterns, routines, and lessons that shape how the organization responds to new situations. Preserving and making that memory accessible ensures that the organization can build on its past rather than repeatedly starting from scratch.
The Undercurrent
“At the end of the day, we’re all human. We just need to talk to each other,” Kayla said, sharing the foundation of her work.
What became increasingly clear throughout this conversation is that knowledge management operates quietly, often in the background, shaping how work happens without drawing attention to itself. When it functions well, people rarely notice it. They simply experience less friction.
When it is missing or underdeveloped, the effects are more visible. People spend time searching for information that should be easy to find. They rely on informal channels that may not scale. They make decisions without full context, not because they lack ability, but because they lack access.
In many cases, what appears to be a capability gap is actually a clarity gap. The knowledge exists, but it is not structured or surfaced in a way that makes it usable.
The role Kayla describes sits directly in that space, shaping how knowledge is captured, connected, and experienced. It ensures that what an organization knows does not remain hidden in systems or in people’s heads but becomes something that can be applied in real moments of work.
In a time where information is abundant and change is constant, that ability to turn knowledge into something usable may be less of a support function and more of a defining advantage.
