The document discusses the difference between "knowing that" and "knowing how." It argues that while case analysis relies on declarative knowledge ("knowing that"), implementing decisions requires procedural knowledge ("knowing how"). It notes this gap was explored in Socratic dialogues, where knowing something is virtuous does not guarantee virtuous action. The document advocates "working through" decisions and their emotional impacts to translate declarative into procedural knowledge unconsciously, promoting decisive yet unconflicted action. The case method aims to develop this skill over merely evaluating options.

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On Knowing ‘That’ and Knowing ‘How’
Introduction
The role and status of knowledge in the case method is a continual source of
fascination and irritation depending on what a case discussant understands by the
case method. This essay is an attempt to differentiate not so much between theory
and practice in the conventional sense, but between two forms of practice that are
represented by the terms ‘knowing that’ and ‘knowing how.’ A case analysis starts
with a situation analysis where any form of ‘declarative knowledge’ available under
the aegis of ‘knowing that’ is put to use, but ends with a recommendation that
requires an understanding of ‘procedural knowledge,’ (i.e., with ‘knowing how,’ in
order to implement the decision). The usual opposition between ‘theory’ and
‘practice’ doesn’t quite capture the spirit of what is going on here. Instead, it is
necessary to understand that both the strategic recommendation and the operational
plan are both dependent on knowledge albeit different kinds of knowledge. In other
words, skill-sets including those defined as decision-making are not cognitively
empty; they are to be understood instead as ‘internalized forms of knowledge.’ The
structural gap then between knowing that and knowing how is relevant in almost all
areas of management theory and practice. This analytic distinction is also analogous
to the difference between general knowledge and specific knowledge (Jensen &
Meckling, 1992). Within a theory of general knowledge itself there is a further
distinction that has been made by philosophers between ‘knowledge by
acquaintance and knowledge by description’ (Russell, 1917, 1951).
Socratic Knowledge
This sense of fascination and irritation that characterizes our understanding of this
gap is not a recent discovery. It goes back all the way to the dialogues of Plato,
where Socrates defines ‘virtue as knowledge.’ This equation between virtue and
knowledge doesn’t seem to make sense initially since knowing something to be a
vice does not prevent the subject from pursuing it: in other words, knowledge does
not necessarily lead to virtue. Knowing whether something is defined as virtue or as

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vice is but a simple instance of knowing that, (i.e. declarative knowledge). The
subject must now translate that knowledge into knowing how in order to intervene
in the situations in which he finds himself. It is precisely at this point that the gap
between declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge emerges not only within
the situation itself but also in the subject’s psyche. The case method is based on the
assumption that the case discussants will not shy away from this gap, but work it
through in their analysis of the situation (by trying to anticipate the intended and
unintended consequences of a decision through a plan of action and a contingency
plan). The Socratic rejoinder, incidentally, in this case, is that even if knowledge per
se is not good enough to be virtue, true knowledge is necessarily a virtue.
The Socratic Position
The misunderstanding of the Socratic contention is related to not understanding
how knowing that and knowing how are related to each other. So while the subject
may not be able to pursue virtue proactively; he may very well decide to do so if he
understood the unfortunate consequences of not doing so. The Socratic position is
that while this gap cannot be closed in situations of ignorance, it can at least be
attempted in situations where there is some declarative knowledge. Virtue, then, for
Socrates is not about knowing that or knowing how, but about learning how to
negotiate the gap between declarative and procedural knowledge effectively since
the differences between the two are not ontologically pre-given, but
epistemologically negotiated in the form of an analytic distinction. In other words,
while knowledge is important, it does not come with guarantees since this gap
constitutes the hysterical structure of subjectivity itself (Fink, 1995; Soler, 1996;
Srinivasan, 2000). It can, at best, increase the probability that the decision-making
subject will be able to surmount the gap between knowing that and knowing how or
at least seek help in doing so since resistance to the case method, for instance, is
linked to the trauma induced by the emergence of this gap in the case discussion.
When this gap emerges, the confidence levels of the case discussants will plummet
unless they are taught to work-through every single decision in addition to thinking-
through every single decision.

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Working-Through
In systems where working-through is defined as a waste of time, there will be
‘residual affects’ that will be displaced on to other decisions that may not be directly
related to the original set of decisions. These affects then are what Freud called
attention to as the ‘residues of the day.’ It is these residues that necessitate the
‘dream-work,’ which is an attempt to be done with the affects generated on any
given day. The dream then is not merely ‘wish-fulfillment,’ as conventionally
defined, but also a form of working-through since in the absence of the affective
residues of any given day there will be no need to produce a dream when the subject
is asleep. That is why literature and history are full of instances where the
implications and or consequences of an important decision are worked through by a
King or a General on the day before the battle in the form of a dream. This doesn’t
make any sense to the dreamer initially. But it retroactively can be understood as an
attempt on the part of the psyche to process the affects attached to strategic decision-
making since the fate of the entire kingdom will depend on the results of the battle
(Freud, 1899, 2006). In other words, working-through affects is not a waste of time
since the ‘translation’ of declarative knowledge into procedural knowledge is
mediated through the formations of the unconscious; the dream-work is a highly-
cited instance of this not only in the practice of psychoanalysis but within theories of
the dream-work itself (Miel, 1966; Forrester, 2006). If a decision-maker does not
work-through consciously, he will find that affects that he is not conscious of will
work their way unconsciously through the psyche anyway and become a crucial
determinant in his cognitive and decision-making style. It is therefore better to
develop at least a moderate sense of control by pro-actively working-through not
merely the options available in a decision-making situation, but also the affects
attached to them lest the affects be acted-out rather than acted upon decisively
(Evans, 1996/97; Laplanche and Pontalis 1973, 1988).
Conclusion
Decisiveness then is not necessarily something that a decision-maker has to aspire
for. It is something that will come automatically if he is committed to both thinking-

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through and working-through a reasonable set of options in a decision-making
situation. Once the situation, the problem, the options, and the evaluation have all
been thought-through and worked-through, the logic of the sequence will propel the
decision-maker into forms of intervention that can be described as ‘decisiveness.’
The case method then is not merely an opportunity to rehearse and evaluate a list of
options as a form of declarative knowledge which students initially imagine it to be,
but a subtle way of inculcating the emotional intelligence necessary to re-think the
traditional quest for understanding the relationship between forms of supposed
knowledge, true knowledge, and virtue. Therein rests the only protection that a
decision-maker will have - as he goes about his work - that he can be decisive
without acting-out repressed conflicts in his psyche.
REFERENCES
Evans, Dylan (1996) ‘Acting-Out,’ An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian
Psychoanalysis (London: Routledge, 1997 reprint), pp. 2-3.
Fink, Bruce (1995). ‘The Lacanian Subject,’ The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and
Jouissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press), pp. 33-48.
Forrester, John (2006). ‘Remembering and Forgetting Freud in Early Twentieth-
Century Dreams,’ Science in Context, 19:1, pp. 65-85.
Freud, Sigmund (1899). Interpreting Dreams, translated by J. A. Underwood with an
introduction by John Forrester (London: Penguin Books, 2006).
Jensen, Michael C. and Meckling, William H. (1992). ‘Specific and general
Knowledge and Organizational Structure,’ Foundations of Organizational Strategy,
edited by Michael C. Jensen (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press), pp.
103-125
Laplanche, Jean and Pontalis, Jean-Bertrand (1973). ‘Working-Through,’ The
Language of Psychoanalysis, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith with an
introduction by Daniel Lagache (London: Karnac Books, 1988), pp. 488-489.
Miel, Jan (1966). ‘Jacques Lacan and the Structure of the Unconscious,’ Yale French
Studies, 36/37, pp. 104-111.

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Russell, Bertrand (1917). ‘Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by
Description,’ Mysticism and Logic (Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble Books, 1951 reprint),
pp. 152-167.
Soler, Colette (1996). ‘Hysteria and Obsession,’ Reading Seminars I and II: Lacan’s
Return to Freud, edited by Richard Feldstein, Bruce Fink, and Maire Jaanus (Albany
SUNY Press), pp. 248-282.
Srinivasan, Shiva Kumar (2000). ‘Socrates and the Discourse of Hysteria,’ Analysis, 9,
pp. 18-36.
SHIVA KUMAR SRINIVASAN, IIM KOZHIKODE