#27 Diderot’s Enlightenment-Era Knowledge Management - Enlightenment Series I
The French Encyclopédie for today’s HR practices
TL;DR
As the 1st of an Enlightenment Series, we talk about the Encyclopédie, a revolutionary knowledge compilation of the Enlightenment and its knowledge management efforts. This article explores the parallels between 18th-century information structuring and today’s organizational knowledge practices. Discover how knowledge identification, organization, and sharing methods from the past can shape modern HR approaches, enhancing employee experience and productivity.
With the rise of search engines like Google and, more recently, LLM-backed chatbots, accessing centuries of accumulated human knowledge is easier than ever. Behind such sophisticated search engines lies an enormous amount of information accumulated throughout human history. Structuring this information as knowledge has always been essential for the advancement of civilizations.
In an ambitious undertaking nearly 270 years ago, leading intellectuals sought to systematically organize unstructured knowledge. Let’s talk about the Encyclopédie, a general encyclopedia published in France. This groundbreaking project provides valuable insights for modern HR professionals in knowledge management.
Encyclopedia
Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers was an aggregation of general knowledge published in France between 1751 and 1772. This intellectual masterpiece includes 32 volumes with more than 70,000 articles contributed by more than 140 authors.
The main editor was Denis Diderot, one of the prominent French Enlightenment thinkers (until 1759, co-edited by Jean Le Rond d’Alembert). You can access the English version of the Encyclopédie in this website. In the Encyclopédie, there is an entry titled “Encyclopédie”. The entry, authored by Diderot himself, outlines the purpose of the Encyclopedia as follows1.
the purpose of an encyclopedia is to collect knowledge disseminated around the globe; to set forth its general system to the men with whom we live, and transmit it to those who will come after us, so that the work of preceding centuries will not become useless to the centuries to come; and so that our offspring, becoming better instructed, will at the same time become more virtuous and happy, and that we should not die without having rendered a service to the human race
18th-century Europe developed a belief in reason, science, and individual liberty. During the Enlightenment, individuals were encouraged to seek truth, contrasting with the Middle Ages when Christian doctrine largely guided knowledge and belief.
In the same article, he said, “it cannot be the work of a single man”, implying that the Encyclopédie was a collective work and it required various experts to contribute. "It will owe these advantages to the references, the most important aspect of encyclopedic ordering,” he added. This emphasis on cross-referencing enabled readers to explore topics in depth and breadth, connecting ideas across disciplines. This new structure and ways of working opened up the new phase of knowledge management.
As it’s always not easy to implement new ideas, the process of publishing the Encyclopédie was no exception. There was a strict censorship of the royal office to suppress opinions that could go against the current political system. The Encyclopédie contained ideas emphasizing the importance of limiting governmental power and supporting individual liberty. You can see one example in the “Government” entry2.
Because of this, the Encyclopédie was exposed to the risk of prohibition of publication. Diderot skilfully navigated the situation. He put the religious articles at the front so that the censors didn't pay close attention to the risky articles.
What Encyclopédie brought to people
Imagine living in a time before the Encyclopédie was published. One day, you fall ill, but the doctor is two mountains away, and you want a quick remedy. Who would you ask? Where would you go to find what you need? The world without an access to structured knowledge is unimaginably hard.
Similar problems still exist in the modern world when companies don’t streamline the process for employees to get the right information quickly. Studies show that 49% of respondents have trouble locating documents3. Another report indicates that nearly 8 out of 10 companies lack effective tools for capturing and sharing knowledge4. Knowledge management addresses this issue.
Does this fall under the HR scope? It can belong to other departments like IT than HR, but many companies interpret this issue as part of employee experience topics. If your company does not have proper knowledge management, you can address this issue from HR.
Knowledge Management
So what exactly is knowledge management? According to IBM, “Knowledge management (KM) is the process of identifying, organizing, storing and disseminating information within an organization5.” Let’s break down KM into several elements. (Disclaimer: the following explanations are provided by the authors to fit into the context of this blog entry)
Identifying and organizing information
Before integrating the information into a knowledge platform, you need to know what information is available in your company. Since information is often scattered and disorganized, you also need to create a map of categories and classes containing each type of information. To do this, you can start breaking down the value creation process.
Let’s use HR knowledge as an example. To identify information in HR, you can split up HR processes into smaller chunks. Generally, HR processes comprise talent acquisition, onboarding, people development, mobility, off-boarding, rewards, and people analytics. You can organize it differently or in more granular detail to best fit your context. After this, identifying necessary knowledge for each sub-process will be easier.
In the Encyclopédie, being inspired by Francis Bacon, Diderot developed a knowledge structure. This structure is known as “the tree of Diderot and d’Alembert6”. You can create such a knowledge tree to structure the domain knowledge.
Storing information
Once you identify and organize the knowledge, you need to think about where and how you can store the information. Even if knowledge is beautifully classified, storing it in an inaccessible place wastes the effort.
The Encyclopédie employed a book as a media. More than 4000 copies of the first edition were printed and spread across Europe7. Unlike manuscript, books printed by the printing press were probably the best format in the era, because it can preserve the knowledge almost permanently by keeping them in many different locations. Diderot also updated the Encyclopédie by adding new volumes over the years. In this process, standardization is important to keep the consistency.
In the modern business environment, thanks to technology, you no longer have to print new versions in a physical book format. Online tools such as SharePoint or Confluence provide efficient ways to store and update knowledge systematically. For small companies, Notion could be an easy platform to use. The authors of this blog use Notion for knowledge and project management. It is essential to establish governance and processes, ensuring updates are timely and managed by the appropriate people. By the way, Wikipedia, the modern equivalent of the Encyclopédie, implemented robust knowledge management process and architecture, providing a lot of inspirations.
Disseminating information
Having identified, organized, and stored information, is the process complete? Not entirely. You have one more important step: disseminating information. In other words, your employees need to know about the platform and benefit from it. There are several approaches you can take.
Make the platform easily accessible: Setting it as the default browser page or linking it to the employee portal can increase the likelihood of employees using the platform.
Make the information available with a search function: While classified information is helpful, many would find it easy if they can simply type words they are looking for as if they are using Google. Most of modern KM systems include a search function, and some have started incorporating generative AI tools that provides better search experience and makes the search result more readily consumable. It’s important to understand that well-organized information enhances search quality. Remember, “garbage in, garbage out”.
Organize campaigns and provide trainings: Innovators and early adaptors in the technology adoption life cycle may not need support to utilize the KM platform. However, the rest may be reluctant to use it unless their employer pushes the service. To achieve critical mass, it is recommended to launch awareness campaigns and provide dedicated training. Even if HR is not leading the KM practice in your company, this particular initiative should be led by HR.
Shift culture to record and share: Though this is not a very concrete solution, this is the most powerful one. Cultivating a culture that values documentation and information sharing can greatly enhance dissemination efforts. This won’t happen in a day, and actions will be highly contextual, but remember “culture eats strategy for breakfast”, said Peter Drucker.
While Diderot did not probably lead a European-wide change management project, the European citizens played the role collectively. Over time, the Encyclopédie spread across not only among Europe’s elites, but also the group of people who couldn’t afford the original expensive edition (Woloch, 245)8. These people became a driving force for revolutionary moves and eventually ignite the French Revolution.
Collaboration with stakeholders
In some companies, the employee experience (EE) team leads KM initiatives. In this case, HR’s role involves close collaboration with the IT department. The HR department is responsible for building a team of subject matter experts (SMEs) from functions like marketing, finance, production, and supply chain, gathering needs, designing the overall process, and liaising with the IT team. Unless your IT department has expertise in KM systems, EE team needs to conduct extensive research to choose the right KM service. After the service is selected, EE and IT need to work in tandem to develop and deploy the tool. Once the service went live, EE needs to launch campaigns and trainings to encourage employees to use the KM tool.
Conclusion
It’s undeniable that the Encyclopédie is one of the most intellectual masterpieces of humanity. However, it is not free from a flaw. Despite the authors’ efforts to be objective, it was often arbitrary. All the authors of the Encyclopedia were male. Women may have contributed to the project, but their names were not included.
When building the knowledge management platform, it is important to pay attention to who contributed to the knowledge. Do the contributors reflect diversity? Do not forget that history we are learning today has been largely written by males. We live through a biased history. Even seemingly modest contributions play a vital role in fostering a more inclusive and accurate historical narrative for future generations.
Denis Diderot, “Encyclopedia” trans. Philip Stewart, Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers" , 5 (Paris, 1755): 635–48A. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/did2222.0000.004/--encyclopedia?hi=0;rgn=main;view=fulltext;q1=encyclopedia
Louis, Chevalier de Jaucourt, "Government" trans. Stephen J. Gendzier, Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 7 (Paris, 1757): 788–791. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=did;cc=did;rgn=main;view=text;idno=did2222.0001.307
“Recover the Lost Time Spent Searching for Information”, Nintext, February 13, 2018,
https://www.nintex.com/blog/recover-lost-time-spent-searching-information/
“The Definitive Guide: Employee Experience”, The Josh Bersin Company, 2021. https://joshbersin.com/ex-definitive-guide-2021/
“What is knowledge management”, IBM, accessed on October 28, 2025. https://www.ibm.com/topics/knowledge-management
File:ENC SYSTEME FIGURE.jpeg, accessed on October 28, 2024. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ENC_SYSTEME_FIGURE.jpeg
Megan Mulder, ZSR LIBRARY, November 13, 2013. https://zsr.wfu.edu/2013/encyclopedie-ou-dictionnaire-raisonne-des-sciences-des-arts-et-des-metiers-edited-by-denis-diderot-1751-1780/
Isser Woloch, Eighteenth-Century Europe: Tradition and Progress, 1715–1789. New York: W. W. Norton, 1982.