KASH

Knowledge, Attitude, Skills, and Habit

Knowledge and skills are mostly associated with learning. These two factors of learning are typically
developed through teaching or experience. Whereas attitude and habits are factors associated with
execution. These two are cultivated through good coaching.

Often times an individual’s success is dependent upon asking him or herself if acquiring new
knowledge and skills is more vital to their success. You either lack knowledge and skills or you have
poor habits and attitudes. Learning how to learn is an invaluable skill that will take you to new places
and allow you to experience a more fulfilling life.

The KASH box is a performance tool introduced by David herd linger to illustrate that poor
performance is not just lack of knowledge and skills but also due to poor attitude and bad habits

Knowledge and skills

Attitudes and habits

Knowledge are the things you know. Knowledge is different from skills in that it consists of the facts,
information, or theoretical understanding of subjects. By acquiring knowledge your level of
intelligence, wisdom and overall ability to understand social, economic and other various concepts
improves. Building knowledge is a lifetime pursuit. Knowledge consists of everything you’ve managed
to absorb from school, work, friends, and your environment.

ATTITUDE

quoteThis definition is the most nuanced and broad in its application. An important factor to
consider when thinking about your attitude is that it isn’t necessarily about having a “good” or
“bad” attitude, but how your awareness of your own outlook and state-of-mind on a given task
influences your performance.
Attitude is one of the most important factors of learning because while knowledge and skills go a
long way, attitude is what keeps you going. Attitude can also determine your level of enthusiasm,
which is another key factor in staying motivated to expand your knowledge, attitude, skills, and
habits.

Skills are your ability to perform tasks. An individual acquires their skillsets through training,
experience or natural abilities. Skills are different from knowledge because knowledge is a
prerequisite to skills.

Habits

Habits consist of the tiny individual choices and behaviors we act out and repeatedly do with little to
no effort. Great habits drive great performance. When combined with a positive mental attitude, the
skills we practice eventually develop into habits. Positive habits are an important factor to develop
because the personal payoff to your career and success are determined by your daily habits.

contradictions exist for this point of view; Hank Czarnecki opinion is that Knowledge and Skills are
the learning component of an individual, while the Attitude and Habits are the performance
attributes of a person. I disagree with this opinion because Attitude and Habits can be attributed to
the affective learning and the learning internalisation process respectively.

While the opinions may differ, there is a general agreement that improvement of individual KASH
would lead to an overall improvement in the individual’s success. The varying levels of success
between individual can all be simplified into the differences in their individual KASH.

1. Learning is much more than knowledge: Various facets including the gained skills, attitude,
and habitual changes are also important facets of learning than just knowledge.
2. It is developed in small increments: Effectively stating that learning is a gradual process, and
burning midnight oil doesn’t work.

These two ideas are used to define learning as an incremental gain in knowledge, attitude, skills, and
habits (abbreviated as KASH). This is often summarised in simple equation such as,

Learning = ΔKASH

Naturally, over time these incremental gains become sufficiently large enough to create a discrete
change in the individual KASH. In B-schools, there is a wise saying that ‘KASH determines your
Cash(wage)’.