Companies are more like living organisms than machines, he argued, and most viewed knowledge as a static input to the corporate machine. --from a wikipedia entry
I stumbled on this entry through a blog conversation with Brian Virtue. This quote sparkled as I read it, because it summarizes my frustrations with large organizations/groups.
How I have seen this quote play out:
- A general misunderstanding that knowledge only satiates the organization. I content that knowledge feeds and nourishes in addition to satisfying the present needs.
- The desire to contain and manage information, rather than grow it. Instead of empowering people who desire to innovate, many times they are constricted by making the person 'the one who does or knows x or y really well,' rather than facilitating and translating that person's knowledge throughout the organization. That person gets even smarter, but the organization remains ignorant.
One more gem from the entry:
Nonaka advocated a view of knowledge as renewable and changing, and that knowledge workers were the agents for that change. Knowledge-creating companies, he believed, should be focused primarily on the task of innovation.--ibid
How does your organization or local context treat information? Is it more to satiate the present or fuel the future and innovation?
photo courtesy of caveman_92223