Organizational Knowledge Quotes

The vast majority of organizations today have more than enough intelligence, experience and knowledge to be successful. What they lack is organizational health.

A lot of knowledge in any kind of an organization is what we call task knowledge. These are things that people who have been there a long time understand are important, but they may not know how to talk about them. It's often called the culture of the organization.

If you've worked in a company for a long time, there's a mythology that you know by heart, you don't need to look it up to evoke. It's there in your blood, as it were.

It's important to experience as many parts of an organization as you can - because some day, you may have the chance to lead that organization.

On the simplest level, telecommuting makes it harder for people to have the kinds of informal interactions that are crucial to the way knowledge moves through an organization. The role that hallway chat plays in driving new ideas has become a cliche of business writing, but that doesn't make it less true.

As a decision maker, you rely on information being passed to you by the people who report to you. As the CEO, however, you cannot rely solely on this information. You also need to 'dip' down into your organization and learn directly from employees at all levels and virtually all skill sets.

A leader has to know how the system functions - not just the system of government but the whole social and economic system, including business, the unions, and the universities.

The central problem of management is how spontaneous interaction of people within a firm, each possessing only bits of knowledge, can bring about the competitive success that could only be achieved by the deliberate direction of a senior management that possesses the combined knowledge of all employees and contractors

Institutional memory is important in any organization, but so are fresh ideas.

To be successful, it is imperative that you not only know the organizations you work with, but more specifically, you have to know the actual people you work with within these organizations, understand what their personal goals and motivations are. In short, to be successful, you need to humanize your clients.