Harnessing the Value of Experience in the Knowledge-Driven Firm Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

The total amount of management experience in the corporate world is a combined power of thousands of years of fighting in the trenches - winning and learning, loss and learning, always learning. Ignoring management experience reduces by more than half of the amount of knowledge available in the company. What the company really knows, in reports and databases. It is tucked away in the minds of its people, their memories and intuitions. Companies that channel resources to the database through access to tacit knowledge are leaving their most valuable intellectual assets. Unfortunately, many knowledge management systems do not apply for this tacit knowledge born of experience. Companies need to approach the collection and exchange of experiences, using the technique of summing up and mentoring. Debriefing, which has proved to be an effective method commonly used by the military, must be tied to a major advantage for both current and departing manager. Managers need to be questioned, not only at the exit from the company, and after participation in conferences or seminars, after a meeting with an important client at the conclusion of important projects and efforts (such as a contract of sale), and to a promotion or transfer. Coaching and mentoring to create a quasi-overlapping ownership of more and less experienced managers, providing more intensive and informal communication and the exchange of observations. Mentoring is particularly useful in the transfer of tacit knowledge in foreign managerial tasks. "Hide
by Eliezer Geisler Source: Business Horizons 9 pages. Publication Date: May 15, 1999. Prod. #: BH025-PDF-ENG