promises. If an organization is to ensure its survival, it is this tacit
or implicit knowledge that needs collecting. In fact, we believe
it is this tacit knowledge that becomes the legacy that managers
and leaders must bequeath to the organization before they leave
or before they move from one position to another within an
organization.
Leaving Learning BehindLeaving something of enduring value to an organization—at the
end of each month, each year, or an entire career—should be
the ideal of every manager. At any one point in time, it is only
when contributions made by individuals can be sustained or
applied to future issues and problems that they can achieve their
full potential for the organization. This can happen when inven-
tions or innovations revolutionize operations for years to come.
More often, however, sustained improvements occur when highly
effective managers pass on their learning to others. In truth, this
doesn’t happen often enough.
We believe that an organization can capture the valuable
learning experiences and intellectual capital of its high-performing
talent for sustained excellence in future years if the organization
encourages the long-term, ongoing building, living, and leaving of
legacies. By leaving knowledge behind, an individual’s legacy
becomes the ability to build new ways of thinking and learning in
others. This in turn improves the ways in which daily business is
conducted so that new levels of organizational and individual
maturity can be achieved.
Legacy Defined
Although the concept of a legacy has traditionally been linked to
money or property, we suggest that a legacy does not have to be
something tangible. Unlike an heirloom, a legacy in our sense
is something that must be digested, processed, and absorbed by
someone else before it can be considered “passed on.”
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