Leading Organizational Learning

Chapter Four

Where “Managing Knowledge” Goes

Wrong and What to Do Instead

Niko Canner

Jon R. Katzenbach

“Knowledge management” is more often than not a bad idea. We
will explain why this is so and how to make better use of the under-
lying good ideas that got us interested in knowledge management
in the first place.
In an age that has been marked by extraordinary progress in our
ability to process, manipulate, and transfer information, we are nat-
urally drawn to see the world through the lens of information. Any
problem that has not been reduced to a problem of manipulating
and transporting information holds within itself the apparent seed
of a breakthrough in productivity. Inventory along a supply chain
is managed at far lower levels as the informational content associ-
ated with orders and resource requirements is shared across multi-
ple linked enterprises. Credit scoring can be performed effectively
in real time and at a distance, given the ability to leverage models
built from large databases. Amazon.com is able to deliver book
recommendations far better than we would expect from most mem-
bers of the staff of a local Barnes & Noble bookstore, if perhaps not
as well as the proprietor of a good bookstore in a college town.

The Role of Human Judgment

in Knowledge Management

Where the practice of knowledge management (indeed the very
expression “knowledge management”) has most frequently gone

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