Knowledge Management: Philosophy, Processes, and Pitfalls

According to a leading scholar of management James Brian Quinn,' "The capacity to manage human intellectand to transform intellectual output into a service or a group of services embodied in a product is fast becoming the critical executive skill of this era." Contrast that with the assertion by the pointy-haired boss of the Dilbert cartoon that his company's success will be driven by "redesigning processes to enable enterprise integration of knowledge resources and tools." The first is a serious, thoughtful, and eminently reasonable statement of a belief in the transformation of management. The second is a caricature of that belief, subsequently doused by Wally's response, "Is it okay if I do nothing?" Leave it to Scott Adams and his alter egos to gut the sanctity from the latest management fad.