The Knowledge Evolution: Expanding Organizational Intelligence

By Verna Allee

The Knowledge Evolution offers a unique and powerful road map for understanding knowledge creation, learning, and performance in everyday work. This book reframes current thinking by delving into the hidden world of knowledge supporting both individual and organizational performance, laying the foundation for the emerging art of knowledge management. Packed with best practices from leading edge companies, essential guidelines, design principles, analogies, and conceptual frameworks, it serves as a practical guidebook for mastering the Knowledge Era. It will help managers make more intelligent decisions about knowledge creation, reduce wasteful technology investments and lead to new ease and confidence in applying knowledge and learning principles for themselves and for their organizations. Verna Allee delves into current thinking and practice to unravel the genetic code of knowledge itself. This revolutionary approach has surfaced a simple and elegant knowledge archetype. She demonstrates how this archetype can help us deal with complexity and suggests ways of self-organizing that make profound sense in today's networked enterprises. From strategies for core knowledge competencies to the key components of individual expertise, The Knowledge Evolution zeroes in on the critical success factors for the knowledge-based enterprise. What emerges is an approach to knowledge management that is simple enough to communicate at every level of the organization, yet rich enough to encompass all the complexity of modern enterprises. Verna Allee is the founder of Integral Performance Group, a consulting practice in California that specializes in the learning organization, knowledge competencies, organizational systems change, systems thinking, total quality and learning, benchmarking support, best practices research, and strategic development. She holds a degree in the Study of Human Consciousness and her work is informed by a deep interest in intelligence, human development, cognition, intuition and consciousness. She is the author of Learning Links: Enhancing Individual and Team Performance, Pfeiffer and Co-Jossey Bass, 1996.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 075069842X
• ISBN13: 9780750698429
• Release Date: April 1997
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.2" x 0.7" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

Comprehensive, introductory text.

At times, The Knowledge Evolution delved too much into semantics and ontology, in an attempt to develop a "common language". At the time of publication (1997) this may have been relevant but the prevalence of "knowledge management glossaries" reveals that indeed a common language has emerged, making this specific content a bit of an arduous read. Perhaps a second edition is needed, especially since the proprietary value of this book is still not being addressed in current knowledge management (KM) literature. Current KM books almost exclusively focus on data, information and knowledge (DIK). The Knowledge Evolution visions past DIK and adds complex dimensions of meaning, wisdom and philosophy to the knowledge framework. If you do purchase this selection, I recommend writing unabashedly in the margins, or keeping a notebook on hand, connecting the theoretical constructs of knowledge and it's management discussed in the book to a personal context. By and large the scope of the book is very broad, looking inclusively at the field of KM. Since the writing of this book, specific sub-fields within KM have emerged i.e. data mining, group memory technologies, knowledge mapping etc. A reorganization of the content in this book along those lines (i.e. "procedural knowledge" with data mining, "functional knowledge" with knowledge mapping) was a worthwhile endeavor of this reader and would be a tremendous value-add to a second edition.By and large The Knowledge Evolution is a readable and comprehensive introductory text to the field of KM. The book is broad and encompasses so much of the theory and principles behind KM that the actual industry has yet achieve or implement everything discussed. With the enormous influx and popularity of KM books in the past two years I hadn't heard anything about The Knowledge Evolution and now having read it, I realize the book that all these current authors must have also read.

A penetrating look at the knowledge-organization connection.

Taking an organic systems view, the author explores how organizations acquire, manage, and transfer knowledge. Covers: the nature, role and order of knowledge; best practices; types of organizational structures that support knowledge sharing; technologies for knowledge building; developing knowledge strategies; and efforts to measure results. An very impressive gathering and integration of ideas about organization in the Knowledge Era. A first-rate book on a cutting-edge subject.

Impressive integration of theory, innovation & practicality!

Verna quickly brings us all up to speedon the field of knowledge. As she reviews it, she compares and contrasts the current working theories and then integrates them into a working template that links knowledge, learning and performance. This template/model allows us to quickly apply the information to the organizations in which we live or to which we consult. She presents a developmental process for the different levels of knowledge that compares in scholarship and in practical use with Piaget's developmental intelligence, and Kolbergs developmental morality. She then follows up with 6 practical chapters where she more fully explores each level, helping us all to identify where our organization is, where it should be, and some methods to use to get us where we need to be. She writes in an exciting, clear and creative style giving us the basis for understanding more thoroughly what has gone before (giving consistent credit to the many minds that have worked in this field), what links knowledge management does and should have with other crucial systemic concepts such as systems thinking, organization learning, and organizational sustainability, and including us in the innovative ideas that occurred to her as she was doing such scholarly research. The bibliography and references are worth the price of admission themselves.

This is a wise book.

If you are a manager, consultant, student, teacher and you want a good picture of the state of the art of the most strategic issue in organizations today - read this book. Verna Allee`s book presents a broad picture of knowledge in organizations including both theoretical and practical perspectives. Based on a very wide literature and experience she walks the reader through many issues of this new organizational field.

Confused about Knowledge Management? Read this book!

Knowledge management is a fuzzy and unclear topic for a great many people - it was for me. Prior to Allee's book, most of what I could find on the topic was an attempt to sell me on a particular approach or framework. & quot;Knowledge Evolution & quot; is not an attempt to sell a particular conceptual model, but covers the issues related to knowledge management in a fair, easy to understand and refreshing original way. If you want in introduction to this fascinating topic, including the social and technical implications of the knowledge economy, Allee's book is a perfect place to start. Highly recommended!