Knowledge Management: The Death of Wisdom

Chapter 1

The Race Where Every Sprinter Drops the Baton

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual.

—George Santayana, US philosopher and poet1

When the London Olympics was staged in July/August 2012, bosses all over the world will have had the opportunity to see an aspect of management they themselves neglect in the way they make, and are taught to make, their decisions. Over much of the 64-year period since the event was first staged in Great Britain’s capital, athletes were using a technique that enabled them to achieve performances ...