Part 1

Drawing on the Past

Chapter 1

Where Is the Knowledge?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

—T. S. Eliot, The Rock (1935)

The works of poet T. S. Eliot appear regularly in management books, even though he technically was not a management guru. So why is it that so many of us turn to a poet rather than an academic, corporate executive, or some other management pundit when we feel the need to explain how knowledge is lost in organizations? Surely, a poet from another century is not the leading authority on creating and exchanging enterprise knowledge.

T. S. Eliot’s frequent quotation is likely because he so eloquently stated what many of us try to express when he penned the ...

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