If you consider the C.I.A. as an example of a knowledge based
organization, this op-ed piece from David Brooks is worth some thought.
Here's the money quote from my parochial perspective:
But the problem is not bureaucratic. It's epistemological. Individuals
are good at using intuition and imagination to understand other humans.
We know from recent advances in neuroscience, popularized in Malcolm
Gladwell's “Blink,” that the human mind can perform fantastically
complicated feats of subconscious pattern recognition. There is a
powerful backstage process we use to interpret the world and the people
around us.
are good at using intuition and imagination to understand other humans.
We know from recent advances in neuroscience, popularized in Malcolm
Gladwell's “Blink,” that the human mind can perform fantastically
complicated feats of subconscious pattern recognition. There is a
powerful backstage process we use to interpret the world and the people
around us.
When we think about knowledge work processes, we need to be very
careful to ensure that we do not destroy those processes by mapping
them onto bad assumptions about the nature of knowledge work.
The Art of Intelligence. Many of the C.I.A.'s failures stem from its reliance on bureaucracy and analysis rather than humanism. By By DAVID BROOKS. [NYT > Opinion]