Harvard Business Review Online | They Can Take It with Them
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They Can Take It with Them
by Don Moyer
Don Moyer can be reached at
Knowledge is the sum of education and experience. People coming into a company already possess knowledge; they gain
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Harvard Business Review Online | They Can Take It with Them
more as they do their jobs. In the process, not only employees but also their companies get smarter.
Trouble is, businesses often fail to capture what employees know, letting valuable competitive assets fade or sail out the
door. In time, organizations come to miss what they didn’t know they had. “The chief financial officer can tell you how big
the company’s payroll is but cannot tell you the replacement cost of employees’ skills, much less whether they are
appreciating or depreciating,” explains one student of intellectual capital. Companies must recognize tacit knowledge, make
it explicit, and find ways to share it.
And because sometimes more is more, companies must also work hard to develop employees’ knowledge. The kind likely to
make the business some money deserves extra-special attention.
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