High-velocity change is the fundamental challenge facing companies
today. Few companies, however, are prepared to continuously
innovate-because they focus on the short-term and do not emphasize the
wisdom needed to make sure that their interests are aligned with those
of society.
Practical wisdom is the bases of continuous innovation, where companies
ceaselessly and repeatedly creating new knowledge, disseminating it
throughout the organization, and converting knowledge to action over
time. In The Wise Company, legendary management experts Ikujiro Nonaka
and Hirotaka Takeuchi highlight how various companies have confronted
the challenge of rapid change to create new products and new ways of
doing business that benefit employees, consumers, and society. The key:
a relentless self-renewal process where companies realize the future
they envisions, rather than only responding to changes in the
environment. Nonaka and Takeuchi argue that while knowledge-creating
companies focusing on tacit and explicit knowledge can generate
innovation, they cannot create it on a continuous and ongoing basis
without having wisdom about human interactions and how they influence
organizational structures and practices.
Companies that have resilience, longevity, and sustainability share a
number of characteristics, Nonaka and Takeuchi show. Strategies are
based on alignment of organizational and societal benefits. Leaders
grasp the core of any situation or problem quickly, and intuitively
comprehend the nature and meaning of people, things, and events. But
wise leadership is not enough: wisdom must infuse the organization
through informal as well as formal shared interactions and
communications that focus on metaphors and stories that convey the
essence and meaning of strategies and actions. In short, Nonaka and
Takeuchi demonstrate how continuous innovation results from companies
ceaselessly and repeatedly creating new knowledge, disseminating
knowledge throughout the organization, and converting that knowledge to
action.
The Wise Company presents a new model of knowledge-creation and
practice for the twenty-first century.
