We regularly ask participants of expert seminars how they judge their own effectiveness in their organisation (real influence/theoretically possible and meaningful influence regarding the issue at hand). The replies usually fluctuate between 5 and 80 %. This relatively small portion of personal expertise flows into the company’s relevant decision-making processes. If one considers that in the age of a knowledge-based society the competitive-clinching difference, at least in the medium term, lies in the knowledge that is ‘built in’ to the business processes and products of the company, then the alarming meaning of this statement becomes apparent. A low rate of effectiveness of available knowledge represents a waste that is barely acceptable.

The term ‘knowledge’ seems to be obvious at first glance. All of us automatically associate certain ideas with it, which partly go back a long way and more often than not to our school days. At school the contents of knowledge are ordered in syllabuses. These syllabuses correspond to the ideas of those responsible in Ministries of Education, according to what they consider students of a certain grade and at a certain stage should learn. The individual plays no role in this. What is prescribed has to be learnt regardless of who happens to be teaching or who is sitting opposite the teacher.