Leveraging Institutional Knowledge to Enable Innovation

In Greek mythology, the character Sysiphus is condemned to spend eternity pushing a boulder up a hill, only for the boulder to roll back down as soon as he nears the top.  When organizations lack capability to manage and preserve their institutional knowledge, in the form of documented procedures, expertise, and know-how, their staff may experience a similar sentiment: doomed to repeat tasks that have already been accomplished, and solve for issues that have already been solved for by others. This needless repetition of work results in wasted time and resources, and represents a tangible opportunity cost: teams become unable to dedicate their attention and efforts to improving and innovating.  Conversely, organizations that harness innovation can edge out advantages over their competitors. Research has found evidence that “perceived innovativeness improves the attractiveness of firms to consumers” (Keiningham et al.