# Critical Knowledge Transfer: Tools for Managing Your Company's Deep Smarts - Hardcover

by **Dorothy Leonard-Barton** (Author), **Walter C. Swap** (Author), **Gavin Barton** (Author)

**How to transfer your organization's most important knowledge--before it walks out the door**

When highly skilled subject matter experts, engineers, and managers leave their organizations, they take with them years of hard-earned, experience-based knowledge--much of it undocumented and irreplaceable. Organizations can thereby lose a good part of their competitive advantage. The tsunami of "boomer" retirements has created the most visible, urgent need to transfer such knowledge to the next generation. But there is also an ongoing torrent of acquisitions, layoffs, and successions--not to mention commonplace promotions and transfers--all of which involve the loss of essential expertise.

Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap first addressed this acute loss of knowledge in their groundbreaking book _Deep Smarts_ (2005). Since then, managers have repeatedly asked them for practical, proven techniques that will help transfer those deep smarts--the organization's critical, experience-based knowledge--before it's too late. Now, with coauthor Gavin Barton, the authors share a comprehensive approach to doing just that.

Based on original research, numerous interviews with top managers, and a wide range of corporate examples, _Critical Knowledge Transfer_ provides a variety of practical options for identifying your firm's deep smarts and transferring that intelligence from experts to successors. _Critical Knowledge Transfer_ will enable managers to:

\- Determine the seriousness of their knowledge loss  
\- Identify the deep smarts essential to their business  
\- Utilize proven techniques for transferring knowledge when its loss is imminent  
\- Identify and implement long-term transfer program apprenticeships  
\- Set up individual learning plans for successors  
\- Assess the success of their knowledge transfer initiatives

This book is essential reading for anyone managing talent in today's volatile environment.  

### Author Biography

**Dorothy Leonard** is the William J. Abernathy Professor of Business Administration Emerita at Harvard Business School and chief adviser of the consulting firm Leonard-Barton Group. She is the author or coauthor of three Harvard Business Review Press books: _Deep Smarts_, _When Sparks Fly_, and _Wellsprings of Knowledge_.

**Walter Swap** is Professor of Psychology Emeritus, former Chairman of the Psychology Department, and former Dean of Colleges at Tufts University. He is the coauthor of _Deep Smarts_ and _When Sparks Fly_.

**Gavin Barton** is managing director of the Leonard-Barton Group and a principal of GB Performance Consulting. He holds a doctorate from Boston University.  

**Number of Pages:** 240

**Dimensions:** 0.9 x 9.4 x 6.1 IN

**Publication Date:** November 01, 2014

## Details

- **Price:** 32.0 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 32.00 USD | In stock |

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- Critical Knowledge Transfer: Tools for Managing Your Company's Deep Smarts - Hardcover

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