Deep Smarts

This week's Ubiquity has an interview by the co-authors of the new book, "Deep Smarts: How to Cultivate and Transfer Enduring Business Wisdom," Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap. They have coined the term "deep smarts" a form of expertise that

involves having an ability to recognize patterns based upon extensive experience, and so is very contextualized expertise. ... [D]eep smarts are connected in a person's mind to rich context. There are a lot of tacit dimensions to this kind of practical wisdom, such as the person with deep smarts may not actually be able to recognize or to put into so many words where that knowledge came from -- but is nonetheless able to react quickly and wisely. ... [M]ost of the people who had deep smarts not only had an unusual capability to look at whatever operation they were expert in at a system level view, but also had the ability to dive down into the component parts.

They contend that people with deep smarts exist throughout all levels of an organization, not just at the top management levels, and need to be recognized and cultivated as assets for the special expertise they have to offer.

Posted by Tom on February 22, 2005