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86 Chapter 3

Snowden ’ s Cynefi n model is less concerned with tacit-explicit conversions because of
its focus on descriptive self-awareness rather than prescriptive organization models.
Bennet and Bennet (2004) also describe a complex adaptive system approach to
KM but the conceptual roots are somewhat different from the Beer VSM. Bennet and
Bennet believe strongly that the traditional bureaucracies or popular matrix and fl at
organizations are not suffi cient to provide the cohesiveness, complexity, and selective
pressures that ensure the survival of an organization. A different model is proposed,
one in which the organization is viewed as a system that is in a symbiotic relationship
with its environment, that is, “ turning the living system metaphor into reality ”
(Bennet and Bennet 2004, 25). The ICAS model is composed of living subsystems that
combine, interact, and coevolve to provide the capabilities of an advanced, intelligent,
technological, and sociological adaptive enterprise. Complex adaptive systems are
organizations that are composed of a large number of self-organizing components,
each of which seeks to maximize its own specifi c goals but which also operate accord-
ing to the rules and context of relationships with the other components and the
external world.
In an ICAS, the intelligent components consist of people who are empowered to
self-organize, but who remain part of the overall corporate hierarchy. The challenge
is to take advantage of the strengths of people while getting them to cooperate
and collaborate to leverage knowledge and to maintain a sense of unity of purpose.
Organizations take from the environment, transform those inputs into higher-value
outputs, and provide them to customers and stakeholders. Organizational intelligence
becomes a form of competitive intelligence that helps facilitate innovation, learning,
adaptation, and quick responses to unanticipated situations. Organizations solve pro-
blems by creating options, and they use internal and external resources to add value
above and beyond the value of the initial inputs. They must also do this in an effec-
tive and effi cient manner. Knowledge becomes a valuable resource because it is critical
in taking effective action in a variety of uncertain situations. The actions taken can
be used to distinguish between information management (predictable reactions to
known and anticipated situations) and knowledge management (use existing or
create new reactions to unanticipated situations). Knowledge will typically consist of
experience, judgment, insight, context, and the right information. Understanding and
meaning become prerequisites to taking effective action and they create value by
ensuring the survival and the growth of the organization.
The fi ve key processes in the ICAS KM model can be summarized as:

1. Understanding
2. Creating new ideas