Managers needed to move decisively, but missed a key element a clear understanding of the kind of structure that could in practice take responsibility for learning and knowledge. They had clear structures for other purposes, and had replaced the silos and ivory towers of traditional functional organizations with business units structures they found better suited for focusing on markets and product lines. More recently, they discovered teams as the ideal structures for locating the ownership of tasks and projects. The answer to this very contemporary organizational question lies in an age-old structure. Since the beginning of history, human beings have formed communities that accumulate collective learning into social practices communities of practice.
Tribes are an early example.
More recent instances include the guilds of the Middle Ages that took on the stewardship of a trade, and scientific communities that collectively define what counts as valid knowledge in a specific area of investigation. Less obvious cases could be your local magician club, nurses in a ward, a street gang or a group of software engineers meeting regularly in the cafeteria to share tips. Knowing is an act of participation. Communities of practice may well represent the natural social structure for the ownership of knowledge, but they have been around for a long time, and they are everywhere. Organizations are already full of them.