Previous management fads (as measured by the number of articles in the business literature on the topic) showed a consistent pattern of boom and bust over a roughly 10-year cycle, with four or five years of explosive logarithmic growth, followed by an only slightly longer period of almost equally dramatic decline.

A narrative approach makes it much easier to delve into experts' thought processes, which is where real knowledge is to be found, Klein said.

It is usually easier to teach people by developing a series of vignettes that bring that tacit knowledge to life for others. That is the point of knowledge management. “It is not enough to elicit information,” Klein said. “You have to be able to represent it so other people can use it."