Along with the IT asset and the data asset, I have defined the organizational asset as the intangible, off-the-books asset that represents the total of the enterprise’s human capabilities, inasmuch as they can be used to derive future revenues and manage future costs. It is a complex asset that includes not just the skills of the people in the organization, but also the company’s bureaucracy and pre-defined processes that determine what those people are allowed to do, the training that has been provided to them, the organizational structure and how work is distributed, and the cultural norms that affect their behavior. An important point of the book is that this asset is more valuable—literally—when it is more agile; that is, if the employees are prepared to move quickly and nimbly, for example, because the company has hired generalists whose skills remain valuable even if the environment changes around them.
— War and Peace and IT: Glossary, Mark Schwartz