Wisdom is a widely used concept. But what does it mean? And why and how does it related to leadership? In addition, what are the links with Learning Organisational and Knowledge Management ideas? These issues are frequently ignored in the relevant literature and this paper argues that the whole subject of Wisdom, what it means and how we learn it, and how it is applied individually and organisationally, is critical for the future of us all.
Over the past decade, in my view, the core development in strategy has been the recognition of the importance of Learning and Learning Organisation concepts. In fact it is increasingly recognised by organisations, individuals - and even nation states - that:
"Effective learning is the only sustainable competitive advantage".
I certainly do not find it surprising that, in the past few years, this focus on Learning has been extended into a whole new industry called 'Knowledge Management', as well as being an integral part of ‘Leadership’. Obviously, if you are concerned with learning, it is natural to ask the questions: What are we learning? And perhaps even more importantly: What do we need to learn? And How do we learn it? These developments coincided with the widespread use of computers which created massive new challenges from what is known as 'information explosion'.
In parallel, there has been the influence of the Millennium itself. The enormous amount of activity and thinking that took place in the years prior to that date, probably meant that never before has so much intellectual effort been focused on reflecting on – and learning from - our history. In fact, that event was probably the greatest learning point in human history. That reflective learning should have focused on trying to define what has been distilled into wisdom by exploring three basic key questions:
* Where have we come from?
* What are we doing here? and
* Where are we going?
Surely H.G. Wells was surely right when he said in his ‘The Outline of History’ that:
"Human history becomes more and more a race between Education and Catastrophe."
How often do we seem to be either obsessed with technology, or so focused on the experience of the here-and-now, that the issue of wisdom appears to be virtually ignored? And that certainly appeared to be the case in the period I just mentioned.
We also need to recognise that the more change that is going on in society, the more important it is that we make sure that our learning and leadership is as effective as possible. That is the only way we have any chance of being able to equate change with progress. So, if we want to have a better future the first, and most important, thing that we have to do is, in my view, improve the quality and effectiveness of our learning.
An underlying assumption of the word 'learning' is that we are trying to do things 'better'. We are trying to improve things. We are trying to ‘make progress’. Of course, the concepts behind the words: 'improve', 'better' and 'progress' are powerfully values-driven, which is increasingly recognised to be at the core of leadership.
I recognise there is a risk in expounding the concept of wisdom that I might be seen to be supporting the view that somehow I, or we, know all the answers. That is certainly not the intention. The prime objective is to raise some questions that, in my view, do not appear to be asked often enough.
Wisdom statements are those that appear to be useful in helping us all make the world a better place in the future. But they are only useful, if they also check out with our own experience. Of course, that relatively simple objective is not quite as easy as it sounds for at least two reasons:
Firstly, the word 'better' explicitly and implicitly means that we are involved in considering the whole complicated subject of values that are embedded in the question: "What do we mean by 'better'? It should surprise no one that a critical part of the content of any wisdom statement is the extent to which it incorporates judgements about values. In fact, in many ways, that is a critical part of the definition of what we mean by wisdom. But that does not mean that all statements that reflect values can be defined as wisdom; the extra dimension required is that they are widely accepted, and that they have 'stood the test of time'.
Secondly, it is important to recognise that in trying to 'make the world a better place for us all' we can run into potential areas of conflict. For example, making things 'better' for some people is at the expense of making it worse for others. Much of the conflict that arises in this area is because different people mean different things as they are using different time horizons when they talk about the future. Some are obsessed with tomorrow, whilst others are primarily concerned with what they perceive to be the needs of the next hundred years. These issues are central to all debates about the role and nature of leadership.
If learning is critical, we then have to ask ourselves:
* What is the wisdom?
* How do we learn it? and
* How can we pass it on (more) effectively?
"Wisdom: can be considered to be a useful truth (or knowledge) with a long shelf life. And Knowledge is useful information with a shorter shelf life than wisdom. With Information being Data, but with a longer shelf life."
The traditional approach is that there is a close link within the pyramid of data, information, and knowledge that ends with wisdom. And, n essence, there is somehow greater 'added value' as we move up the pyramid. On the other hand, I would like to argue that we do (and should), at least in parallel, start with wisdom as our base, which then provides the framework within which to manage knowledge, and so on through the pyramid to information and data. Consequently, without an effective base at one level, it is impossible to manage effectively the next layer up. In addition, it is also possible to argue that Knowledge is Information in Use. And Wisdom is the integration of Knowledge and Values. Hence I hope I have established the link between wisdom and my belief in its relevance to strategy, knowledge management and leadership.
A couple of years ago I started collecting what I considered to be the important quotations that contained long shelf life knowledge (i.e. 'wisdom') that, in my view, ought to be given a high priority in what we consider passing onto the next generation through learning. (see:www.wfs.org, via special features.)
In many cases there is considerable scope for disagreement over who said what. But those focused on the future, rather than the past should, in my view, give priority to the message, rather than the messenger. Later I will explore some of these wisdom statements themselves.
Sometimes, even when the quotation itself is well recognised, research shows that it was based on an earlier version, with a very minor modification.
For example:
"If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants".
(Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727));
"Pygmies placed on the shoulders of giants see more than the giants themselves."
(Marcus Lucan (AD 39-65));
and
"We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size."
(Bernard of Chartres c1120 AD)
There are also situations where the generally accepted quotation can be different to the original version. For example, the Bible is supposedly the source of: "Money is the root of all evil," when the original version is, in fact:
"For the love of money is the root of all evil." (1 Timothy.6:10.).
Even here, there is a precedent:
"Love of money is the beginning of evil, because the operation of evil is connected to love of money."
(Pythagoras).
Of course, wisdom is one thing, being wise is quite another. Being wise is certainly more than the ability to recycle wisdom; in essence being wise involves the ability to apply wisdom effectively in practice. This issue is aptly reflected in the comment:
"Those who are arrogant with their wisdom are not wise." (Anon)
In theory at least, once we can agree on the important messages, it should not be too difficult to ensure that there are appropriate channels for the effective learning of these messages. Also it is not unreasonable to assume that, if we have learned the right things, we ought to then be in a position to do the right thing with that knowledge. Of course, that is an assumption and, perhaps, there are more issues in that jump from knowledge to action than are normally recognised. But, if that is the case, then we probably need to revisit messages to ensure that we give a higher priority to those that reflect the importance of meaning and motivation in human behaviour. For example:
"Our values are revealed by what we do, not by what we say." (Anon)
and
"It is not enough to know what is good; you must be able to do it."
(George Bernard Shaw, 'Back to Methuselah, Act IV, scene 1, (1921).)
This is not just an academic exercise, our future is critically dependent on what we learn and, unless this subject is given much greater attention, it is extremely unlikely that we will be involved in anything remotely like progress, however that is defined.
There is enormous scope for debate, both practical and philosophical, about the specific wisdom items identified in this article. It only really becomes important when we try to establish priorities which, of course, in the end, we always need to do. However, at this stage, I am just concerned with trying to encourage the debate.
Yet in a quick survey of eighteen books on Knowledge Management, I found only three felt the subject of wisdom was sufficiently important to mention in the index. Apart from those mentioned above, which were not essentially knowledge management books, none gave the subject of wisdom the importance I believe it justifies. The same comment can equally apply to books on Leadership, where the whole subject of wisdom is rarely mentioned.
However, I would also like to acknowledge the parallel (and overlapping) contributions of other publications, I have come across recently, Costa (1995), Covey & Merrill (1994), Dyer (1998).
As we move into the 21st century, both the 'Knowledge Economy' and ‘Leadership’ are being given more and more attention. As a result, we are, and need to be, increasingly concerned with what is the core of knowledge, distilled through the experience of history into wisdom, that is critically important for us to preserve and pass onto future generations?
History does appear to shows that it is incredibly easy to ignore and learning of the experiences of earlier millennia:
"If we still have not learned the lessons of 2000 years of history, why should we suddenly start being able to learn it now?"
(Anon).
Or to put that another way:
"The only lesson we appear to be able to learn from history is that we don't learn the lessons of history."
(Anon.).
Many of the important messages about the state and future of the Human Race were made over a thousand years ago, in China, the Middle East and other early sophisticated societies. This should, perhaps, not surprise us, as wisdom consists of insights that have stood the test of time, precisely because they are concerned with making statements about relationships between people, either individually or in societal context, or about our relationship with the universe as a whole "Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification."
(Martin H. Fisher)
"To know how to grow old is the masterwork of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living."
(Henri Frederic Amiel)
And what are some of the general wisdom messages that we might like to pass onto future generations?
"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."
(Edward Abbey)
"By doubting, we come to examine, and by examining, so we perceive the truth."
(Peter Abelard)
"It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them."
(Alfred Adler)
"Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength"
(Henry Ward Beecher)
And a few specifically Future related wisdom quotations:
"The farther back you look, the farther forward you see."
(Winston Churchill)
"If you won't be better tomorrow than you were today then what do you need tomorrow for?" (Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav (1772-1811))
"Depression is the inability to construct a future."
(Rollo May (1909 -1994))
"You must be the change you want to see in the world."
(Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948))
"Education is your passport to the future. For tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today."
(Malcolm X (1925-1965))
"I touch the future: I teach."
(Christa MacAuliffe, astronaut (1948-1986))
In recent years we have seen efforts to move people from the idea of 'Working Harder' to 'Working Smarter'. Increasingly we need to move beyond 'Working Smarter' to 'Working Wiser'. And, as we more along that progression, we need to recognise that we are moving to a situation where the important issues primarily reflect the quality of our values, rather than the quantity of our physical effort.
The core issues of Leadership were well defined over two thousand years ago by Lao Tzu
when he argued:
“The highest type of rule is one whose existence the people are barely aware.
Next comes one whom they love and praise.
Next comes one whom they fear.
Next comes one whom they despise and defy.
When you are lacking faith,
Others will be unfaithful to you.
The Sage is self-effacing and scanty of words.
When his(*) task is accomplished and things have been completed,
All the people say, ‘We ourselves have achieved it!’”
((*) Now ‘their’)
Perhaps you cannot teach Wisdom, but it is certainly most unlikely that it is in our genes - so, somehow, it must be learned. The question is how can we make that learning process more effective - on the assumption, of course, that we consider it an important thing to do?
If we want to manage complexity successfully, and make progress in the world today, we have to start by getting the simple things right. This needs to be based on more effective understanding, and use, of accumulated wisdom. Unfortunately, all too often the problems arise precisely because we haven't got the simple things right in the first place. This includes the need for a greater emphasis on sharing knowledge, rather than the more traditional concept of 'Knowledge is Power'. And we need to be reasonably sure that we are starting by asking the right questions.
But probably the most important of those simple things to get right is for leaders to 'walk the talk'. It is relatively easy to know what is the right thing to do - the hard thing is to ensure that it gets done. Indeed, why does it appear to be relatively easy to recognise wisdom, but so incredibly difficult to be wise in practice?
The wise decision inevitably includes value judgements, beliefs and feelings, as well as thoughts. It invariably involves moral choices. Hence it is not surprising that we find that the comments we might define as wisdom are essentially comments about the relationship between people, or their relationship with society, and the universe as a whole. It should not surprise us that these are relatively timeless statements. They help us provide meaning to the world about us. But what certainly surprised me when I started looking at this subject, was the paradoxical gap between how critically important this area was in all our lives, and yet how often it seems to be almost totally ignored in Futurist, Leadership, Strategy, or Knowledge Management literature. Another paradox is that we appear to be spending more and more time focusing on learning knowledge, or facts, that have a relatively short shelf life, and less and less time on knowledge that overlaps with wisdom that has a long shelf life. Why is that? What can we do about it?
Finally I come back to the point I made at the beginning. Why are we interested in the Future? The answer, I believe, is that we are concerned about trying to make things better. So we need to re-ask the question why we do not spend more time to ensure that what we have learned in the past ('wisdom') can be passed on to future generations? How do we ensure these messages are learned more effectively? These are critical strategy questions and are at the very foundation of anything we might what to call 'The Knowledge Economy'. But what we really need to focus on is ‘The Wise Economy’ and that is the Leadership challenge for us all. Although the leadership issues have been discussed in the context of, essentially Western sources, they are, I believe, equally relevant to the issues of social change in Africa. Core issues of Wisdom appear to show relatively little variation on the basis of geography and culture.
I hope I have not given the impression that I know what this illusive concept of 'Wisdom' actually is? Or how we can pass it on more effectively? All this paper is arguing is that we urgently need to reflect on how we can give the whole subject of Wisdom much more seriously than has been the case is the past. If we cannot take Wisdom seriously now, we never will. And we will all pay a very high price for this neglect.
References:
Costa, John Della (1995), Working Wisdom: The Ultimate Value in the New Economy, Stoddart Publishing Co. Strongly argues that our perceived wisdom is the driving force behind our behaviour and that the subject is a vital part of any effective Knowledge Management programme.
Covey, Stephen R. & Merrill A. Roger Merrill (1994), The Wisdom Literature, Appendix C in First Things First, Simon & Schuster. Explores the patterns, consistencies and themes that they consider represented the most validated database in all human experience.
Dyer, Wayne W. (1998), The Wisdom of the Ages: Eternal Truths for Everyday Life, Thorsons. Provides a remarkable analysis of how we can live more meaningful lives by close study of the words of poets and philosophers throughout the ages.
