| Wisdom, knowledge creation and innovation |
How do organisations get wiser, gain knowledge and encourage innovation?Organisations that want to excel must create environments where people are empowered to use practical wisdom, in which there’s a moral element to their decision making, not just a rigid applications of rules1. While they have a role to play, rules aren’t enough for an organisation to build knowledge and encourage innovation.Barry Schwartz1 argues that businesses are losing wisdom due to an overreliance on rules and incentives when things go wrong. This approach ultimately ensures mediocrity, an example being the scripted curricula. He urges us to act and reason morally by combining moral will with moral skill. His ideas of morality and practical wisdom come from Aristotle's definition of phronesis where "we must acquire, through proper upbringing and habits, the ability to see, on each occasion, which course of action is best supported by reasons"2. One could argue that this is also a goal of knowledge management. Ikujiro Nonaka, known as the father of knowledge management in Japan, sees a knowledge creating company as "a kind of community in which generosity is prevalent, people feel recognized as distinct individuals, and informal, honest communication is commonplace"3. Under these conditions, he believes that businesses enable the creation of tacit knowledge, an important ingredient for innovation. Tacit knowledge is knowledge that cannot be explicitly written down or transferred, making it difficult for traditional technology driven knowledge management systems to capture. Many organisations see the ideas of practical wisdom, tacit knowledge and innovation as ideals. Yet it is those organisations which embody these ideas that will excel - Nonaka provides numerous examples such as 7-11 Japan, Canon and Toyota3. Nonako argues that Western companies favour explicit knowledge, limiting their capabilities to learn, share knowledge and innovate. "For Nonaka, phronetic wisdom represents a potential antidote. If techne is “know-how,” and episteme is “know-why,” phronesis is knowing “what must be done.” This requires an understanding of how the organization should exist in the world: its purpose, its reason for being. Moreover, for an organization to be resilient as well as skilled at creating knowledge, phronesis must be broadly distributed. A phronetic leader mobilizes timely judgment in others by building a culture that is strong, nurturing, and sustained by informal connections"3. Sources: 1. Schwartz, Barry. "Loss of Wisdom". TED.com. TED Conferences, February 2009. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom.html 2. "Aristotle's ethics". Stanford Encyclopedia of Ethics. Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University, 2007. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics 3. Helgesen, Sally. "The Practical Wisdom of Ikujiro Nonaka". Strategy+Business. Booz & Company, Winter 2008. http://www.strategy-business.com/press/freearticle/08407 |