Dear Bruce,
I agree with many of the points that you made in your article. I hope that it is well received at the World Future Society meaning.
However, I would like to raise one critical point, if I may. You said that wisdom involves integrating knowledge and our values in our decision-making processes. Okay. You also say that it is important to make the right things happen, rather than just make things happen. Fine. It seems to me that you consider wisdom to be our ability the integrate knowledge and our values in our decision-making processes in order to make the right things happen. This seems like a reasonable definition of wisdom to me. It is actually very similar to Aristotle's definition of practical wisdom (phronesis).
However, I am none the wiser. What is required and involved in integrating knowledge and our values in our decision-making processes in order to make the right things happen? How does one integrate knowledge and values wisely? How does knowledge relate to value? How does one decide what is "good", or "better", or "of value"?
Of course, I agree that we need to be explicit about our values, but it is possible for us to be foolish about what we value and not just because we are overly implict about it. We might well value the wrong things or fail to recognise the value of the right things. Hence, wisdom is involved in deciding what is of value, but, the sixtyfour thousand dollar question is, how do we do that?
Karl.
[log in to unmask] wrote:
Dear all
Please find below my attempt to explore data/information/knowledge/Wisdom links, and these are included in an article that is being presented to the forthcoming World Future Society meeting and is to be included in the book to go with the conference.
Comments welcome .....
Bruce
_____________________________________________________________________
data/information/knowledge/Wisdom links
I believe it is important to explore the link between data/information/knowledge and Wisdom. The traditional approach to the data/information/knowledge/Wisdom link is to see a close relationship within a pyramid that starts with data at the bottom, moving through information and knowledge to end with Wisdom at the top. In essence, there is, somehow, greater 'added value' as we move up that pyramid.
In my view, this progression has a fundamental flaw, which arises from the relationship between these four items not being linearly related and, therefore, there is no linear step-by-step movement up the pyramid from data to Wisdom. The basically mechanistic progression is a reflection of the Newtonian tradition, repackaged by the Management Science of Taylorism. The integration of all four concepts requires at least one, if not two, quantum/qualitative jumps.
Information can certainly be considered a ‘higher’ form of data, because it provides greater context and so greater meaning/usefulness. However, the transformation of information into knowledge requires the first quantum jump. A book that describes how a jet engine works is an example of information. It is only when information is actually used that it is becomes knowledge. In essence, knowledge is information in use and, of course, it is through its use, and the feedback learning loop, that you gain further information, which then gets turned into even more effective knowledge. Overall, it is a never ending dynamic process.
But where does Wisdom come in? In essence, Wisdom is the vehicle we use for integrating our values into our decision-making processes. It is one thing to turn information into knowledge that ‘makes things happen’, but it is quite another thing to make the ‘right’ (/’good’/’better’) things happen. How we actually use knowledge depends on our values.
Instead of moving up from knowledge to Wisdom, we actually move down from Wisdom to knowledge -- and that is how we incorporate our values into our knowledge based decision-making, as well as see the application and releevance of what we generally call Wisdom. It is only possible - and justified - for decisions to be reduced to a cost/benefit analysis, if it is possible to quantify all the ‘values’ elements within the equation in monetary terms. In the past values have been included implicitly, whereas today that dimension need to be made much more – if not fully - explicit. All decisions involve the integration of the economics dimensions of value, with the ethical (ie ‘right’) dimension of ‘values’.
In practice we do this all the time but, today, we are required to be more explicit about what these values are, and how they can be – and are – valued. This puts even greater emphasis on our ability to undertake effective dialogue.
Of course, this too is a dynamic process and there is continual feedback from the experience of our actions into whether we need more information and data - what and how much more information/data we need - are also values influenced decisions. How values are assessed both as the ends, and means, of the outcome, are critically important in all our decision making.
In order to complete this picture it is useful to reverse the data/information/knowledge/Wisdom progression into Wisdom/knowledge/information/data, and consider that it is our values/Wisdom that defines the limits of what we consider acceptable in the first place, and that decision then determines our knowledge/action priorities, which then determines what information is required, and that determines what further questions need to be asked about the data required. In practice, we need to understand these two pyramids/progressions, and how they relate to each other, if we want to understand both how we incorporate values into our decision making processes, and why Wisdom plays such an important role. Although, it does need to be recognised that sometimes the way these words and concepts have been used in the past has not always helped this process. Perhaps that is one reason why wise decision making has not been as widely practiced as we would have liked? Being decisive is
easy; being decisive about the ‘right’ things is the real challenge that confronts us all. I would argue that we do (and should) start with values/Wisdom as our base, which then provides the framework within which we 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.
It is also useful to see knowledge as information in use, and Wisdom as the integration of knowledge and values, as reflected by the comments below:
“Data is not information. Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not understanding. Understanding is not Wisdom.”
(Anon)
“ The Function of Wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil”
(Marcus Tullius Cicero)
“Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.”
(Anton Chekhov (1860-1904))
Hence I hope I have established the link between Wisdom and its relevance to both strategy and knowledge management, as well as leadership.
_______________________________________________________________
---------------------------------
Inbox full of spam? Get leading spam protection and 1GB storage with All New Yahoo! Mail.
