|
| |
|
"These
days people seek knowledge, not wisdom. Knowledge is of the past, wisdom
is of the future." |
|
~ Vernon Cooper |
The Wise Organisation
A Concept Paper
INTRODUCTION
 |
“Wisdom”
is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “possessing experience and
knowledge together with the power of applying them critically or
practically, sagacity, prudence, common sense”. |
|
Wisdom
is a highly valued commodity in human society and is seen as being one of
the key ingredients in the development of a Civil society. |
|
It
is a quality that one would believe should characterise the operations and
actions of all organisations, regardless of their purpose, size, industry
sector etc. |
|
Just
as we are exhorted in the management literature to cultivate “Learning
Organisations” (they have the capacity to change and adapt continuously
because all members take an active role in identifying and resolving workplace
issues), a substantial case can be made in support of the proposition that
we should be aiming to build organisations that are “wise” in their being
and doing. |
A DEFINITION (based on OED)
"The
WISE organisation is one that possesses experience and knowledge relevant
to its Mission and that has the power to apply this knowledge and
experience critically and practically."
|
By
definition the wise organisation has knowledge, experience, self control
and judgment. |
HOW DOES AN ORGANISATION ACQUIRE THESE CHARACTERISTICS?
|
Information
is a highly regarded and valued commodity in modern society. We are
said by many to have entered the INFORMATION AGE and a major objective of
technology is to be continuously evolving new information systems which
increase society’s capacity to record, store, retrieve, distribute and
access information. To some information is the key to success in the
twenty first century. |
|
Furthermore
all people regardless of their status are being encouraged to indulge in
“continuous learning” a practice greatly facilitated by computer networks
like the www. |
|
Organisations
clearly strive to build up the level of information available to them via
their systems and their people. |
|
In
contrast Experience seems to have little value in the pantheon of
current management practice. |
|
Retaining
developing and utilizing experienced people does not seem to be a
management priority in organisations today. Stereotypically, experienced
people are seen to be of declining worth once they reach their early
forties and are viewed at best from there as being declining assets
Instead the focus is on youth with its attendant stereotype of energy,
vitality, action orientation and freshness. |
Can
organisations become wise while continuing to spurn their older employees?
|
HARDLY
Experience is fundamentally a human condition. It is the lessons
people learn from being exposed to particular events and builds up as
people age. Moreover the vast majority of experience resides in the human
mind. While organisations can store some of the outputs of experience in
terms of policies, training programmes, records, etc the overwhelming mass
of an organisations experience resides in its people. If the people are
lost, so is most of the experience and the opportunity for the
organisation to become truly wise . |
|
To
be wise an organisation must develop, value, maintain and utilize the
experience of its people. |
|
A
Wise organisation CANNOT exist without EXPERIENCED PEOPLE. PEOPLE CANNOT
ACQUIRE EXPERIENCE WITHOUT AGEING. |
|
ORGANISATIONS
that seek to be wise must attract, retain and develop OLDER EMPLOYEES. |
"THE POWER TO APPLY"
|
If
an organisation is independent and operating legally the power to apply
its knowledge and experience is largely a matter of self management and
self control. |
|
Whilst
it is probably a dangerous generalization, society generally regards
management of the self to be enhanced by age and that experienced people
are more persistent in their endeavours particularly in the face of
uncertainty and adversity. |
|
Thus
the capacity of an organisation to self manage is enhanced by the presence
of experienced employees. |
"CRITICALLY AND PRACTICALLY"
|
By
and large younger employees are better educated than their more
experienced colleagues. Their analytical skills are more finely attuned by
virtue of tertiary studies of many kinds. Today’s young people are
encouraged to speak out and have an expectation that they will have the
opportunity to comment on organisation issues which affect them as workers
and employees More experienced people often lack the expectation or
motivation to be critical of others. |
|
Experienced
people are often seen as being more practical and down to earth than
younger people. However practicality can be determined also by an
understanding of the outcomes that can arise from the introduction of new
ideas technologies etc, a realm more likely to be occupied by the young. |
|
Criticality
and practicality are best served by having a diverse mix of experienced
and junior employees. |
THE LINK TO CORPORATE CULTURE
|
A
WISE organisation has a culture that enables it to adapt to the challenges
that befall the organisation. The ORGANISATION IS ABLE TO ACCOMMODATE AND
ADAPT TO CHANGING CIRCUMSTANCES BY JUDICIOUSLY UTILISING ITS ACCUMULATED
KNOLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE…A WISE CULTURE KNOWS WHEN AND HOW TO CHANGE TO MEET
EVOLVING SITUATIONS. |
THE LEADERSHIP ROLE
|
The
leadership role is to develop a WISE culture within an organisation by: |
 | Acting
wisely. |
| Recruiting,
retaining, developing and rewarding experienced employees. |
| Implementing
policies, systems and management approaches which value both experience
and youth. |
| Seeking
to communicate and capitalize on experience through out the organisation. |
| Building
new systems that can codify, store and distribute the benefits of
experience across the organisation. |
WISDOM AND DECISION MAKING
|
Arguably
wisdom will be most evident in decision making within the organisation.
Everyone in an organisation makes decisions and devolution is leading to
more and more people being responsible for taking major decisions in
relation to their work. |
|
Decision
making is often modeled as a totally rational process involving some eight
steps cf: 1 Identify a Problem 2 Identify Decision Criteria 3 Allocate
Weights to Criteria 4 Develop Alternatives 5Analyse Alternatives 6
Select an Alternative 7 Implement the Alternative 8 Evaluate Decision
Effectiveness. |
|
Wisdom
can provide a major input to each of these steps. |
|
Studies
suggest that decision making often veers from this logical process, with
managers operating under conditions of BOUNDED RATIONALITY. |
|
Wisdom
can provide the necessary ingredient that assists people to reach
decisions in situations where it is not possible for practical or personal
reasons for the decision makers to follow all the above in full detail.
Wisdom can for example help frame the problem, assist in criteria
selection and identification and assessment of alternatives (what’s
important) . |
|
Good
intuition-based decisions are guided almost by definition by wisdom. |
|
Wisdom
is likely to count most in ill-structured problems and non programmed decisions…routine
and black and white decisions are aided by formal structuring e.g.
decision trees/rules, flow charts and computer based decision making
models. |
|
Wisdom
could be of greatest benefit where there is high uncertainty, high risk
limited knowledge and/or limited information available to the organisation. |
|
Wisdom
is also relevant for a model that sees decisions as a function of
outcomes, values, probabilities (EXPECTANCY THEORY D= O*V*P). |
|
Wisdom
can assist in structuring the approach to be taken to decision making e.g.
individual or group, spontaneous or considered, consensus or “best
practice”. |
|
