The "agile organisation" that Bo and John are working on seems to me
to be a corporate way to say "adaptive" as in complex adaptive
systems that SFI are working on. Talking to those people might
provide some very useful insight.
The background of considering what is the nature of wealth and the
fundamentals of its creation are, I think, crucial. Arie de Geus has
used this terminology based on studies at Shell of large companies
that have prospered and survived for over 100 years - a small group
as you might imagine. He has contrasted the "economic view" of
capital, labour and resources with a biological/ecological view to
good effect.
The introduction to George Gilder's "Microcosm" also has a very
powerful way of presenting the nature of current wealth creation in a
few short paragraphs.
> Capital, labor and resources, including land and even much-touted
> information resources, are merely tools for the exploitation of knowledge.
"tools for the exploitation of knowledge" is way of speaking that is
likely to return to knowledge - and people - as things rather than
phenomena or processes. Linguistic and intellectual "tools" as well
as system and physical "tools" are called for and tools and
technology are useful ways of talking about them. But even these are
information, knowledge and "immaterial" phenomena.
One of the ways of talking about these things - capital, equipment,
tools - is that they are expressions and forms of knowledge before
they are tools. This way recognises, first, that knowledge has
always been the crucial factor and that most of us receive a great
deal of our knowledge in the concrete forms of capital, equipment and
technology - from plant to tools - and that we also have received the
knowledge of how to work in systems of these "things" (this
knowledge). It also recognises that we are dealing with a new
understanding of what is already happening (rather than a new thing)
and with the speed at which it is now happening.
The problem with the way of speaking where these are all "tools for
the exploitation of knowledge" is what happened in your own
statement. "labour" and therefor human beings got lumped together
as mindless (labour and "hands" are equivalent) things in service of
wealth creation. Rather than the active participants in the creation
of wealth for themselves, families and larger communities.
> Real wealth lies in the potential of the human mind, and its realization
> depends on our ability to direct and manage human knowledge toward
> pre-determined, useful purposes.
I doubt that "direct and manage" is the best terminology to apply to
this world view of the development and coordination of knowledge as
the source of wealth creation. How about "design and support" or
"nurture and allow" or "increase awareness and attend to its
concerns/needs" or ?????
Some reading to assist in development of this language is
- The Tree of Knowledge, Maturana & Varela
- Bionomics, Michael Rothschild
- The Intelligence Advantage, Michael McMaster
- The Origins of Order, Stu Kauffman
- Complexity, Waldrop and/or Lewin
I hope this contributes to what appears a very promising line. I
think that the agile organisation is a more pragmatic term than the
learning organisation - and that both are calling on pretty much the
same requirement for learning, flexibility, adaptability - and
knowledge creation as the source of increasing wealth.
I have a paper on "compounding knowledge" as the source of increasing
wealth. It is also mentioned in a chapter of my book. If you are
interested, please let me know.
-- Michael McMaster Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk