Some observations:
- James Surowiecki would probably disagree with this.
- There is a demographic driver here. The baby boomer generation is just about to retire. Forty years ago many of them sought enlightenment & nirvana. And now they hit their sixties, they want wisdom. I'm not sure it works that way. Nor am I sure that all of them lack it.
- Decision-making & mindfulness are two closely related things that
most of usI struggle with. - Those pushing wisdom-enhancing courses are probably some of the least-equipped to do so.
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3 comments:
The Surowiecki book only covers wisdom in a very narrow sense, mostly as far as I can see about fairly information-based accuracy with some good discussions and some bad (his whole discussion of crowds and markets is fatally circular/flawed - crowds make markets they don't read or predict them). If anything it covers a weak sense of discernment and possibly decision making. It doesn't really cover the more common wisdom connotations of insight, mindfulness, use of experience etc etc which of course are rooted in the notion of a personality with experience and a brain. Could you call a team wise? I think his use of the term is a clever metaphor for a title, and goes very little beyond that. Of course that doesn't stop the wisdom enthusiasts leaping on the keyword in his book title and using it to define things how they'd like to sell them.
The next thing would be philosophy management. The principle is not strange, but indeed the quesiotn is what you define as wisdom. In the evergrowing and expanding chain of data-facts-information-knowledge-wisdom it's hard to define. Though I think that no one can deny that the advent of internet, web 2.0, enterprise 2.0, knowledege management, social media or whatever terms you want to use, will cause profound changes. Changes we are not yet able to foresee. It will influence power strucutre, the way we learn and see ourselves. And more importantly not only in the highly technologized western world, but also in the devekopoing world.
Patrick - I think that you can call certain teams wise. There are also many foolish teams out there but I can think of examples of teams that have been wiser than individual participants.
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