We live in the Information Society. And within the company, in the era of knowledge and lifelong learning. We are those knowledge workers that Peter Drucker spoke about 40 years ago, or we are approaching.
If the PC is our tool, information becomes the raw material for our daily work.
We should master the knowledge of the field in which we move, and we should also be generating new knowledge: expanding the field. This seems to be the formula for prosperity, survival, access to the future. It is because competitiveness establishes this, even if we are not always aware of it.
We have to think that knowledge prevails, and that this comes from training and information.
Years ago there was talk of the excellence of companies, in comparison with the current models of quality management; But today the EFQM model itself indicates that this quality-excellence is reached through lifelong learning and innovation. Thinking of people as a group, the organizations most related to scientific and technical knowledge must attend to knowledge management and imagination management.
It is not that the management of people disappears as we have been understanding them in the 20th century, but it is no longer enough, for example, a management by competences that makes a fixed photo of each position in the organization; nor is a short-term assessment of performance useful, oblivious to the future projection of the company; We are not even worth reading the leadership we were doing or teamwork.
In the Information Society, the excellence of many organizations must also go through the best management of knowledge and the best management of the imagination. These organizations are all the more excellent the more they master the knowledge in their field, and the more they contribute to expanding it to the satisfaction of all. Naturally, the company must obtain benefits, satisfy customers, and contribute to society; but excellence cannot be separated from prosperity, and prosperity in the Information Society presents new demands every day.
Companies have to join the knowledge and learning movement, the advancement of ICT, innovation and permanent improvement, for various reasons that we could address; but there is no doubt that prosperity requires this alignment.
It cannot be that a company is exemplary, excellent, exemplary, today, and a mere memory tomorrow; excellence must be a label of prosperity, of adaptation to the passing of time, of cutting-edge knowledge, of reference in innovation, of collective development, of contribution to the best future for all.
Information as raw material
Years ago, actually decades, it was literacy that concerned us, as we pursued the integration of all adults in the world of work. To continue talking only about the adult population, literacy now has another practical meaning, because, for example, written information is becoming more complex every day, and it is also presented in more complex media. The public is already forced to manage, for example, ATMs, to interpret complicated train maps to move around, to use simple-to-use appliances but whose instructions seem indecipherable, to select what they are looking for among a lot of alternatives… One He confesses his difficulties in this regard, with some modern electronic devices.
But it is that also observing life in companies, even with university-trained workers and managers, we note that information has acquired a cardinal role, and that its consultation puts us to the test.
When, after getting several academic degrees, it seemed that we belonged to the most developed part of the population, it turns out that we often lose ourselves in the complicated task of lifelong learning, of the interpretation of information, of its evaluation, of its synthesis, from translation to knowledge to make better decisions and act more effectively. Curiously, sometimes we reject more information: we do not feel capable of processing it. Our attention and our conscience show us impotent, for the volume of information that is offered to us.
It is no longer just about handling computers well, which has been a challenge for those of us who knew them as adults; It is especially about managing your content, with the large reserve of information available, whether internal to organizations or external to the more or less advanced professional world to which we belong. We cannot accept the idea of lifelong learning - throughout the working life - without assuming its meaning: the constant need to access information necessary for our professional performance, and which we must know how to convert into knowledge.
If different colleagues approach a subject of study consulting different authors, then, when debating among ourselves, we have difficulties to build a greater knowledge; as if, in addition to knowledge, we lacked skills such as flexibility, wide-mindedness, establishing connections, inquiry, synthesis, evaluation, understanding, concept management, reflective thinking…
Unfortunately, fragmentary thinking is sometimes imposed on the integrator, the power of the one who holds it over the knowledge of who treasures it, the negative emotions over the positive ones, the urgencies over the importance, the information is imposed more accessible on the more enriching…
Does the reader identify with these concerns? Obviously, some industries and some organizations depend more on knowledge than others, but probably the reader has come to this text because it belongs to the collective of knowledge workers and lifelong learners. So let's continue reflecting.
When we attended classroom training as students, it seemed that the teacher should already transmit to us the knowledge that was elaborated and easy to digest (“chewed”); Now, without ruling out classroom learning when we have common needs, it will be more frequent that we look for learning solutions ourselves, either via formally orchestrated e-learning, or under other established formulas, or under the mantra of “learn As you can".
The companies that are more based on the knowledge of their people, have knowledge management systems in place and even provide Internet access for their employees; But people often lack the necessary expertise to manage themselves in the Information Society. It is not surprising that there is talk of information literacy - even among qualified personnel.
If that literacy of decades ago involved access to the world of education and learning, today we can speak of different literacies at different levels of population development, and without being sufficiently aware of it.
You can talk about digital or technological literacy thinking about the tools and devices to be used in companies and organizations, but you can also talk about skill in generating and consulting information, the raw material par excellence in today's economic processes. In the Information Society, the prosperity of organizations requires a certain informational excellence in their managers and workers.
conclusion
The management (and self-management) of people also points to elements such as:
- Learning management Knowledge management Imagination management Sentiment management
And to all this the current concept of excellence cannot be alien, neither at a collective level nor at an individual level. In sum, business excellence today goes through concepts such as lifelong learning, knowledge organization, creativity, learning organization, cognitive and emotional competencies, knowledge worker, oral and written communication, serendipity, personal mastery, quality of life at work, social responsibility, genuine intuition, vocational vocation to autotelic… We could say that, in companies, knowledge management constitutes the internal expression of the Information Society; and that this idea and others lead us to a new way of looking at people.
