The ups and downs that affect climate and productivity in many organizations today do not seem to be a coincidence. It is possible to notice a thread that leads to its origins and becomes more and more evident as we explore the different realities that make up this particular socio-economic phenomenon, where people amalgamate with the material factors of production - and not always successfully..
The whole of the 20th century has passed without the aspiration of Ludwig von Bertalanffy, vehemently stated within the objectives of his General Systems Theory: the integration of all sciences in an interdisciplinary, holistic perspective that paves the way. towards a fuller and deeper knowledge of the world around us and of ourselves as part of it. Already in the first half of that century, the enormous inefficiency hidden in the independent search for answers in multiple areas of knowledge was perceived, when many of them could be consolidated in a common, all-encompassing perspective.
The challenge goes beyond mere sharing, by the way. It is about cultivating knowledge from its roots, with an attitude that includes the tree and also the forest. If until a few decades ago the slowness of communications could serve as an excuse for scientists who - without knowing anything about each other - carried out years of totally redundant research, that explanation is no longer valid today.
For a GPS to work properly, it is necessary that the signal from satellites can be measured in nanoseconds (one second divided a billion times) - but in the field of knowledge management we continue to use mind maps from a hundred years ago. It is common to observe in organizations the absence of a concept of knowledge built up collectively and managed in a systematic way, which prevents the development of a culture of commitment - in fact, a culture in any sense that we think of it. The fierce defense of watertight parcels seems appropriate to all, from which a small (or large) dominance over others can be exercised, causing a significant portion of corporate errors to continue to occur as a consequence of the ineffective internal communication that this entails.
In the knowledge society, successor to the information society in which it was created, what a collective thinks it knows continues to be in the hands of the individual brains that make it up - ultimately, its owners and masters. The group, as such, ignores it. Because the brain, which is an incredible resource for managing personal knowledge, is not so much when it comes to the common; it is necessary to go a little further, guided by what we continue to learn about its operation.
Current research in neuroscience is demonstrating that self-conscious mental experience relies on a synergistic interaction between multiple brain regions, including several that belong to our oldest phylogeny rather than constituting the competence of a specific and supposedly modern area, as believed until just a few years ago. The perception of an image through the sense of vision implies the joint and practically simultaneous action of numerous neuronal nuclei, each of which contributes with a very specific perspective to construct the object that we experience as a whole. This is the beauty of the tool.
Similarly, those who make up a human group that interacts in pursuit of certain objectives, surely take as reference a collective idea that directs them and that is sustained by their respective competences. And yet, we find that few organizations understand the importance of systematically transferring individual (implicit) to corporate (explicit) knowledge, continuously regenerating it, and managing it as the rare and obsolete asset par excellence in which it has definitely been converted.
In this minority of cases there is an awareness of the amalgamating power of knowledge as a prelude to any project that pursues excellence. There is a full understanding of how fleeting competitive environments are and the consequent need to keep our system informed in real time about the changes that are taking place, all of which requires thinking about new operating schemes and technological instruments that support such challenge effectively enough.
The organization that has managed to create a collective intelligence must sustain it in systematic processes that make it an always up-to-date and accessible resource, wherever and whenever it is needed, by those who need it. In the absence of these mechanisms, corporate Alzheimer's - which lurks regardless of the age of its victims - will be the prelude to a slow (or fast?) Deterioration in the ability to sustain and grow. It is, perhaps, one of the main reasons why the average life of these groups is more and more ephemeral. It is also one of the causes most hidden from everyday eyes and the one that produces its effects in the most imperceptible way, because its strength lies in the very ignorance of those who suffer from it. To recognize its existence is to begin recovery.
