Posted by Yogesh Malhotra on February 21, 1998 at 16:33:21:

In Reply to: KM is an Oxymoron, but come to think of it, so is Intellectual Capital posted by Mezei on February 21, 1998 at 14:30:00:

Don, your comment reminded me of Handy's 'Age of Paradox' which I have often referred to as the 'discontinuous change' phenomena and drawn it parallel's with Brian Arthur's 'new world of business'.

One way to reflect on your query is to think of this era as the 'Age of Paradox.' In other words, to succeed and thrive in the long term one has to be comfortable with the 'opposite of current thinking' while being operational in 'current thinking.' Stated differently, we need a balance between the convergent interpretations for seeking operational efficiencies while unravelling the convergence with divergent, and 'deadly enemy', alternative hypotheses, for long term effectiveness. This is one way of not getting caught in the 'success syndrome' and keep our 'theory of the business' aligned with the dynamically changing reality of the external environment.

I believe there is nothing basically wrong in having one's 'own view' as long as it takes into account, and integrates within it, the alternative views of... call it whatever... knowledge management, knowledge ecology, change management, transformation... It is the problem in having a rigid, inflexible and static 'own view,' that may be more problematic.

This also reminds me of George Kelly, one of the key proponents of the Theory of Personal Constructs. He had stated that any theory is as good as the knowledge that results from it... he considered therein both complementary as well as contradictory knowledge... He suggests maintaining an independence of 'self' from one's theories so that one is not fixated on that theory as the absolute and permanent truth. Further, he had suggested that if a theory is falsified and it results in a better or stronger theory... it has served its purpose in the progression of knowledge... any successful theory would finally end up in a trash basket.

One can draw the comparison between Kelly's view and Drucker's notion of the 'theory of business'... It is only problematic when individuals and organizations become fixated on the 'theory of business' _that has worked before_ and assume its permanent infallibility. Given such situations, such individuals and organizations tend to get become victims of the 'success syndrome' as their theories of business get misaligned with the dynamically changing reality. Viewed another way, from Laurence Peter's [of Peter Principle fame] perspective, such individuals and organizations tend to rise to their level of incompetence.

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• Towards absolutes and distinctions Mezei 19:59:08 2/21/98 (0)

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