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Rick Dove wrote:

> My belief is that schools teach too much history - that used to be a lot
> more valuable when things changed slowly. Today things change so fast that
> more of the learning process needs to occur simultaneously with the
> application process.
>

This is an interesting commenting on teaching history. If you mean that
business schools are teaching the same old stuff, I agree, we don't need too much
of that. But it seems to me that one value of history is to learn from it what
practices may be appropriate today and in the future. I teach some management
history because I believe we can learn from it. I don't necessarily teach
history as the correct way of practicing management.
The value of history in this context is that students should understand why
management was the way it was - why certain practices made sense at certain
times. For example, when does/did it make sense to have a tall hierarchical org
structure. They will encounter plenty of people who practice old style management
and they should understand why "new" practices are more appropriate if they hope
to change the management style of an organization.
Thanks for your interesting comments.

--
Gary Stark
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Management
CBA 209, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588-0491
gstark@unlgrad1.unl.edu (un letter "l" grad number "1")
402/472-6215 mailto:gstark@unlgrad1.unl.edu

Gary Stark wrote:
>....an interesting comment on teaching history. If you mean that
>business schools are teaching the same old stuff, I agree, we don't need too
>much of that. But it seems to me that one value of history is to learn from
>it what practices may be appropriate today and in the future. I teach some
>management history because I believe we can learn from it.

Of course we can - history does repeat itself - though generally with an
updated twist - I call it the Klein Bottle effect.

But that wasn't my point about schools teaching too much history. My point
is that schools teach from the books that professors write - and most of
these books analyze the way business worked when they did their research.
This was a good approach when the world changed slowly enough that the
information and models could be expected to rule for some time.

Example - "The Machine That Changed The World" woke up the USA to the Toyota
Production process and gave it the name Lean. This was written sometime in
the early '90s - Toyota began their process innovations in the 50's - we
were reading history that had already run its course in Japan. Having woken
up late, too much of the USA is now scrambling to learn and implement the
Lean lessons when in fact innovative production concepts continue to evolve.
I'm not saying we shouldn't learn the Lean lessons - I'm saying we need to
understand that that is already history and the frontier continues to move.
And the frontier today is already old news by the time it is analyzed,
understood, captured in a book, and presented to the business student.

The problem behind all of this is the knowledge explosion.

This human thing we are distinguishes itself from other life by generating
and applying knowledge. Our increasing population is building upon an
increasing body of past knowledge - which increases the frequency of new
knowledge generation and speeds the decay of current knowledge value -
making the general business environment, which is built on knowledge, more
unstable.

Conscious knowledge management is the practice that will return general
stability in the long run. Short term it will provide preemptive advantage
to those who master it first.

Today the frontier belongs to the experimentalists. If their experiments
have sound foundations they will generally push the frontier and be the
leading learners - as long as they keep on pushing the frontier. Those who
wait to read the book will forever bring up the rear - because this big bang
in the knowledge universe is still expanding.

So we need to know the history - but more importantly, we need to be part of
the act that generates history. I believe that this is where continuing
education must focus - there are no time-outs left for learning.

Rick Dove, http://www.parshift.com
Chairman, Paradigm Shift International
Director, National Learning Foundation
Sr Fellow, Agility Forum

Rick,

Forgive me in advance if I ask stupid questions.
Would you define "conscious knowledge management" in the context of managing
a business? And how do you recommend we shift from the "historical"
approach of teaching management to this "current events" paradigm?

I agree that the knowledge/information revolution is changing the world,
including management and education, and that we have only just begun to
experience these changes.

Also, your reference to "Lean" intrigues me. I am a long-time studier and
user of Total Quality Management, which of course originated in Japan in the
1950's...is the "Lean" and Americanized offshoot?

Ken Miller, A.B.D.
Instructor
The College of West Virginia

Ken Miller wrote:

>Would you define "conscious knowledge management" in the context of managing
>a business?

Knowledge management is one of those buzz phrases growing in popularity at a
rapid rate - and probably getting redefined frequently to suite personal and
proprietary purposes. As a business practice, however, not too much is
happening as yet - contrary to what the IT people would have us all believe.
But some of our best companies are unconsciously good at knowledge
management - naturals at maintaining an environment that encourages constant
renewal of the knowledge that the business is based upon and that the
business requires for continued viability and leadership. Generally these
environments encourage self-directed-learning and experimentation and
its-OK-to-be-wrong and empowerment-with-accountability. But they don't
necessarily view all of this as a designed procedure-based business practice
whose intent is to manage the knowledge currency and value of the business.
They just do it - it occurs as a by product of other things they do
consciously manage - like accountable-empowerment.

>And how do you recommend we shift from the "historical"
>approach of teaching management to this "current events" paradigm?

Near and dear to my heart. Experiential learning is probably the accurate
sound byte here. Get people learning while they are dealing with and solving
their day-to-day problems. Guide them don't teach them. For one example see
the "Realsearch: A Framework for Knowledge Management and Continuing
Education" at http://www.parshift.com/rsrch00.htm

>Also, your reference to "Lean" intrigues me. I am a long-time studier and
>user of Total Quality Management, which of course originated in Japan in the
>1950's...is the "Lean" an Americanized offshoot?

"Lean" is an (originally) American name for capturing the focus of the
Japanese Toyota Production system that came out of the "Machine That Changed
The World" book. Lean is not focused on TQM, but rather on resource waste
elimination in all things: inventory, cycle time, assembly steps, etc. To
much lean-by-the-book will produce a highly efficient but narrowly focused
system that is fragile under conditions of change. This is discussed in
Essay #1 "The Meaning of Life and the Meaning of Agile" at
http://www.parshift.com/publicat.htm