Draft for Discussion Only
Wisdom: The End-Product of Knowledge Management
by
Prajapati Trivedi
Secretary, Performance Management
Cabinet Secretariat
Government of India
Just like business management, which people have practiced since the first businesses were
established, knowledge management is as old as knowledge itself. Even before the evolution
of the human race, other species managed knowledge from the time they appeared on this
planet and developed the urge to survive. Today, the management of knowledge management
has come of age, and we are beginning to see some consensus on essentials such as the
definition of knowledge management.
Most practitioners agree that the term knowledge management (KM) loosely refers to a broad
collection of organizational practices related to generating, capturing, and disseminating
know-how and promoting knowledge sharing both within an organization and with the
outside world. However exciting these activities may appear, they are not the main goal of a
KM exercise. KM is a means toward an end and not an end in itself. To understand its place
in the knowledge supply chain, it may be useful to examine Figure 1.
Figure 1. The Knowledge Supply Chain
It is clear from this figure that KM is an intermediate product in the knowledge supply chain
whose ultimate goal is better-quality advice to policy makers. KM can only be effective
within a sound KM infrastructure. Without an effective system of collecting data and
generating information, effective KM is unlikely. Indeed, there will be little to manage.
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Data management and information management do not imply, ipso facto, intensive use of
information communications technology (ICT). Ancient civilizations—the Egyptians,
Greeks, Romans, Chinese, and Indians—had excellent systems of KM without the benefit of
modern ICT. Thus, KM and ICT are by no means synonymous. Rather, ICT is a means for
improving data management, information management, and, eventually, knowledge
management. If a country (or an organization) does not already has a well-designed system of
data collection and management, ICT is unlikely to be of much use. We know of many
statistics organizations that, in spite of their expensive computers and hardware, have poorquality data. ICT can create a false sense of comfort and delay much-needed reform of the
fundamental incentives to create and manage data. The same applies to information
management.
Fortunately, the importance of information management is now well established. Most
observers would concede that quality of an organization’s KM is directly proportional to the
quality of its information management systems. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said
about the world beyond KM. There is a current orthodoxy that has made KM the be all and
end all of our endeavors in this area.
From Knowledge to Wisdom
Knowledge is but a means to improve decision making. The successful civilizations of the
past exemplified the critical role of wisdom. As Sophocles said, “Our happiness depends on
wisdom all the way." Most of the successful ancient rulers were either wise themselves or
had access to wise advisers. It is useful to look at the accumulated knowledge on the
importance of wisdom.
Many have thought about these issues, but Walter Lippmann said it best: “It requires wisdom
to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.” Thus, some would argue
that being wise is a talent that one is born with. We can all learn to play the violin, but few
reach the heights of Mozart or Brahms. In his famous wish, Reinhold Niebuhr asked God for
wisdom and not knowledge: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
This does not mean that we should not strive to be wise. Not everyone can be a Mozart, but
through practice and perseverance one can become a good violinist. In the knowledge
business, according to Socrates, "the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing."
However, other giant thinkers have had plenty of advice on how to acquire wisdom:

“To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.”
Marilyn vos Savant

“We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no
one can take us or spare us.” Marcel Proust

“Wisdom doesn't automatically come with old age. Nothing does—except wrinkles.
It's true, some wines improve with age. But only if the grapes were good in the first
place.” Abigail Van Buren
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
“When you make a mistake, don't look back at it long. Take the reason of the thing
into your mind and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past
cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power.” Hugh White

“One's first step in wisdom is to question everything—and one's last is to come to
terms with everything.” Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

“It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the
strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.” Mahatama Gandhi

“Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure.” William
Saroyan
The sum total of the wisdom on wisdom—that is, metawisdom—appears to be that
knowledge combined with experience leads to accumulated wisdom. The operational
significance of this conclusion is that one should acquire as much knowledge as possible but
not think that it is a substitute for wisdom.
As always, the private sector is ahead of the public sector in this regard. The public sector
caught on to the KM trend almost a decade after the private sector had taken the plunge.
While the public sector is making its first tentative forays into knowledge management, the
private sector is already moving on to wisdom management. MIT Media Lab’s codirector
Michael Schrage summarized this trend best:
Knowledge management is clearly just a phase, an ephemeral link in the
great value chain of organizational productivity. Knowledge management
simply does not go far enough. Organizations have to have the courage and
creativity to look to the management destiny beyond knowledge
management. I’m confident you know what that destiny is; it’s the logical
extension of knowledge well-managed: Wisdom Management. (Fortune,
December 10, 2001)
According to proponents of this trend, a wise CEO will surely make better decisions than a
merely knowledgeable one, and a wise company inspires greater trust and loyalty from
employees and customers than one that simply has more knowledge. This group would have
us focus on creating wisdom systems and wisdom portals.
Good Judgment: Worlds Beyond Wisdom
Is wisdom the end of the line? Alvin Toffler warned us that “you can use all the quantitative
data you can get, but you still have to distrust it and use your own intelligence and
judgment.” Knowledgeable, wise people have shown such poor judgment in the past that it
is important to highlight how crucial sound judgment is. Ultimately, presidents and prime
ministers listen to people whose judgment they trust. Since we do not have the technological
sophistication to set up “judgment portals,” we will have to continue to harness judgment in
the old-fashioned way.
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