The knowledge community is not yet a reality, according to a UK consultant. The culture of knowledge as power where employees hoard information is still stronger than the situation in which workers contribute to the business, says Mike Freedman, executive vice president and partner for UK management consultancy Kepner Tregoe Ltd.
The internet driven explosion in data received by workers has not been balanced by a corresponding shift in using that data intelligently, says Freedman, who was speaking at the launch of a report entitled Globalization and the Knowledge Society by the Management Consultancies Association in London.
It is a problem for anyone over the age of 40, suggests Freedman, and particularly in Europe. The Americans are faster to adapt to technology and ways of working and they’ll steal a march if we’re not careful. Gordon Muller-Eschenbach, director of Munich, Germany-based management consultants Roland Berger & Partners Ltd, points to the US university education system as being more discursive, comparing it to the German ‘one-way’ lecturing style.
Suggesting how to change this cultural paradigm, Muller-Eschenbach asserts You have to do it by remuneration with a framework of rewards for knowledge creation. He also advocates leadership changes, with flatter hierarchies to enable companies to devolve responsibility on distributing information. Freedman argues that education, from the CEO to schoolchildren, is the way ahead. The person who needs to do the most learning is the chief executive, he says.
