EXPANDING MINDS THROUGH KNOWLEDGE MANEGEMENT

By Gunja Chaturvedi (M.Pharm Pharmaceutics) , BITS Pilani)

If the knowledge creation is natural and if wanting to share what you know is so humanly
satisfying, then what is the problem? What sends these behaviors underground? Why do we all
go dumb?

From many years, people have had to choose between living in a lovely place near their family
and being able to interact with more people in less attractive, more crowded places to gain new
understanding and accomplish more. Those who live in an idyllic place blessed with flowers,
music and good weather, find considering the alternative painful and unattractive despite the
apparent advantages. From biology it is evident that all life engages in knowledge creation and
we humans are no different. We all are designed for learning. No one has to teach an infant to
work, or talk, or master the spatial relationship needed to stack eight building blocks that don‟t
topple. Children come fully equipped with an insatiable drive to explore and experiment. In fact
when asked to do a task, most of us feel the need to change it in some way. We fine tune it, we
adapt it to our unique context, and we add our own improvements to how the task is done. We
are developing new knowledge all time.

Unfortunately, the primary institutions of our society are oriented predominantly toward
controlling rather than learning, rewarding individuals for performing for others rather than
cultivating their natural curiosity an impulse to learn. Our prevailing system of management has
destroyed our people. The forces of destruction begins with the toddlers – a prize for the good
costumes ,grades in school , gold stars and on up to university. On the job, people, team,
division are ranked for offering rewards for the top ones and punishments for the bottom ones.
Ironically, by focusing on performing for someone else‟s approval corporations create the very
conditions that predestine them to mediocre performance.

Today we all know that we need to be much more skilled in this competitive era. The
complexity of the twenty first century world has speeded up the pace of evolution and those who
cannot learn adapt and change simply will not survive. Because traditional disciplinary
knowledge is limited in its ability to support the challenging decisions that lie ahead in our path.
We are entering into a new era where the future will be essentially determined by our ability to
wisely use the knowledge, a precious global resource that is the embodiment of human
intellectual capital and technology. While expanding our understanding of knowledge as an
essential asset, we realize that in many ways our future is limited only by our imagination and
ability to leverage the human mind.

The conventional view about of knowledge management begins with the assumption that
valuable knowledge already exists. Knowledge management is all about getting the right
information to the right people at the right time. However knowledge does not simply exists, but
the people create it and this can be done efficiently by managing the knowledge along with
knowledge making or production. Effective knowledge creation and sharing puts demands on the
way people relate to each other. Untrustworthy behavior, constant competition, imbalances in
giving and receiving information and a “that‟s not my job” attitude endangers effective
knowledge sharing. So, in order to overcome this situation, motivating people is a perfect
solution and motivating people to be more knowledge competent does require an understanding
of „Care‟. „Care‟ is something that most human beings can relate to through their personal
histories. To care for someone is to help them to learn, to increase an awareness of events and
consequences and to help them nurture personal knowledge creation, while sharing insights.
Genuine care gives rise to empathy, making it possible to access and understand people‟s needs.
When care is low, individuals will try to hoard knowledge rather than sharing it voluntarily.
Knowledge sharing is a critical human behavior that we need to carefully cultivate and harvest.

Since the educational system came into existence, learning has been predominantly others-
directed. Teachers teach and decide what the student needs to know and the students supposedly
learn what the teacher teaches. Each discipline has its own rules, areas of interest, language,
standards of excellence, field of inquiry and specific paradigm of reality. But in a complex
world, this approach is inadequate because multi discipline merge and multi dimensional
knowledge is required. So rather than being told what to learn, learning must be self- directed by
those people who face continually shifting problems that require multi –disciplinary
comprehension. The present education system is caught in a dilemma as to either stick to what
we have been doing for ages or accept what the world is doing. In such conditions, it is dubious
whether students are learning the skills which they need. Because in present scenario it is not
important that how much they are learning but the matter of concern is, what they are learning is
able to enhance their prospects for employment and helping them in making decisions in
complex situations or not.

Forthwith ,but taking the readers to the barricade of the present condition which is definitely and
inevitably affecting the knowledge creation, sharing and decision making as well among the
fresh minds. We have never given much thought to the basic need of knowing and understanding
English language which is the most important determinant of the access to higher education,
employment possibilities and social opportunities. The school leavers who are not adequately
trained in English as a language are always at a handicap in the world of higher education. More
often than not, teaching is in English. Even if it is not, in most of the subjects, books and journals
are available only in English. And those who do not know English well find it exceedingly
difficult to compete for a place in our premier educational institutions. This disadvantage is
accentuated further in the world of work, not only in professional occupations but also in white
collar occupations overall. This reality is not lost on our people, who recognize that English
language is a critical determinant of access to, and opportunities for a better life. The irony in
this situation is that English has been a part of our education system for more than a century. Yet
English is beyond the reach of most of our young people, which make for a highly unequal
access. Since language learning takes place not only through direct instruction but also through
assimilation from the environment, classroom needs should be equipped with appropriate
supplementary audio-visual and print material. Resource libraries could be set up in every
classroom, comprising of a collection of books, magazines, newspapers, audio-visual material
and posters, appropriate to the age of the student. Language learning opportunities should also be
created outside the classroom through specific bi-lingual radio and TV channels, which could be
introduced for the formal and informal learning and teaching of English. Also, knowledge clubs
should be formed to discuss and disseminate knowledge as well as extend the use of English
language.

Coming back to learning process which is an initial and integral part of knowledge management.
The irony of this learning is that it demands two things we don‟t have; a tolerance for the messy,
nonlinear processes and the other one is time. But creativity is only available when we relax into
confusion, open our minds to not knowing, and wait for the insight to surprise us. New
knowledge is born in messy processes that take time. Moreover, insights and innovations are the
result of nurturing and they cannot be commanded to appear instantly, no matter how desperately
we need them. We cannot argue with the clear demands of knowledge – it requires time to grow
and it grows within human relationships. Relationships and creativity are always messy :)

But actually individual awareness and commitment to the personal development is a powerful
driver of learning. While learning in a complex world may start with gathering facts, theories etc.
What is most critical is the understanding (knowledge) in those related to the problem or
situation of interest. When the individual has an understanding and meaning of the problem, they
can better anticipate the consequences of possible actions and thereby determine what action will
be most effective and such knowledge may be created by individuals, leveraged by working in a
team. Moreover, working in groups or teams is almost always effective in developing diverse
frame of reference and multiple learning approaches. People can expose and share each other‟s
thoughts and ideas to create a breadth of information and knowledge far beyond what a single
individual is capable of doing.

For thousands of years, human knowledge was handed down verbally, usually from a single
person called a "teacher", to a group of people called "students". This was generally done with
the aid of information that had been carved, written, or printed by another single person (called
an "author"), onto stone tablets, wood blocks, animal skins, papyrus scrolls, or paper books. The
ancient Egyptians used this method to teach hieroglyphics to their children. And, it's how you
probably learned 8th grade algebra. During this period of thousands of years, the most significant
change in this learning process was the big switch from scrolls to books.

With the development of electronic storage of data over the past half-century, we've slowly
abandoned our practice of keeping our information on pieces of rocks, plants, or animals.
However, we've still primarily relied upon traditional one-way teacher-student methods for
educating ourselves. In the past decade or two, we made another interesting advancement in the
teaching process. We began to use computers not just for storing and accessing information, but
for developing and sharing knowledge. Group learning replaced traditional one-way methods of
teaching. The online community was born.In just 10 years, this concept evolved from scattered
clusters of computer users to a powerful network of millions of people from all walks of life,
sharing large amounts of information in a vast online communiverse.This information has proven
itself so valuable, that online communities are now among the best available sources of
knowledge on a vast and varied array of subjects.

The basic funda of acquiring knowledge is not the „amount‟ that is learned, it is „what‟ learned
and „how‟ well it leads to the understanding and meaning. Questions and consequent possibilities
may be far more important than the answers, when dealing with the situations that may not have
single or simple solutions. Answers close off thinking, but questions generate ideas and
possibilities that lead to more ideas, eventually building a landscape of insights and
understanding that guides the thinking and action. With learning comes the thinking and what
can help us expand our thinking beyond the common conjecture, is dealing with the new
concepts which require a new language, finding appropriate metaphors and analogies and asking
questions. After expanding our learning and thinking, comes the need for an appropriate set of
actions. What action we take ultimately decides that how we see the world and deal with the
problems, situations and opportunities. Actions taken by an individual for a complex situation is
particularly direction oriented rather than solution focused. But the act of collaborating with
others and working in teams will create positive, proactive environment that is much more
effective in dealing with complex problems.

Knowledge management involves connecting people with people and people with information.
And for all these we take advantage of the available technologies which enhances the ability to
rapidly disseminate information and develop knowledge bases thereby presenting opportunities
to change in the traditional view point of acquiring knowledge, inspire an informal style and
promote social networks through knowledge sharing. For the success of the knowledge
management there should be cooperation, coordination and collaboration among people so that
they can continue to function in a more or less autonomous manner, cast off the gaps between
each other with adapting and accommodating differences in order to achieve a common goal and
work in collaboration with actual commitment and investment of the resources based on their
shared vision.

The ladder of knowledge management entails progress in basically two dimensions of

knowledge viz. assimilation and depth. Assimilation corresponds to the extent that the acquired
knowledge becomes new competency. In traditional education, that is seldom achieved or even
pursued. Basically knowledge assimilation implies a better adaptation, a capacity to behave
differently in a more sustainable way. While knowledge depth, in turn, refers to the degree that
pieces of knowledge connect with each other, and hence evolving into new structures.
Distinction between the data, information understanding and wisdom move along this scale. And
these two dimensions establish the basic coordinates for the advancement of the knowledge. The
more knowledge means a capacity to enact an ideal state, and the more knowledge relates to the
wider realm of experience, the more it empowers omnicompetence.

Unlike information, knowledge is not just a thing to be managed. It is the capacity of people and
communities to continuously generate and renew themselves to meet the new challenges and
opportunities. The information which we are having has to be transformed into knowledge by
utilizing and exploiting the available technologies and also by application of people‟s
competencies ,skills, talents, thoughts , ideas, intuitions , commitments , motivations and
imaginations in that process. Once we admit to ourselves , how loosely we may be attending to
the critical knowledge assets of our institutions , the sooner we will be ready to embrace the
knowledge management as a valuable tool in both using and protecting the assets. Globally,
research and development activities and innovations are increasingly multi- disciplinary and
collaborative and require substantial computational power. The key to successful research today
is live consultations, data sharing and resource sharing. Therefore it is essential to provide
broadband connectivity to our knowledge institutions to improve access, quality and quantity of
R & D activities as an essential step in knowledge management in required direction.

In the present education system there is an increasing pressure for producing knowledge workers,
who can participate in commercial and competitive dynamic and improve the quality standards.
So in direction to overcome this situation, students should be given greater flexibility to vary the
rhythm of their learning. Even more powerful and pervasive information and communication
technologies are supplementing for this. Further, contemporary online learning technologies have
been identified as particularly important agents for the change. These online technologies have
enriched student‟s learning by opening across to greater learning by opening access to a greater
range of interactive resources, making the course content more cognitively accessible providing
automated and adoptive forms of assessment. Online discussions may also be more supportive of
experimentation, divergent thinking and exploration of multiple perspective, complex
understanding and reflection than face to face discussion. A constructive learning to a greater
extent rests on how well the student is engaged in learning situation. Well designed systems
should enhance students‟ perception of self- efficacy and not distract from it. Therefore learning
atmosphere must be equipped with the variety of learning materials and resources. Further
learning material presented through different multimedia like www-hobs ,internet technologies ,
net chat etc .must be designed in such a way that it will sustain the engagement of the student to
a long duration rather than quick alienation.

Apart from the students teachers also play a major role in this. For a constructive learning
activity, teachers should choose appropriate elements of technologies like communication,
computer based simulation using the internet to find up to date information. These choices
engage students in more active approach to learning by using technologies to simulate their
interest, curiosity, stimulate processes and improve communication between student and student
& student and teacher. Thus for extreme use of technologies ,teachers may devise a series of
more complicated project oriented activities relating to the consequent themes ,topics and tasks
in various subject matters and implying a collaborative rather than competitive approach to
problem solving.

Eventually, a fruitful task in direction of expanding minds through knowledge management can
be done by first of all getting rid of the mindset of adherence to the “way things have always
been done” so that the present prevailing practices may be assessed from time to time for their
alignment with the dynamically changing environment. By encouraging open and free
discussions to get wider viewpoints and thus avoiding premature consensus on issues that need to
be thoroughly analyzed. Often, viewpoints of faculty members with differing backgrounds and
expertise can provide a much broader focus that is essential for dealing with the complexities of
the problem. This is more so required in the case of teaching learning process as the changing
context are demanding a fresh look at what was yesterday defined as a “best practice”. The
faculty members should be encouraged to share their imagination and creativity which is needed
to facilitate greater internal diversity to match the variety and complexity of the ever changing
complex environment. As we know that knowledge sharing is the need of the hour, we must try
to make the institutional information base accessible to all the members of the institution who are
close to the action, while simultaneously ensuring that they have the skills and authority to
implement the decisive responses to changing conditions.
Ultimately, Knowledge management requires a holistic and a multidisciplinary, approach to
management process and an understanding of the dimensions of knowledge work. It is an
evolution of good management practice sensibly and purposely applied. Knowledge
Management occupies a very out standing position in the creation of the knowledge innovation
system of a country. Knowledge Management has become a powerful tool for promoting
innovation and realizing re-engineering the various walks of life. Moreover, knowledge literate
people are those who have learnt how to learn and they know how to learn because they know
how knowledge is organized, how to find information. And how to hue information in such as a
way that others can learn from them. They are people prepared for lifelong learning because they
can always find the information, needed for any task or decisions at hand. Knowledge enhances
the learning process, stimulates the innovations in education, raises the levels of productivity,
speeds the development and ultimately improves our lives. The future of the world lies in front
of us unexplored and uncharted and is full with the great opportunities for expanding peace and
prosperity in the next millennium through the responsible use of the knowledge and of course its
proper management.