knowledge

Tao Te Ching said to be written by Lao Tzu during the period of warring states in china around the second century B.C.; a compilation of Chinese philosophy dating back to 6th century B.C. or even earlier, is a profound philosophical work with many lessons for the corporate of the 21st century.

There is a lot of debate on issues of what differentiates a leader from a manager. One of the biggest challenges for leaders is to lead and lead by example. He is less preoccupied with control functions which are a function of knowledge and more with broader objectives of how the future should be shaped. Future can be shaped with visions, dreams and emotions. He also realizes that for the future to shape up well he needs to utilize the Present to the maximum advantage. He can achieve higher ideals and aspirations only when he is in touch with the ground realities. Experience of events and situations and behavioral aspects bring him closer to current realities and help discern the undercurrents of change so that he can translate them to better solutions.

The managerial functions of organization and control have more to do with knowledge whereas a leader thrives on futuristic vision, people centered approach, a bias for action and in creating the future which he desires. All this emanates from the experiential.

Let us now look at the leadership paradigm from what Tao Te Ching has to say about knowledge and experience.

Knowledge & Experience: Tao is the way. The way in which we conduct our lives in accordance with the natural principles conducive to right living and thinking, without regrets and in such a manner that we develop and realize our potential without harming others or preventing others from realizing their potential which is beneficial to the society. Such a way of life may be conducted without a name. This may simply be called the way. Or to distinguish from other ways we may describe it and give it a name so that others may know of it.

By thoughts and words and by means of being non participating observers we may gain knowledge of its manifestation. But only through participation in this way do we gain experience of it for ourselves.

So knowledge is not the same as experience. When we have knowledge of something, we can describe only our knowledge and not the experience. And when we have experience, we can describe the knowledge of that experience and not the experience itself.

Let us look at an illustration. We observe the marketplace and we see the manifestation of market place. Then we have reports from our sales person which is the knowledge from the experience. So we now have the knowledge. But it is not equal to the experience of the marketplace. So we go down physically to the marketplace and buy or sell products or interact with the many components of the market. We now have the experience. With the experience come right decisions and actions. But we cannot still convey the experience itself, only the knowledge of the experience may be conveyed.

Knowledge and experience both are real. But they are different realities which may cause complexities. When they are used according to that which may be appropriate we may transcend the barriers of such complexities.

This perhaps explains why many of the leaders are men who have risen from the ranks. Even if they have not risen from the bottom you may easily identify them by their hands on nature and leading from the front. Hands on men who have the knowledge, knowledge of experience and experience itself. Leaders who understand the complex reality of the manifestation, knowledge and experience prefer to lead from the front and not from sterile cabins far removed from the experience itself. These are the leaders you cannot keep away from the marketplace or their people or their constituents or customers. These are the men who instinctively understand the �Tao” of leadership - The Way.

This is not to say being hands on and lead from the front is the only leadership criteria. This is one of the distinguishing qualities of leadership. It is said that the greatest leader of all time Alexander The Great always lead every battle from the front when the battle began and only then did he move on to other roles.

What would you prefer to be? An acquirer of knowledge or a leader.

R.G. Srinivasan is a managerial professional, Writer and Author. He writes a regular blog on management thoughts with interesting articles, resources, personal experiences and links useful for any manager at http://management-thoughts.blogspot.com.

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Sometimes, people are immobilized from moving ahead simply because they don’t know what to do or where to begin. To bring change about in your life, you need the necessary knowledge to make that change successful. Consider what you can read, whom you can talk to, what seminar or workshop you can attend.

Who could be your coach? Discover all the resources that are available to you. Remember, there is no challenge so unique that humanity has never seen or heard of it before. There are always going to be others who have been through what you’re experiencing and who will know exactly what you’re up against. It is much better to get as much information as you can from those individuals who have gone before you than to try to figure everything out on your own.

Think of acquiring knowledge in terms of your own personal development program. Did you know that there is a direct relationship between your personal development program and your income? In the sales industry, we’ve found the more CDs listened to, the more books read and the more seminars attended, the higher the salesperson’s income. Brian Tracy tells people that their income will double every year if they just read thirty minutes a day. Lastly, consider that fact that most homes worth over a quarter of a million dollars have a library. I’m not saying that a huge income is your major goal-maybe it is, maybe it isn’t-but the point is, increased knowledge impacts your output, in whatever form it takes on.

The bottom line is, the more you learn, the more you earn. Anything you could possibly ever wonder about has most likely already been written about, so invest in the books, the

CDs, the seminars and the professional advice that are going to give you the knowledge you need to get ahead. As your knowledge increases, you will experience a parallel increase in motivation and desire. Researchers at Harvard University found that those who are learning and growing every day are more optimistic about life. They are more enthusiastic about where they’re going and what they’re going to accomplish.

Conversely, those who aren’t learning and growing every day become negative, pessimistic and doubtful about themselves and their future.

Kurt Mortensen’s trademark is Magnetic Persuasion; rather than convincing others, he teaches that you should attract them, just like a magnet attracts metal filings. He teaches that sales have changed and the consumer has become exponentially more skeptical and cynical within the last five years. Most persuaders are using only 2 or 3 persuasion techniques when there are actually 120 available! His message and program has helped thousands and will help you achieve unprecedented success in both your business and personal life.

If you are ready to claim your success and learn what only the ultra-prosperous know, begin by going to http://www.PreWealth.com and getting my free report “10 Mistakes That Continue Costing You Thousands.” After reading my free report, go to http://www.PreWealth.com/IQ and take the free Persuasion IQ analysis to determine where you rank and what area of the sales cycle you need to improve in order to close every sale!

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One of great challenges for any business is to learn to efficiently and cost effectively leverage knowledge on an enterprise wide basis. We have all heard the saying that “knowledge is power”we’ve all also heard the refinement of that saying which states that “the application of knowledge is power”. I prefer to take it one step further and say that “the successful application of knowledge at the right time, for the right reasons and with the proper emphasis results in a certainty of execution that creates power.” In this blog post I’ll provide you with some insights that will help you to not only leverage your knowledge to increase returns, but also how to protect your knowledge to mitigate risk.

Let’s begin by defining knowledge management (KM)While this alone may spur fierce debate, for simplicity sake I’ll define knowledge management as: “an organization’s ability to collect and convert data into information, turn information into knowledge and knowledge into an operating advantage.” The operational advantage created through effective KM should allow an enterprise to effectively address current needs as well as to strategically drive innovation and forward planning.

Put more simply, a corporation’s employees must be able to acquire knowledge (learning), transfer knowledge (out of the head and into an information system), apply knowledge (from the information system into an actionable event), manage knowledge (execute with focus, timing and precision), and secure knowledge (keep it from evaporating or even worse from walking out the door to a competitor). Let’s see if we can bring this issue a bit closer to home for some of youAsk yourself the following questions:

While I could go on ad-nauseum with day-to-day operating examples of how a lack of KM discipline can adversely affect a business I think I’ve probably dredged-up enough painful memories for now. Let’s turn our attention to the following 3 practices/concepts that can immediately be used to implement a KM system for your business:

1. KM is more about people than systems: In order for KM to flourish in a corporate environment the business must value data, information, business intelligence, research and other forms of knowledge as a strategic corporate asset. Furthermore KM must be recognized as one of the core elements of your corporate culture. Encourage and reward the public sharing of knowledge and education.

2. While KM is more about people and culture than systems, you still need a system: Start with developing standard naming conventions, file protocols, nomenclature and other heterogeneous standards that put everyone on the same system. By requiring everyone to work on the same platform and environment and within the same toolsets a certain sense of continuity and community is developed. Develop a mantra of “document, document and when in doubt, document” and make this as painless as possible. There is an old technology axiom that states “usability drives adoptability”. Whatever toolset you select must be easy to use so that it is viewed by employees as something that makes their job easier, not more difficult. That being said, there is a plethora of add water and mix intranet and KM solutions that are affordable and easy to use.

3. Protect your corporate knowledge: All employees should sign work for hire, non-disclosure, non-compete and non-circumvention agreements that make sure that all knowledge developed will remain corporate knowledge. Furthermore make it a practice to utilize copyrights, service marks, trademarks, license agreements, patents and other intellectual property protections to protect the corporate investment into knowledge assets.

The bottom line is that you can harness disparate elements of data and information and convert them into corporate knowledge assets to create a sustainable competitive advantage, or you can choose to sit back and conduct business as usualThe choice is yours.

Mike Myatt is the Chief Strategy Officer at N2growth. N2growth is a leading venture growth consultancy providing a unique array of professional services to high growth companies on a venture based business model. The rare combination of branding and corporate identity services, capital formation assistance, market research and business intelligence, sales and product engineering, leadership development and talent management, as well as marketing, advertising and public relations services make N2growth the industry leader in strategic growth consulting. More information about the company can be found at http://www.N2growth.com or by viewing http://www.N2growth.com/blog

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