KNOWLEDGE IS ADAPTATION
A company's knowledge base is a bit like a gene pool: it is continually used to advance the company but needs to be continuously added to. Its environment also influences it. Like a gene pool, knowledge is the accumulation of all the instructions required for individuals and organisations to adapt to changing environments. These instructions are not fixed in one place but are divided up and scattered about among the individuals in the population or the company. In nature, the individuals must be reproductively competent to add to the gene pool. In a company, the individuals must be empowered and enabled to use and add to the company's knowledge base.
Genetic instructions are given to an individual organism at birth and are expressed during a process of development as the organism matures to adulthood. At this stage, it may (or may not) enter into reproduction and return its genes to the gene pool. Despite being able to add to it on reproduction, the organism itself is forever cut off from the gene pool. It has to make do with a fixed set of instructions that cannot be altered. It cannot dip back into the gene pool to augment those instructions if it finds they are not good enough.
Fortunately, this is not the case with a company's knowledge. An individual can continually strengthen its own knowledge by using the accumulated knowledge gained by the company as a whole. It can then strengthen the knowledge base of the company by sharing attained knowledge with others.
Provided the company allows competent individuals to act upon knowledge they have gained, the knowledge base can be immediately added to. Even if the knowledge is not correctly acted upon and mistakes occur, the knowledge base is still strengthened. Unlike nature, there does not have to be a 'maturity' delay before our knowledge can be expanded.
The reproductive delay before an individual organism can add to a gene pool has been called the 'generational deadtime'. It is simply the time between receiving a set of genetic instructions at birth and the time at which those instructions are added to the gene pool by reproduction. In many species an inordinately long 'deadtime', in a rapidly changing environment, has led to the ultimate extinction of the species. If the world has changed in this time, and changed in ways that are significant for the organism, then the instructions received at birth may be out of date and no longer relevant at reproduction. As time goes by, no new appropriate genes are added and the entire species slowly dies. 98% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct as a consequence of an inappropriately slow generational deadtime.
Many companies are vulnerable to their own form of generational deadtime. Lengthy and rigid procedures and processes often have to be rigorously completed before an exciting new product, innovation or opportunity can be acted upon. This may be fine if the outside world is changing slowly but disastrous if rapid change is taking place. In our present world of the Internet and electronic markets, where deals take place at the speed of light, opportunities must be seized upon very quickly if they are to be at all beneficial. A long deadtime will kill any opportunity in this environment.
As nature has done, companies need to see knowledge as adaptation and to recognise that all adaptations are knowledge. An adaptation is an attribute that helps an organism reproduce or a company act. The water-conserving ability of a cactus in a dry environment and the effective management of knowledge in a company are examples of adaptation. Adaptation requires acceptance of change and a willingness to experiment. It also requires a willingness to learn from both the external environment (e.g. existing or past customers and suppliers) and the internal environment (employees).
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