For some, breaking with the norm, carving new paths represents a refreshing and progressive change, while for others, building on and expanding from the existing represents that refreshing and progressive change. One thing life has taught us, it is not to treat all in it as black-and-white. To progress, one cannot only adopt a dichotomous stance in all issues. By Nimroth Gwetsa, 31 August 2020.
I don’t think there’s anyone against being given a head start in life. The poor will welcome it, for it gives them an opportunity to thrive. The well-resourced expect it, for it sustains the privilege and perhaps thrill of their advancement.
A head start is like the sweetness of a good fruit. It revives, nourishes, fills and is generally good for one’s welfare. It represents goodness and something one would be keen to give to their loved dependents. Without a head start, one would have to start afresh and experience difficulties of development that those given a head start may not experience.
With such obvious benefits of a head start, why do many trivialise “old” things in preference for untested new things?
Understandably, there are times old things must be discarded completely and replaced with new, and other times old may need to be leveraged. Take wisdom, for example, and observe the rapid degeneration of society discarding all knowledge from the elderly. It does not matter if the old are deemed old fashioned and born before the technology era we live in today, but their collective experiences can shield us from many ills and harm from current exposures.
Similarly, a nation opposed to change, wanting to cling on old ways of doing things may also find itself in trouble, failing to resolve life problems.
We do not have to be at extreme ends of new versus old considerations, but we can leverage the best of both in our ongoing human development quest.
Keeping things tacit, passing information orally is one sure way of losing insights developed over ages. It also enables corruption to creep in as information can be altered to suit the narrator, whereas when it is written and distributed, it forces versioning if deviations are accepted, and forces centrality of thought and its application. Though as time passes, language changes and evolves, the core message may not be easily lost as tacit communication would.
The importance of explicit literary work can be seen in many disciplines today. We can blame colonisation and all other human dominance theories for prevalence of certain narratives, but one thing common about all these is that their “knowledge” was expressed explicitly as opposed to being passed orally. It doesn’t matter which aspect of life for which one begins to interrogate this claim, but it becomes clear that those who had their knowledge explicitly expressed thrived more than those who shared it orally.
Whether one considers this from philosophy, or religion, or science or any other perspective, explicit expression gave the development and advancement of that discipline a head start and an ongoing boost for its continued dominance. Perhaps this explains why so many good African inventions, philosophies, and knowledge were easily stolen and advanced by those willing to express it explicitly at the detriment of indigenous African derived knowledge and inventions.
Business-people need to encourage explicit expression of company derived knowledge to avoid loss of intellectual property and disruptions to their operations in the future. Decisions, methods of executing work and many others, need to be written so others that follow can understand context and reasons for their existence. That way, when faced with inventions influencing their departure from old methods and solutions, they can understand where most value and leverage lie.
Otherwise, companies may, in future, find themselves forever trapped in the worthless spiral of spending money on every new fad, owing to many finding existing solutions cumbersome and complex to understand or adapt. By forcing knowledge in existing and past solutions be explicitly specified, it allows anyone contemplating on introducing change to either advance existing theory or discard it by providing a well-reasoned and expressed counter argument.
It follows then that sustainable change comes from advancement of existing explicit knowledge, replaced by new knowledge, itself expressed explicitly and open to scrutiny and criticism by others.
When knowledge is expressed explicitly, institutions can be founded from such knowledge. In fact, I’d contend further that knowledge expressed explicitly creates prosperity benefitting many than knowledge kept tacitly.
We have lawyers, teachers, accountants among other professions then and even today, all stemming from explicitly expressed knowledge. Imagine the impact of the absence of explicit knowledge in society to appreciate its value. Now, if such value can be realised in society, imagine its impact within companies.
Any decision in the company for and against any idea or stance, would be easily checked, and where leaders are not “lording over” employees, they would welcome challenge from lower ranks, of some decisions, as they too, would need to substantiate their challenge with a counter proposal. I see nothing but prosperity from explicitly expressed knowledge than messages only communicated tacitly.
We cannot create an effective required head start to benefit our successors unless we are willing to express our thoughts and ideas explicitly so they can be challenged and/ or used for advancement.
The good old book tells us that nothing under the sun is new. This statement is proving true and timeless. For lasting successes, we would be helping ourselves and progeny if we can force ourselves to be as explicit in our communication as possible. The reason we have technological advancement is mainly because “source code” is explicitly expressed, making it easier for successive innovators and inventors to develop new things explicitly by improving something explicit of the old.
Our human development rests on leveraging the past and experiencing new realities based on explicit knowledge.