A talk to be delivered at the July 29, 2006 meeting of The World Future
Society —
Wisdom & Leadership: Linking the Past, Present & Future.
by
Dr Bruce Lloyd, Professor of Strategic Management, London South Bank University
Abstract
Wisdom is the way we incorporate our values into our decision making process and it is our values that determine the way we define that critical word ‘quality’. The word ‘quality’ can also be seen as another way of distinguishing process from change. Not all change is progress and it is our values that ultimately determine our priorities. It is these priorities that then become the criteria we use to distinguish between change and progress.
Decisions taken today are driven by our visions of tomorrow and based on what we learned yesterday. This basic rule applies to all decisions, irrespective of size. Every time we take any decision we are involved in some element of leadership but the bigger the decision the more critical our leadership credentials become. This presentation will review the WFS ‘Wisdom of the World’ project and discuss the key questions:
* What is Wisdom?
* Why is it important for Leadership?
* How is it Learned?
* How can it be learned more effectively? -- in order to improve
the quality of our Leadership and hence
the quality of the decisions we take every day about the
way the world will be tomorrow?
In essence, the paper will argue that Wisdom is the way we incorporate our values into our decision making process.
Traditionally we have seen Wisdom as the highest form of knowledge, within the Data/ Information/ Knowledge /Wisdom pyramid. But the paper will explain why that pyramid doesn’t really work.
Wisdom is certainly more than data, and it is more than just information, and not the same as knowledge.
So what makes a Wisdom different?
These issues are explored in four ways:
- By exploring the definition of Wisdom
- Through historic statements about the nature of Wisdom.
- Through statements that we perhaps we might accept as statements of Wisdom.
- and through a review how this can be linked to the Data/ Information/ Knowledge /Wisdom pyramid.
The paper will also explore the difference between Wisdom & being wise.
Finally there is a discussion of why we need to take the whole issue of the link between Wisdom and Leadership much more seriously, as well as how we might help improve that process and hence improve the quality of the decisions we take every day about the way the world will be tomorrow?
____________________________________________________________________________
Wisdom & Leadership: Linking the Past, Present & Future.
by Bruce Lloyd, Professor of Strategic Management, London South Bank University
Over the past decade,
in my view, the core development in strategy has been the recognition
of the importance of Learning and Learning Organisation concepts. In fact
it is increasingly recognised by organisations, individuals - and even
nation states - that:
"Effective learning is the only sustainable competitive advantage".
I certainly do not find it surprising that, in the past few years, this
focus on Learning has been extended into a whole new industry called 'Knowledge
Management', as well as being an integral part of ‘Leadership’. Obviously,
if you are concerned with learning, it is natural to ask the questions:
What are we learning? And perhaps even more importantly: What do we need
to learn? And How do we learn it? These developments coincided with the
widespread use of computers which created massive new challenges from
what is known as 'information explosion' and with it new challenges over
establishing priorities.
In parallel, there was the influence of the new Millennium itself. That
event was probably the greatest learning point in human history. Never
before has so much intellectual effort been focused on reflecting on -
and learning from - our history. That reflective learning should have
started by trying to define what has been distilled into Wisdom by exploring
three basic key questions:
* Where have we come from?
* What are we doing here? and
* Where are we going?
Surely H.G. Wells was right when he said that:
"Human history becomes more and more a race between Education and Catastrophe."
(H.G.
Wells (1866-1946), The Outline of History (1920).)
How often do we seem to be either obsessed with technology, or so focused
on the experience of the here-and-now, that the issue of wisdom appears
to be virtually ignored? That certainly was the case in the vast majority
of Millennium induced thinking about the future.
We also need to recognise that the more change that is going on in society,
the more important it is that we make sure that our learning and leadership
is as effective as possible. That is the only way we have any chance of
being able to equate change with progress. So, if we want to have a better
future the first, and most important, thing that we have to do is, in
my view, improve the quality and effectiveness of our learning.
But are we really focused on what is important, rather than on just what
is easy to measure? Information rather than Wisdom?
In
addition, an underlying assumption of the word 'learning' is that we are
trying to do things 'better'. We are trying to improve things. We are
trying to make progress. Of course, the concepts behind the words: 'improve',
'better' and 'progress' are powerfully values-driven words, which are
increasingly recognised to be at the core of leadership.
If
learning is critical, we then have to ask ourselves:
* What is the Wisdom?
* How do we learn it? and
* How can we pass it on (more) effectively?
But what do we really mean by Wisdom?
According to the Wikipedia (5/8/05) entry for Wisdom:
“Wisdom is often meant as the ability and desire to make choices that can gain approval in a long-term examination by many people. In this sense, to label a choice ‘wise’ implies that the action or inaction was strategically correct when judged by widely-held values.
To acknowledge the existence of wisdom assumes order and absolute. Wisdom is recognizing the difference between good and evil and choosing what is good. To acknowledge wisdom is also to acknowledge consequences for unwise or foolish choices.
As with all decisions, a wise decision must be made with incomplete information. But to act wisely, a sage must plan a reasonable future situation, desire the outcome to be broadly beneficial, and then act.
A standard philosophical definition says that wisdom consists of ‘making the best use of available knowledge.’
Many modern authorities on government, religion and philosophical ethics say that wisdom connotes an ‘enlightened perspective’. This perspective is often defined in a utilitarian way, as effective support for the long-term common good.
Insights and acts that many people agree are wise tend to:
- arise from a viewpoint
compatible with many ethical systems,
- serve life, public
goods or other impersonal values, not narrow self-interest
- be grounded in
but not limited by past experience or history and yet anticipate future
likely consequences
- be informed by multiple forms of intelligence – reason, intuition, heart, spirit, etc.”
Wisdom can be considered to be a useful 'truth' with a long shelf life ('it has stood the test of time'), and it is particularly related to insights that are useful in understanding the relationships that work well within ourselves, and in relationships with each other and with the universe as a whole. (Hence the insights are globally recognisable.) It is important to recognise that all Wisdom is based on well founded information, but certainly it is not the case that all well founded information is Wisdom.
It is easy to recycle Wisdom, the hard thing is to put it into practice; those people who put Wisdom into practice are those who we would consider Wise. In essence. being Wise is the ability to put information/knowledge to good use. (ie: Using it in the wider interest for the long term.)
According to Daniel Yankelovitch (‘The Magic of Dialogue’, Nicholas Brealey (1999), p191) “Webster defines Wisdom as ‘the ability to judge soundly and to deal sagaciously (‘having or showing insight or Wisdom’) with the facts, especially as they relate to life and conduct’ This dictionary definition helps us to distinguish between information and Wisdom. Information is fact-driven. Wisdom is the more encompassing term; it goes beyond factual knowledge by adding values to facts. Since most public bodies bear on life conduct, we need to bring values as well as factual knowledge to bear.”
Decisions inevitably involve priorities and these inevitably have a values dimension.
Wisdom statements
are those that appear to be useful in helping us all make the world a
‘better’ place in the future. But they are only useful, if they also check
out with our own experience. Of course, that relatively simple objective
is not quite as easy as it sounds for at least two reasons:
Firstly, the word 'better' explicitly, and implicitly, means that we are
involved in considering the whole complicated subject of values that are
embedded in the question: "What do we mean by 'better'? It should
surprise no one that a critical part of the content of any Wisdom statement
is the extent to which it incorporates judgements about values. In fact,
in many ways, that is a critical part of the definition of what we mean
by Wisdom. But that does not mean that all statements
that reflect values can be defined as Wisdom; the extra dimension required
is that they are widely accepted, and that they have 'stood the test of
time'.
Secondly, it is important to recognise that in trying to 'make the world
a better place for us all' we can run into potential areas of conflict.
For example, making things 'better' for some people can be at the expense
of making it worse for others. Much of the conflict that arises in this
area is because different people mean different things because they are
using different time horizons when they talk about the future. Some are
obsessed with tomorrow, whilst others are primarily concerned with what
they perceive to be the needs of the next decade, or even hundred years.
These issues are central to all debates about the role and nature of leadership.
When differences do occur, it is essentially the quality of our dialogue that, in the end, will determine the quality of the decision and outcome.
data/information/knowledge/Wisdom links
I believe it is important to explore the link between data/information/knowledge and Wisdom. The traditional approach to the data/information/knowledge/Wisdom link is to see a close relationship within a pyramid that starts with data at the bottom, moving through information and knowledge to end with Wisdom at the top. In essence, there is, somehow, greater 'added value' as we move up that pyramid.
In my view, this progression has a fundamental flaw, which arises from the relationship between these four items not being linearly related and, therefore, there is no linear step-by-step movement up the pyramid from data to Wisdom. The basically mechanistic progression is a reflection of the Newtonian tradition, repackaged by the Management Science of Taylorism. The integration of all four concepts requires at least one, if not two, quantum/qualitative jumps.
Information can certainly be considered a ‘higher’ form of data, because it provides greater context and so greater meaning/usefulness. However, the transformation of information into knowledge requires the first quantum jump. A book that describes how a jet engine works is an example of information. It is only when information is actually used that it is becomes knowledge. In essence, knowledge is information in use and, of course, it is through its use, and the feedback learning loop, that you gain further information, which then gets turned into even more effective knowledge. Overall, it is a never ending dynamic process.
But where does Wisdom come in? In essence, Wisdom is the vehicle we use for integrating our values into our decision-making processes. It is one thing to turn information into knowledge that ‘makes things happen’, but it is quite another thing to make the ‘right’ (/’good’/’better’) things happen. How we actually use knowledge depends on our values.
Instead of moving up from knowledge to Wisdom, we actually move down from Wisdom to knowledge -- and that is how we incorporate our values into our knowledge based decision-making, as well as see the application and relevance of what we generally call Wisdom. It is only possible - and justified - for decisions to be reduced to a cost/benefit analysis, if it is possible to quantify all the ‘values’ elements within the equation in monetary terms. In the past values have been included implicitly, whereas today that dimension need to be made much more – if not fully - explicit. All decisions involve the integration of the economics dimensions of value, with the ethical (ie ‘right’) dimension of ‘values’.
In
practice we do this all the time but, today, we are required to be more
explicit about what these values are, and how they can be – and are –
valued. This puts even greater emphasis on our ability to undertake effective
dialogue.
Of course, this too is a dynamic process and there is continual feedback from the experience of our actions into whether we need more information and data - what and how much more information/data we need - are also values influenced decisions. How values are assessed both as the ends, and means, of the outcome, are critically important in all our decision making.
In order to complete this picture it is useful to reverse the data/information/knowledge/Wisdom progression into Wisdom/knowledge/information/data, and consider that it is our values/Wisdom that defines the limits of what we consider acceptable in the first place, and that decision then determines our knowledge/action priorities, which then determines what information is required, and that determines what further questions need to be asked about the data required. In practice, we need to understand these two pyramids/progressions, and how they relate to each other, if we want to understand both how we incorporate values into our decision making processes, and why Wisdom plays such an important role. Although, it does need to be recognised that sometimes the way these words and concepts have been used in the past has not always helped this process. Perhaps that is one reason why wise decision making has not been as widely practiced as we would have liked? Being decisive is easy; being decisive about the ‘right’ things is the real challenge that confronts us all. I would argue that we do (and should) start with values/Wisdom as our base, which then provides the framework within which we manage knowledge, and so on through the pyramid to information and data. Consequently, without an effective base at one level, it is impossible to manage effectively the next layer up.
It is also useful to see knowledge as information in use, and Wisdom as the integration of knowledge and values, as reflected by the comments below:
“Data
is not information. Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not understanding.
Understanding is not Wisdom.”
(Anon)
“
The Function of Wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil”
(Marcus
Tullius Cicero)
“Knowledge
is of no value unless you put it into practice.”
(Anton
Chekhov (1860-1904))
Hence I hope I have established the link between Wisdom and its relevance to both strategy and knowledge management, as well as leadership.
Several years ago I started collecting what I considered to be the important quotations that contained long shelf life knowledge (i.e. 'Wisdom') that, in my view, ought to be given a high priority in what we consider passing onto the next generation through learning. In many cases there is considerable scope for disagreement over who said what. But those focused on the future, rather than the past should, in my view, give priority to the message, rather than the messenger.
Sometimes,
even when the quotation itself is well recognised, research shows that
it was based on an earlier version, with a very minor modification.
For example:
"If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants".
(Sir
Isaac Newton (1642-1727)).
Is very similar to a comment made many centuries earlier:
"Pygmies
placed on the shoulders of giants see more than the giants themselves."
(Marcus
Lucan (AD 39-65)).
And:
"We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see
more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any
sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because
we are carried high and raised up by their giant size."
(Bernard
of Chartres c1120 AD)
There are also situations where the generally accepted quotation can be
different to the original version. For example, the Bible is supposedly
the source of:
"Money
is the root of all evil."
when
the original version is, in fact:
"For
the love of money is the root of all evil."
(1Timothy.6:10.).
Even
here, there is a precedent:
"Love
of money is the beginning of evil, because the operation of evil is connected
to love of
money."
(Pythagoras).
In theory at least, once we can agree on the important messages, it should
not be too difficult to ensure that there are appropriate channels for
the effective learning of these messages. Also, it is not unreasonable
to assume that, if we have learned the right things, we ought to then
be in a position to do the ‘right’ thing with that information/knowledge.
Of course, that is an assumption and, perhaps, there are more issues in
that jump from information to ‘knowledge to action’, than are normally
recognised. But, if that is the case, then we probably need to revisit
messages in order to ensure we give a higher priority to issues related
to the importance of meaning and motivation in human behaviour. For example:
"Our
values are revealed by what we do, not by what we say."
(Anon)
and:
"It
is not enough to know what is good; you must be able to do it."
(George
Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah, Act IV, scene 1, (1921).)
This is not just an academic exercise, our future is critically dependent
on what we learn and, unless this subject is given much greater attention,
it is extremely unlikely that we will be involved in anything remotely
like progress, however that is defined.
In
the end it is our Wisdom/values that enables us to increase the propbability
that change can be equality with progress.
There is enormous scope for debate, both practical and philosophical,
about the specific wisdom items, and their sources, identified in this
article. Those dimensions only really becomes important when we try to
establish priorities which, of course, in the end, we always need to do.
However, at this stage, I am just concerned with trying to encourage the
debate over the need to include a greater role for Wisdom.
In this process, I would also like to acknowledge the parallel (and overlapping)
contributions of other publications, I have come across recently:
1. The Wisdom Literature, Appendix C in First Things First by Stephen
R.
Covey & A. Roger Merrill, Simon & Schuster (1994), which explores
the
patterns, consistencies and themes that they consider represented the
most validated database in all human experience.
2. The Wisdom of the Ages: Eternal Truths for Everyday Life, by
Wayne W.
Dyer, Thorsons (1998), which is a remarkable analysis of how we can live
more meaningful lives by close study of the words of poets and
philosophers throughout the ages.
3. Working Wisdom: The Ultimate Value in the New Economy, by John
Della
Costa, Stoddart Publishing Co. (1995). It strongly argues that our
perceived wisdom is the driving force behind our behaviour and that the
subject is a vital part of any effective Knowledge Management programme.
Yet in a quick survey of eighteen books on Knowledge Management, I found
only three felt the subject of Wisdom was sufficiently important to mention
in the index. Apart from those mentioned above, which were not essentially
knowledge management books, none gave the subject of Wisdom the importance
I believe it justifies. The same comment can equally apply to books on
Leadership, where the whole subject of Wisdom is very rarely mentioned.
Wisdom statements
History does appear to show that it is incredibly easy to ignore and learning of the experiences of earlier millennia:
“If
we still have not learned the lessons of 2000 years of history, why should
we suddenly start being able to learn it now?"
(Anon).
Or
to put that another way:
"The only lesson we appear to be able to learn from history is that
we don't learn the lessons of history."
(Anon.).
But
if that is the case, what is education for?
Many of the important messages about the state and future of the Human
Race were made over a thousand years ago, in China, the Middle East and
other early sophisticated societies. This should, perhaps, not surprise
us, as wisdom consists of insights that have stood the test of time,
precisely because they are concerned with making statements about relationships
between people, either individually or in societal context, or about our
relationship with the universe as a whole.
Some
examples of statements about Wisdom that reflect the points made above
include:
"Knowledge
is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification."
(Martin
H. Fisher)
"To know how to grow old is the masterwork of wisdom, and one of
the most difficult chapters in the great art of living."
(Henri
Frederic Amiel)
“Wisdom
is like electricity. There is no permanently wise person, but people capable
of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favourable conditions,
become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire electric power
for a while.”
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)
"Knowledge
can be communicated but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified
by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it."
(Hermann Hesse, (1877-1962, Siddartha ))
"Wisdom
is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many people
know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool
so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is
to have wisdom."
(Charles H. Spurgeon)
“Wisdom
Outweighs any wealth”
(Sophocles)
“Wisdom
is the power that enables us to use our knowledge for the benefit of ourselves
and others.”
(Thomas
J. Watson)
“The
more knowledge we have the more wisdom we need to ensure that it is used
well.”
(Anon)
“Wisdom
is the intelligence if the system as a whole.”
(Anon)
“
Wise people through all laws were abolished would lead the same life.”
(Aristophanes)
(Note: If this is our measure, then the vast increase in legislation over the 20th century must reflect a gowning recognition that were are all becoming less wise. Where will it end?)
And
a few Wisdom quotations that are specifically related to the future:
"The purpose of studying history is not to deride
human action, not to weep over it or to hate it, but to understand it
-- and then to learn from it as we contemplate our future."
(Nelson Mandela)
“Concern for others is the best form of self interest”
(Desmond
Tutu)
"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."
(Edward Abbey)
"By doubting, we come to examine, and by examining, so we perceive
the truth."
(Peter Abelard)
"It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them."
(Alfred Adler)
"Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength"
(Henry Ward Beecher)
"The farther back you look, the farther forward you see."
(Winston
Churchill)
"If you won't be better tomorrow than you were today then what do
you
need tomorrow for?"
(Rabbi
Nahman of Bratslav (1772-1811))
"Depression is the inability to construct a future."
(Rollo
May (1909 -1994))
"You must be the change you want to see in the world."
(Mahatma
Gandhi (1869-1948))
"Education is your passport to the future. For tomorrow belongs to
the
people who prepare for it today."
(Malcolm X (1925-1965))
"I touch the future: I teach."
(Christa
MacAuliffe, astronaut (1948-1986))
The core issues of Leadership were well defined over two thousand years ago by Lao Tzu when he argued:
“The
highest type of rule is one whose existence the people are barely aware.
Next
comes one whom they love and praise.
Next
comes one whom they fear.
Next
comes one whom they despise and defy.
When
you are lacking faith,
Others
will be unfaithful to you.
The
Sage is self-effacing and scanty of words.
When
his(*) task is accomplished and things have been completed,
All
the people say, ‘We ourselves have achieved it!’”
(Note: (*) Now ‘their’)
Perhaps you cannot teach Wisdom, but it is certainly most unlikely that
it is in our genes - so, somehow, it must be learned. The question is
how can we make that learning process more effective - on the assumption,
of course, that we consider it an important thing to do?
The Future of Wisdom
If
we want to manage complexity successfully, and make progress in the world
today, we have to start by getting the simple things right. This needs
to be based on more effective understanding, and use, of accumulated Wisdom.
Unfortunately, all too often problems arise precisely because we haven't
got the simple things right. This includes the need for a greater emphasis
on sharing knowledge, rather than the more traditional concept of 'Knowledge
is Power'. And we need to start by focusing on ensuring that we are asking
the right questions in the first place.
In recent years we have seen efforts to move people from the idea of 'Working
Harder' to 'Working Smarter'. Increasingly we need to move beyond 'Working
Smarter' to 'Working Wiser'. We need to be moving from ‘The Knowledge
Society’ to ‘The Wise Society’. And, the more we move along that progression,
the more we need to recognise that we are moving to a situation where
the important issues primarily reflect the quality of our values, rather
than the quantity of our physical effort. If we want to improve the quality
of our decision making the focus needs not only to be on the quality of
our information but, perhaps even more importantly, on the ‘right’ use
of that information.
However,
as we move further into the next Millennium, both the 'Knowledge Economy'
and ‘Leadership’ are being given more and more attention. As a result,
we are, and need to be, increasingly concerned with what is the core knowledge,
distilled through the experience of history into wisdom, that is critically
important for us to preserve and pass onto future generations?
Probably the most important of those simple things to get right is for
leaders to 'walk the talk'. It is relatively easy to know what is the
‘right’ thing to do - the hard thing is to ensure that it gets done.
Indeed, why does it appear to be relatively easy to recognise Wisdom,
but appear to be so incredibly difficult to be wise in practice?
Of course, Wisdom is one thing, being wise is quite another. Being wise is certainly more than the ability to recycle Wisdom. In essence being wise involves the ability to apply wisdom effectively in practice. This issue is aptly reflected in the comment:
"Those
who are arrogant with their wisdom are not wise." (Anon)
The wise decision inevitably includes value judgements, beliefs and feelings,
as well as technical analysis. It is intimately associated with words
such as ‘good’ and ‘better’. Hence it is not surprising that we find that
the comments we might define as Wisdom are essentially comments about
the relationship between people, or their relationship with society, and
the universe as a whole. It should not surprise us that these are relatively
timeless statements. Wisdom helps us provide meaning to the world about
us. But what certainly surprised me when I started looking at this subject,
was the paradoxical gap between how critically important this area was
in all our lives, and yet how often it seems to be almost totally ignored
in Futurist, Strategy, Knowledge Management or Leadership/Management literature.
Another paradox is that we appear to be spending more and more time focusing
on recycling information/facts, that have a relatively short shelf life,
and less and less time on knowledge that overlaps with Wisdom that has
a long shelf life. Why is that? What can we do about it?
It could be argued that one reason for the recent obsession with an information based approach is because that provides a relatively easy framework within which to get agreement of decisions and that, any focus on the values dimension would make decision making much more problematic. There are two answers to such concerns: First, values are implicitly involved in all our decision making, and all we are doing is making the discussions about the values dimension more explicit, which should be the core of all our Strategy, Leadership and Knowledge Management discussions. It is through making information/knowledge/values more explicit through more effective dialogue that we can improve the effectiveness of our learning processes. Secondly the evidence suggests that there is much more agreement across all cultures and religions about fundamental human values (and Wisdom) then is generally recognised. This view is confirmed by both the work of the Institute for Global Ethics, as well as an unpublished dissertation by Richard Hawley Trowbridge on The Scientific Pursuit of Wisdom, found ‘no indications of a conflict between religious and practical wisdom … and ‘little difference in levels of wisdom between women and men’. (email communication from author 01/09/2005)
Finally I come back to the point I made at the beginning. Why are we interested
in the Future? The answer, I believe, is that we are concerned about trying
to make the world a ‘better’ place. But for who? And how? To answer these
questions we need to re-ask other fundamental questions: Why do we not
spend more time to ensure that the important messages that we have learned
in the past ('Wisdom') can be passed on to future generations? How do
we ensure these messages are learned more effectively? These are critical
strategy questions and are at the very foundation of anything we might
want to call 'The Knowledge Economy', although what we really need to
focus on is ‘The Wise Economy’. This focus naturally overlaps with the
greater attention being given to values related issues, and ‘the search
for meaning’, in recent management/leadership literature. Essentially,
the need to focus on issues associated with ‘The Wise Economy’ is the
Leadership challenge for us all.
I hope I have not given the impression that I know what this illusive
concept of 'wisdom' actually is? Or how we can pass it on more effectively.
Also I recognise there is a risk in expounding the concept of wisdom that
I might be seen to be supporting the view that somehow I, or we, know
all
the answers. That is certainly not the intention. The prime objective
is to raise some questions that, in my view, do not appear to be asked
often enough.
All I am arguing is that we urgently need to take the whole subject of Wisdom much more seriously in management/leadership literature than has been the case is the past. It is critical to our understanding of The Knowledge Economy / The Knowledge Society, as well as Strategy and Leadership in general. If we cannot take Wisdom seriously now, we never will; and we will pay a very high price for this neglect. These issues are not only important for us as individuals, but they also have a profound influence on the effectiveness of our organisations, whether they are corporate, governmental or religious.
(Note
: A collection of well over 3000 ‘Wisdom based’ quotations are available
on the web site of the World Future Society ‘Messages for the New Millennium’:
www.wfs.org. (via projects).)
Biographical details
PROFESSOR BRUCE LLOYD
Bruce spent over 20 years in industry and finance before joining the academic world a decade ago to help establish the Management Centre at what is now South Bank University.
He has a degree in Chemical Engineering and a MSc (Economics) / MBA from the London Business School. (A member of their first cohort!) He obtained his PhD (by published work) in 1996 for his work on 'The Future of Offices and office Work: Implications for Organisational Strategy'.
His experience of industry included time with BP and the Commonwealth Development Finance Company, where he was concerned with investing in small companies in various parts of the world. During the 1980's he also spent sometime with ICI plc assisting in their New Ventures programme, particularly in Billingham.
Over the past twenty years he has been involved on the Executive of the Strategic Planning Society and as a Council Member of the (now) Chartered Management Institute. He was a member of the latter's Advisory Board for a research project on 'Leadership: A Challenge for All' and is still involved in a development of that project which is specifically concerned with leadership issues in the public sector. He was also involved in a study on the future of the Professions that was being undertaken by the Royal Society of Arts. He has been actively involved, as a past Chairman, with the Association of MBA's.
Since the late 1960's he has published about 200 articles on a wide range of strategy related issues, such as 'Economies of Scale', 'Energy Policy', 'The Future of Offices and Office Work', the link between Power, Responsibility, Leadership and Learning (including an article 'Leadership and Power: Where Responsibility Makes the Difference', in 'Coaching for Leadership: How the World's Greatest Coaches Help Leaders Learn', Edited by Marshall Goldsmith, Laurence Lyons and Alyssa Freas, Jossey-Bass (2000)) and more recently he has been exploring the relationship between Wisdom and Knowledge Management.
He has also undertaken over 30 interviews with leading thinkers on leadership published in 'Leadership and Organizational Development Journal', as well have done other interviews for the 'Tomorrow Project Bulletin'. He was the UK co-ordinator for ACUNU 'The Millennium Project' (1999-2004). His present interests focus on lecturing, researching and writing on Strategy and Futures related areas.
Contact details: London South Bank University, 103 Borough Road, London SE1 OAA, 02078158240 ….
email: brucelloydg@aol.com (and: lloydba@lsbu.ac.uk)
