Where is the Wisdom?

Carlos Valdesuso is a Principal Adizes Associate with extensive international experience in information technology, organizational structure and business strategy for a variety of companies in banking, insurance and service industries. He has worked with Adizes since 1975. Furthermore, he has been the President of SCI, a software and consulting firm, and President of Teledata, an information services company, both in Brazil. He works, teaches, and consults in English, Spanish and Portuguese. He recently wrote the following article for the Adizes Graduate School:ABSTRACTThe purpose of this paper is to understand what Wisdom means, why we need it and how it can be developed and enacted within organizations. To better define the different issues, I introduce the Epistemological Pyramid which differentiates four levels of knowledge: Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom.As a second basic concept, I discuss Schumacher's notion of Divergent Problems. I take the position that all organizational issues are Divergent Problems and, consequently, require Wisdom to be solved or integrated.As my central argument, I focus on the essence of Wisdom and reach two key conclusions: First, that while knowledge is intrinsically related to action, Wisdom is intrinsically related to options; and second, that the essence of Wisdom is to integrate divergent problems arising from the nature of human life.Finally, I forecast the future of Wisdom as essential for human meaning and survival. To view the entire article please go to: http://www.adizes.com/articles/cval-where-wisdom.pdf