Know the reasom for your ignorance...a corporate message

What is the reason for most people say they do not know about something which they are supposed to know? We may wonder how the basic instinct and inquisitiveness in knowing something which they aught to is lacking in many people?

If we search for the real reason for the above, we will able to find that the people who do not know about something only due to the fact that they need not want to know mostly because they do not need such information/knowledge.

They need not know things because either they intentionally/consciously decline to know or they genuinely not require/find any use for such knowledge.

The point is that the corporate bosses should not connect knowledge of people with intelligence. Knowledge and intelligence need not go together.

Look at the behaviour of any big cats in the zoological garden. All the carnivores including big cats that are bred or grown in captivity or in zoological garden cannot survive in wild if they are released in wild. They may not able to hunt their prey or during hunting, may get injured seriously. The big cats are indeed top predators. How come their hunting instinct can go defunct and in effective when they were grown or bread in captivity?

The reason being, they need not hunt in captivity as they are fed regularly with cut meat. They do not know to hunt because they need not have to hunt for their survival. They need not know because they need to know as they do not need.

If corporate wants its people to know, it is not blaming them for what they do not know should be the approach, they should follow. Instead, the ‘need’ to know such knowledge/skill must be created for them. Only when such need is there, people will find need to know.

Even for the instinct to exist, strong need and necessity for the existence of such instinct is essential. Otherwise even the instinct also may fade or may even disappear. Only the need makes the existence of everything. The HR function should not identify and define people as talented based on just the knowledge they posses. Similarly HR also should not assume that people do not have such knowledge are worthless. Perfection of knowledge, improvement of the existing skills and enhanced performances, all can happen only when there is definite ‘need’. Otherwise, people often live with same set of age old wisdom and never would improve or update.

Many entrepreneurs usually feel proud of people those who are working in the same organization for many years. Interestingly most of such senior people may not have contemporary knowledge or skills. Ironically the owners of the corporate often call such people as highly experienced. The definition of experience should not be on arithmetic terms but on knowledge terms. How well versed they are with the current trends and frontiers should be the criteria to call someone experienced.

When corporate never embrace new trends and practices and create necessity for the people to upgrade and acquire knowledge, the people will not acquire new set of skills and knowledge.

Remember if some say I do not know, he has not felt the need to know therefore they do not know. If you want them to know certain skills and wisdom, please create the need for such wisdom and develop them.

Dr S Ranganathan, ClinRise Derma Pvt., Ltd., Chennai