The Educated Person

Developing a work approach that is adequate to the challenges ahead
a world moving toward new and different futureS

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Knowledge

is not impersonal, like money

does not reside in a book, a databank, a software program; they contain only information

is always embodied in a person; carried by a person; created, augmented, or improved by a person; applied by a person; taught and passed on by a person; used or misused by a person

The shift to the knowledge society therefore puts the person in the center

In so doing, it raises new challenges, new issues, new and quite unprecedented questions about the knowledge society's representative, the educated person

In the knowledge society, the educated person is society's emblem; society's symbol; society's standard bearer

The educated person is the social "archetype"—to use the sociologist's term

He or she defines society's performance capacity

But he or she also embodies society's values, beliefs, commitments

This must change the very meaning of "educated person."

It must change the very meaning of what it means to be educated

It will thus predictably make the definition of an "educated person" a crucial issue

With knowledge becoming the key resource, the educated person faces new demands, new challenges, new responsibilities

The educated person now matters

The knowledge society must have at its core the concept of the educated person

It will have to be a universal concept, precisely because the knowledge society is a society of knowledges and because it is global—in its money, its economics, its careers, its technology, its central issues, and above all, in its information

Post-capitalist society requires a unifying force

It requires a leadership group, which can focus local, particular, separate traditions onto a common and shared commitment to values, a common concept of excellence, and on mutual respect

Post-capitalist society is both a knowledge society and a society of organizations, each dependent on the other and yet each very different in its concepts, views, and values

Elements of the educated person

access to the great heritage of the past will have to be an essential element

will have to be able to appreciate other cultures and traditions: for example, the great heritage of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean paintings and ceramics; the philosophers and religions of the Orient; and Islam, both as a religion and as a culture

far less exclusively "bookish" than the product of the liberal education of the humanists

will need to be trained in perception (see Edward de Bono) fully as much as analysis

The Western tradition will, however, still have to be at the core, if only to enable the educated person to come to grips with the present, let alone the future

The future may be "post-Western"; it may be "anti-Western." It cannot be "non-Western."

Its material civilization and its knowledges all rest on Western foundations: Western science; tools and technology; production; economics; Western-style finance and banking. None of these can work unless grounded in an understanding and acceptance of Western ideas and of the entire Western tradition

prepared for life in a global world

It will be a "Westernized" world, but also increasingly a tribalized world

must become a "citizen of the world"—in vision, horizon, information

will also have to draw nourishment from their local roots and, in turn, enrich and nourish their own local culture

be prepared to live and work simultaneously in two cultures—that of the "intellectual," who focuses on words and ideas, and that of the "manager," who focuses on people and work

Intellectuals see the organization as a tool; it enables them to practice their techné, their specialized knowledge (defined as a "useful knowledge" in his Innovation and Entrepreneruship)

Managers see knowledge as a means to the end of organizational performances

Both are right

They are opposites; but they relate to each other as poles rather than as contradictions

They surely need each other: the research scientist needs the research manager just as much as the research manager needs the research scientist

If one overbalances the other, there is only nonperformance and all-around frustration

The intellectual's world, unless counterbalanced by the manager, becomes one in which everybody "does his own thing" but nobody achieves anything

The manager's world, unless counterbalanced by the intellectual, becomes the stultifying bureaucracy of the "organization man."

But if the two balance each other, there can be creativity and order, fulfillment and mission.

A good many people in the post-capitalist society will actually live and work in these two cultures at the same time

And many more should be exposed to working experience in both cultures, by rotation early in their careers—from a specialist's job to a managerial one, for instance, rotating the young computer technician into project manager and team leader, or by asking the young college professor to work part-time for two years in university administration

And again, working as "unpaid staff" in an agency of the social sector (see Managing the Non-Profit Organization and Citizenship through the Social Sector in The Essential Drucker) give the individual the perspective and the balance to respect both worlds, that of the intellectual and that of the manager.

All educated persons in the post-capitalist society will have to be prepared to understand both cultures (see The Essential Drucker for an introduction to management)

The technés have to become part of what it means to be an educated person

See heading: Technés and the Educated Person

But their job or their profession was seen as a "living," not a "life."

But now that the technés have become knowledges in the plural, they have to be integrated into knowledge

The fact that the liberal arts curriculum they enjoyed so much in their college years refuses to attempt this is the reason why today's students repudiate it a few years later. They feel let down, even betrayed. They have good reason to feel that way. Liberal arts and Ailgemeine Bildung that do not integrate the knowledges into a "universe of knowledge" are neither "liberal" nor "Bildung." "They fall down on their first task: to create mutual understanding, that "universe of discourse" without which there can be no civilization. Instead of uniting, such disciplines only fragment.

But all over the world today's students, a few years after they have graduated, complain that "what I have learned so eagerly has no meaning; it has no relevance to anything I am interested in or want to become." They still want a liberal arts curriculum for their own children—Princeton or Carleton; Oxbridge; Tokyo University; the lycée; the Gymnasium-though mainly for social status and access to good jobs. But in their own lives they repudiate such values. They repudiate the educated person of the humanists. Their liberal education, in other words, does not enable them to understand reality, let alone to master it.

We neither need nor will get "polymaths," who are at home in many knowledges; in fact, we will probably become even more specialized

But what we do need—and what will define the educated person in the knowledge society—is the ability to understand the various knowledges

What is each one about

What is it trying to do?

What are its central concerns and theories?

What major new insights has it produced?

What are its important areas of ignorance, its problems, its challenges?

Without such understanding, the knowledges themselves will become sterile, will indeed cease to be "knowledges."

They will become intellectually arrogant and unproductive

For the major new insights in every one of the specialized knowledges arise out of another, separate specialty, out of another one of the knowledges

The specialists have to take responsibility for making both themselves and their specialty understood

The media, whether magazines, movies, or television, have a crucial role to play. But they cannot do the job by themselves. Nor can any other kind of popularization.

Specialties must be understood for what they are: serious, rigorous, demanding disciplines.

This requires that the leaders in each of the knowledges, beginning with the leading scholars in each field, must take on the hard work of defining what it is they do

There is no "queen of the knowledges" in the knowledge society

All knowledges are equally valuable; all knowledges, in the words of the great medieval philosopher Saint Bonaventura, lead equally to the truth

But to make them paths to truth, paths to knowledge, has to be the responsibility of the men and women who own these knowledges

Collectively, they hold knowledge in trust.

One thing we can predict: the greatest change will be the change in knowledge—in its form and content; in its meaning; in its responsibility; and in what it means to be an educated person

Connections

When Peter Drucker Speaks

In a review of Drucker's new book, "The World According to Peter Drucker," Speaker of the House Gingrich explains why Drucker is the most influential writer of the 20th century.

Peter Drucker--My Life as a Knowledge Worker

The leading management thinker describes seven personal experiences that taught him how to grow, change, and age

Peter's Principles

Book editor Rubin talks with Peter Drucker about how he built a long-standing brand around his own knowledge and how to prepare for a career as a solo act

Managing Knowledge Means Managing Oneself

In a few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time -- literally -- substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it.

Peter F. Drucker on a Functioning Society

This article seeks to apply a systems perspective to the works of Peter F. Drucker, organizing his writings into a coherent whole, to help you navigate the enormous body of knowledge that this remarkable man has created during the past 65 years

The X-economy

New Skills of the Executive

The Next Society

Originally appeared on The Economist web site

Tools for getting from concepts to daily action

Could be used on the material above

Calendarization

Thinking canvases

Blue print for an time-investment exploration system

Foundations for future directed decisions

Innovation and Entrepreneurship

The Essential Drucker

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