Russell Ackoff: From Data to Wisdom
While working on a publication about knowledge management - more on that to come - my readings led to a 1988 article by systems theorist Russell Ackoff, who passed away last fall.
"From Data to Wisdom" is often cited as one of the sources of the data-information-knowledge-wisdom knowledge hierarchy. Ackoff's definitions of familiar terms offer much to ponder:
Knowledge is know-how, for example, how a system works. It is what makes possible the transformation of information into instructions. It makes control of a system possible. To control a system is to make it work efficiently. …
Knowledge can be obtained in two ways: either by transmission from another who has it, by instruction, or by extracting it from experience. In either cast the acquisition of knowledge is learning. …
Learning and adaptation, and knowledge and understanding, focus on efficiency, not effectiveness. Both efficiency and effectiveness are determined relative to one of more objectives. The value of these objectives is not relevant to the determination of efficiency, but it is relevant to the determination of effectiveness. The effectiveness of behavior is a function of both its efficiency for one of more desired outcomes and the values of those outcomes.
Now it can make a critical point: Intelligence is the ability to increase efficiency; wisdom is the ability to increase effectiveness.The difference between efficiency and effectiveness, that which differentiates wisdom from understanding, knowledge, and information, is reflected in the difference between growth and development. Growth does not necessarily imply an increase in value; development does. Development is the process by which wisdom is increased.
