Complexity, Innovation, Knowledge and Learning: A quantum interpretation of management

A queste for new management science

In a Gartner blog, on "wild and new" ideas, one of the VPs suggests some interesting developments.  "Many of the management science techniques applied in business today originated from the industrial era. Computing has put them on steroids and made them more effective (for example, via the spreadsheet). But it's the completely new techniques that could be operated only in a networked computerized era that may prove revolutionary. Management culture takes decades to evolve (whole generations of leaders must sometimes pass by before new techniques can take hold). I read about ideas like "beyond budgeting" and "real options" with interest, but recognize that very few companies are ready to take them on...yet."

An interesting new light on both the role of IT and the one of managers.  I sometimes say that we haven't seen anything yet.  Once we are going to combine the learning capacity of computers, with the (though different) learning capacity of managers, we are really going to see some exponential learning taking place and a new kind of management might emerge.  But in the mean time, managers just try to copy the computing power of computer, in which they are of course very weak.  Computers and managers all together underperform seriously. 

Consumerism in education: the knowledge of becoming

The July-August number of Le Monde de L'Education (very interesting monthly but in French) is completely devoted to schools, education and learning (my interpretation) in the 21st century (and of course oriented to France). Most of the contributions are reprints of earlier interviews or articles. Some titles:

For a humanistic educational system (the running head)

Learning will be sweet (Victor Hugo)

Never teach (Francois Begaudeau)

Experiental try-outs (of course, Celestin Freinet)

The big party of knowing (Herve This)

However, one "new" contribution is in my opinion very interesting: Consumerism imposes its law (Bernard Stiegler). For him, our schoolsystem is still a (modern) version of the antique greek-roman idea of the school. The individual is a never finished psyche that continues life-long learning, based on its acquisitions during the first years of his life. However, Internet, radio, television, etc have changed the world. Science became part of the economic system and is no longer embedded in politics or religion.  Hence, education (and/or science) become consumerable goods. The first devastating element is that consumerism is a process of non(or anti)-individualisation. But on top of that the school is not adapted to the new mnemo technics that are audiovisual, Internet based, etc. Schools completely ignore the consequences of these movements: science is no longer concerned with "les savoirs de l'etre" (the knowledge of being), but rather with "les savoirs du devenir" (the knowledge of becoming).

Bernard Stiegler refers to Nietzsche (even more up to date now) when he says that we also absolutely need cross-disciplinary research. The ongoing hyper-specialisation will be its dead. I am afraid that some of these observation seriously apply to management education and management research. As do some other contributions in the same number of Le Monde de l'Education.