“Only connect.”
In learning and teaching, we do have to focus on the tool. In usage, we have to focus on the end result, on the task, on the work. “Only connect” was the constant admonition of a great English novelist, E.M. Forster. It has always been the hallmark of the artist, but equally of the great scientist. At their level, the capacity to connect may be inborn and part of that mystery we call “genius.” But to a large extent, the ability to connect and thus to raise the yield of existing knowledge is learnable. Eventually, it should become teachable. It requires a methodology for problem definition—even more urgently perhaps than it requires the methodology for “problem solving.” It requires systematic analysis of the kind of knowledge and information a given problem requires, and a methodology for organizing the stages in which a given problem can be tackled—the methodology that underlies what we now call “systems research.” It requires what might be called “Organizing Ignorance”—and there is always so much more ignorance around than there is knowledge.
Specialization into knowledges has given us enormous performance potential in each area. But because knowledges are so specialized, we need also a methodology, a discipline, a process to turn this potential into performance. Otherwise, most of the available knowledge will not become productive; it will remain mere information. To make knowledge productive, we will have to learn to connect.
ACTION POINT: Spend sufficient time on the definition of a problem prior to making a decision.
Post-Capitalist Society
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker