There are boring stories and there are good stories.
The good ones help us remember stuff that otherwise we might forget.
For example, how would you distinguish between data, information, knowledge and wisdom?
Without looking up the dictionary?
Not the easiest thing in the world to do is it?
So perhaps a story will help. Here’s one I heard a man tell on a podcast a few days ago:
He talked of how a recipe book has lots of letters in it. That’s data. Not meaningful on its own.
But group the data into a recipe and then you have information. But it’s not yet knowledge.
You only gain knowledge though doing – through practicing cooking. Knowledge is gained through the doing.
And wisdom? He said that wisdom is marrying a good cook!
Are there things you think you know how to do but that you haven’t actually done?
Perhaps from reading about them? Or seeing other people do them?
How about moving to the next level – actually trying to do them? You cannot fail to learn – no matter the outcome:
You succeed? Great – you’ve knowledge now.
You fail but you learn that practice will make you better? Great – practice.
You fail and you know you won’t be able to do it? Great – dispense with it and move on.
You win – no matter what!
But if you don’t try, you lose. At best you stagnate. At worst you have a “false positive” – thinking you can do something that you actually can’t. And that could be dangerous for your business.
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PPS: The podcast topic was “Knowledge Management – A Key Discipline of Top-performing Teams” – and here’s a link to it where you can also get a transcript.