The Metaknowledge Advantage; The Key to Success in the New Economy

by Rafael Aguayo

• ISBN13: 9780743216951
• ISBN10: 0743216954
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-12-30
• Publisher: Free Press

Summary

In the tradition of the bestselling Intellectual Capital, internationally recognized management and quality expert Rafael Aguayo shows how integrated mastery of many areas of knowledge -- MetaKnowledge -- can give corporate managers an edge, no matter what the future has in store.In today's world, the basis of economic power and wealth is rapidly shifting from physical resources to intellectual resources. Former powerhouses like U.S. Steel are now minor players, while modern giants such as Microsoft dominate industries that didn't even exist twenty-five years ago. The economy undergoes wild fluctuations. The Internet boom has come and gone. Through globalization, international boundaries are becoming less important every day. In such a dramatically changing environment, the management philosophy that endures must be based on principles that transcend daily occurrences and swings in the market. That's where MetaKnowledge comes in. Rafael Aguayo brings years of firsthand consulting experience to this book and galvanizes it with an impressive yet accessible body of academic study. A disciple of W. Edwards Deming, Aguayo studied with the man who brought quality to the Japanese. He has since expanded his field of expertise to encompass many subjects that contribute to successful business strategies, no matter what the industry. In The MetaKnowledge Advantage, Aguayo gives American managers an advantage by helping them break out of their narrow fields of expertise, synthesizing areas of knowledge as diverse as ecology, psychology, statistics, chaos theory, self-actualization, and the theory of multiple intelligences. Drawing on the work of Walter Shewhart (the father of Statistical Quality Control), W. Edwards Deming, Carl Jung, James Lovelock, Bertrand Russell, and many other luminaries, The MetaKnowledge Advantage offers a comprehensive -- and extremely flexible -- strategy for good management and ethical behavior in any industry.

Table of Contents

Foreword
The Winds of Change	p. 1
Knowledge and Revolution	p. 9
Death and Birth in Economics	p. 23
The New Management	p. 36
Moving from an Exact World to a Probabilistic World	p. 52
How Do We Know?	p. 67
Multiple Populations and Thresholds	p. 81
Leverage	p. 90
Exponential Growth	p. 103
The Learning Ladder and Subjective Reality	p. 109
Psychological Types	p. 119
Language, Mathematics, an Multiple Intelligences	p. 129
Toward an Ecology of Commerce	p. 138
Life and Chance	p. 147
Language, Dimensionality, and Logical Levels	p. 160
Communication Revolutions	p. 166
The Power of Trends	p. 182
Globalization and Economic Uncertainty	p. 197
New Economic Paradigms	p. 210
Putting It All Together	p. 228
App. A	p. 251
App. B	p. 259
Bibliography	p. 263
Acknowledgments	p. 269
Index	p. 271
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Chapter 1: The Winds of Change America and the world are in transition. The basis of economic power and wealth is rapidly shifting. Whereas in the past economic power was determined by access to key physical resources such as petroleum, steel, or manufacturing, economic power is increasingly being determined by access to key knowledge resources. Evidence of the shift is seen in the profitability and valuation of different industries. US Steel, the pride first of Andrew Carnegie and then of JP Morgan, was once the largest corporation in the world. It represented real power. Today, while still involved in steel production, it is a minor company with paltry profits. Petroleum, while still a potent economic factor, is decreasing in importance.In the nineteenth century, 70% of the population of North America was involved in farming. By the 1950s that number was down to 5%. Today it is down to 2%. There is reason to believe that that percentage will shrink further. Similarly in the early part of the twentieth century, 50% of the population was involved in manufacturing. Today that number is down to 14%. This percentage will also continue to decrease.Several of the companies with the highest market valuation in the world did not exist twenty-five years ago -- and neither did their industries. Among these are Microsoft, the leading provider of software for the personal computer, and Intel, the leading provider of the personal computer microprocessor. The company with the highest valuation (at this writing) is GE.Amidst such obvious and dramatic changes it is easy to fall into the trap of assuming that management principles and the values we use to guide our lives must also constantly change. Thus in the recent past we have heard talk of a New Economics in which everything is in flux and profits are unnecessary. Before that the vacuous fad of Re-Engineering promised constant upheaval, but that just puttered before fading from serious discussion. For a management philosophy to be both effective and enduring it must be based on principles that transcend daily occurrences and swings in markets. Indeed it should help explain cycles and prepare managers to deal with swings in markets, cycles, and long-term trends.Such a management system must be based on knowledge tested and confirmed over decades. That basic knowledge would change slowly only after significant evidence required it. The system would encompass knowledge from diverse fields, some of which are normally considered to be unrelated. Metaknowledge in the generic sense of the word represents the presuppositions and knowledge that each of us has and that, in large measure, frame our thinking and help determine our actions. But MetaKnowledge, with a capital M and K, is the specific system of knowledge put forth in this book that brings together some of the most advanced thinking in several fields into a system of knowledge. MetaKnowledge is a system of knowledge that serves as the foundation for management in the twenty-first century. It is a kind of metaphysics for management, or a metamanagement.When Aristotle coined the term "metaphysics" it was meant to deal with topics beyond physics. In philosophy, metaphysics became primarily an examination of our presuppositions of reality, especially physical reality. The emphasis was often on a theory of knowledge. But the analogy with metaphysics is limiting for several reasons. Physics has often been called the queen of sciences. Models from physics and chemistry have been applied to most areas of our understanding, including psychology, biology, and economics, with some success. However it is becoming increasingly clear that biological phenomena operate in subtle and complex ways that often seem to defy basic fundamental physical principles without actually violating them. Life seems to operate at a different level, with principles and rules that we are just beginning to appreciate. Our