Our society is built on various decisions made on daily basis and on many different levels. All kinds of decisions are being made, from individual early childhood education group size to state-level budget negotiations, but the need for reliable information is common for all of the levels. Thus, why not hope that the decisions made could be based increasingly more on facts, forecasts and analyses, and that they could also be weighed with the help of information more transparently then today?
Knowledge management fulfils three needs. Learning from the past, understanding the current situation, and influencing the future in decision-making. In terms of achievement of these objectives, the amount of information is rarely a problem – rather, many new possibilities for refinement and fertile utilization of the information have not yet been utilized. The amount of information available in enterprises and in the society is tremendously increasing as systems are being digitalized on all levels of the society and new information is being created on daily basis, also from combinations of different systems.
The ability to distinguish the essential from all this information and to get the information to support important, large and small decision-making moments is decisive. However, the shift from the information deadlock to agile knowledge management can be achieved. How do you know to have reached the turning point? It is quite probable at least if you can honestly claim to be using knowledge management for future management.
Modern society needs smart solutions
One cannot cope with the task of knowledge management without good knowledge management solutions. Smart solutions transform even huge amounts of data into easily comprehensible, visually impressive analyses, from which essential information can be conveniently extracted. For example, artificial intelligence can identify recurring phenomena from a large amount of data very quickly and reliably.
For example, in health care, data analysis can be used to measure the effectiveness of treatment and to make better decisions not only for the big picture and the society, but also for the individual. With the help of information, for instance, we could design elderly care solutions allowing our senior citizens to live at home for as long as possible. Another example is education: We could notice individual deviations from a huge amount of data, such as identifying those in need of special support, and address potential problems well before their occurrence.
When the human ability of interpretation and reasoning is combined with intelligent technology, the starting level of decision-making and the starting point for utilization of intuition are improved. If information is utilized on all levels of the society, besides improved economic results, higher quality or forecasts that are more accurate can be achieved. Richer use of information also helps with getting a better understanding of factors at work in the background; it decelerates making of hasty conclusions and reduces premature response.
In the digital society, the responsibility of strategic management is emphasized. Are we managing the future or the past? Information learned from the past can sometimes be useful, but to an increasing extent, we need different scenario calculations and analyses of the future.
Future management is based on knowledge management
Knowledge management is responsible and futureproof. In an ideal situation, people develop a more comprehensive common understanding, knowledge and wisdom through knowledge management. In such cases, the tensions and confrontations existing in the society can be minimized with the help of transparent data.
Knowledge helps people and organizations make better choices and bear the consequences more responsibly. A responsible leader requires the tools made possible by knowledge management to make decisions and interact. The key question in terms of the digital leap of our society is how all this knowledge is harnessed to benefit not only decision-makers, but also individuals and organizations at every level of the society. What possibilities will be within our reach if we advance knowledge management to the center of leadership also in the development of society?
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