عداوات القـــلم

.. أما عن عداوات القلم فهى كثيرة والحمد لله .. من وجهة نظرى أن من يعادوننى (ولاأعنى النقد طبعا فمن حق كل من يقرأ أن يكون رأيا) بسبب ماأكتب منتقدا وضعا يضر ببلدى أو بالناس أو يخل بمنظومة الأخلاق لايستحقون أن ألتفت إليهم وأمنحهم متعة أن يزرعوا طريقى بالشوك، ولكن بالطبع لكل أسبابه التى تتدرج من الضيق إلى العداوه حسب تفسيره لما قصدت.
الأقلام كما قلت ونِوَتْ الكتابة من كل شكل ونوع وحجم تملأ كل ركن فى بيتى وفى مكتبى وسيارتى وحتى حين اخترت هاتفا محمولا أو كمبيوتر كان ولابد أن يكونا من النوع الذى يسمح بالكتابة على الشاشة .. ولكنى مع ذلك لو خرجت دون كتاب أو
ورق كتابة أشعر أنى ينقصنى شيئ هام يكتمل به مظهرى.
نشرت مقالاتى كل الصحف الكبرى فى مصر حكومية وغير حكومية وتفاوتت فى طول المدة التى تنشر تلك المقالات بانتظام (من الوفد التى ظللت أكتب بها مقالا اسبوعيا لمدة 20 سنة إلى الأهرام صاحب أوطى سقف حرية لايمكن أن يتجاوزه فى انتقاد الحكومة).
لم أتقاضى مليما واحد من صحيفة أو مجلة تنشر مقالاتى .. والسبب أنى أرفض أن أضع قيدا على حرية رأيى التى ينحصر دائما فى تسليط الضوء على فساد أو فرصة لجعل بلدى أحسن ومواطينها أكثر علما وعزة .. وكان شرطى الوحيد للإستمرار فى الكتابة هو ألا يتدخل أحد تغيير ماأكتب فيتغير المعنى الذى قصدته ، فإما أن تنشر المقالة كما هى أو لاتنشر

ضريبة المعرفة وحرية الرأى

عد أن حكيت لكم قصتى مع الكتاب ومع القلم .. تعالوا نشوف الضريبة اللى لازلت أدفعها نظير تمسكى بالعلم وبحرية الرأى وبطاعتى لله ورسوله فى طلب العلم والجهر بالرأى وعدم كتمان الشهادة.
فلنأخذ ضريبة المعرفة أولا (وهى عندى نتاج مئات الكتب التى قرأتها منذ مرحلة
الإعدادية ثم الخبرة العملية فى كل منصب تقلدته) .. المعرفة تثير فى بعض من تتعامل معهم نوازع الشر والبغض والكراهية، ويرون فيك تهديدا لأمنهم وصورتهم عن أنفسهم ، مثل:
* طالب يصر على ألا تخرج به عن دائرة "المقرر" ويريد العلم فى "برشامه" ولايعنيه مطلقا أن يبدأ الحكايه من أولها لكى يفهم من؟ ولماذا؟ وكيف؟ وهدفه أن يحصل على شهادة دون أن يتعلم.
* رئيس يريد من يقول "حاضر" و "نعم" ولايعبأ بشيئ غير تنفيذ مايريد وبالشكل الذى يريده.
* صاحب عمل فكرته عن الإستشارى أنه يتقاضى أتعابا لكى "يقنن" مايقرره ويطمئنه بأنه على الحق ويرفض التغيير مهما كان للأحسن.
* مسئول يريد أن يعلق الجرس فى رقبة أحد فيحتمى وراءك ويتهمك بأنك وراء كل قرار سيئ اتخذه أو يتخذه.
* فرق عمل "متجانسة" متقاربة فى افكارها ومستواها العلمى والثقافى ويرون فى فيك تهديدا "لحالة" يعيشونها ومجالا للفت الأنظار إلى أخطائهم التى تراكمت.
*
* صورة ذهنية عامة لمن تتعامل معهم بصورة يومية أنك "مثير للشغب" لايعجبك شيئ وتجنب التعامل معك أفضل مادمت تعترض كثيرا على ماتراه خطأ أو لاتقبل أن تظلم وتقول "كمان".
* أصحاب مصلحة فى أن "يظل الحال على ماهو عليه" حتى لاتتهدد مصالحهم بالتغيير وتظهر الأخطاء التى تضامنوا معا على إخفائها لتجنب الحساب.
* أشخاص مرضى بعقد نفسية يعتبرون أنفسهم فى مهمة مقدسة أن يعرقلوا مسيرتك لكى تفشل ويثبتوا أنهم أحسن منك.

The Value Of Knowledge Workers

Generation X has joined the workforce of the new economy. Unlike the baby boomers who preceded them, generation Xers cannot and do not seek like-long learning. The seek employability over employment: they value career self-reliance (Elsdon and Iyer, 1999). They have joined a workforce dominated by 77 million baby boomers, many of whom, because of poor financial planning or personal satisfaction derived from work, do not willingly make room for Xers on corporate hierarchical ladder (Laabs, 1996). Thus the younger cohort of workers perceive that, even if they excel, they cannot move up, so they move on. Corporate restructuring and the demise of guaranteed lifetime employment have resulted in a new breed of free agents described as " a crop of sceptical graduates who, upon entering the workplace are not about to sacrifice all to the corporate good" (Ettorre, 1997). Long-term employees react negatively to the self-sufficiency of Xers and see their unwillingness o defer gratification and commit to long-term, even career-long, objectives as a reflection of a poor work ethic. However, one study indicates that while the belief in hard work as a value has remained constant, the meaning of hard work, especially for Xers, has changed (Jurkeiwics, 2000)
Xers with high human capital, technical skills, education, learning and experience are valuable to organizations, and they are in demand: " Never have so few been wanted by so many" (Zemke et al., 2000). Those most in demand, the new "gold-collar workers", are educated, smart, creative, computer literate and equipped with portable skills (Munk, 1998). Indeed, they are free agents, and thus are perceived by life-long employees of an earlier generation as being disloyal, arrogant, unfocused, unwilling to pay dues and not amenable to deferred gratification (Tulgan, 1996). Om fact, Xers are preparing for careers, not for tenure in a specific organization and, since they cannot hope for career-long support from the organization, they are increasingly career-self-reliant. The "technologically savvy, fickle, ultra mobile generation X workforce" (Harari, 1998) values self-advancement over corporate advancement. They view their human capital as personal, not corporate, assets.
Since, on average, GenXers change jobs frequently, on average every 18 months (Kronenebers, 1997), an new reality has emerged with regard to firm-and industry- specific knowledge. While long-term boomer employees may be proficient in firm-specific private knowledge, the mobile Xers bring with them knowledge from a member of firms and both wide and deep human capital, but they are likely to take information from the organization with them when they leave. In fact, the challenge to knowledge management is to increase the company's intellectual capital despite the "industry-jumping, extremely mobile employee" (Vollmer and Phillips, 2000). How does KM minimize leakage out and absorb leakage in? Retaining staff amy be an answer. Certainly the challenges to retain the contributions all staff - permanent, temporary, contingent, long-term, short-term- to the intellectual capital of the organization.
Reciprocity between value and values is emerging as a solution to align corporate and personal capital. Xers seek variety, relevancy, stimulation and constant change. They value involvement and challenge, and making money for stockholders is not a challenge they embrace. I the employee is to add value in the form of human intellectual capital to the company, the company must reciprocate. Otions are a solution, collective rewards based on the value of the company as a whole, they implicitly encouraged sharing as well as amassing individual knowledge (Browning, 1999). KM of what " everyone knows" is supported if the new knowledge workers add their personal knowledge to the corporate knowledge bank.
If an organization values knowledge, it must value knowledge workers. Adding value to the organization and sharing the value with the knowledge worker more closely aligns the value, valuation and ownership of knowledge.

The Value Of Knowledge

Since knowledge is an intangible asset, it is difficult to assign a value to it. Its amorphous nature exacerbates this difficulty. Lew Platt, former CEO of Hewlett Packard, has acknowledged the dilemma: "If HP know what HP knows, we would be three times as profitable." Intellectual capital is collective knowledge, but who collects it and who disseminates it? Successful and competitive organizations are rich in knowledge, but whose knowledge is it and and who assigns value to it? Values assigned to knowledge may differ. For example, knowledge May have one value for the organization, another for shareholders, yet another for current and potential partners, and still one more for individuals within the organization.
From an organizational perspective, Platt's dilemma at HP highlights the difficulty of placing a value on corporate knowledge. For an organization, value, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. An organization's knowledge is valued as it is perceived, often from outside the organization. Recent dramatic stock market value is perceived, especially when the beholders are stockholders or potential stockholders.
In financial circles, analysis attempt to measure the stock market's valuation of intellectual capital - the present value of the future benefits to be obtained from intellectual capital (Lynn, 2000). In technology stocks, the vast gaps between book and market values highlight the value placed on intellectual capital, on knowledge possessed by the firm and, more tangentially, by employees of the firm. To date, generally accepted accounting principles generally accept no specific calculation to determine the value of knowledge. Knowledge is, however, valued in stock prices, a firm's market value if not its book value.
Globally, potential partners value knowledge in considering whether to engage in relationships. Hitt et al. (2000) studied partnerships between companies in developed and developing nations. Companies in developing countries seek partners willing to share expertise, while companies in developed countries seek partners with unique competencies and local market knowledge. The transfer of local market knowledge is directly dependent on organizational learning processes and the value attributed to such local market knowledge (Lord and Ranft, 2000) Partnerships are made with an eye to growing, developing and expanding organizational knowledge. The value of knowledge is critical to partners.
Individuals value knowledge, but general for personal, not corporate reasons. Corporate acquisitions, mergers, reorganizations, downsizing, rightsizing and restructuring have affected attitudes of staff. In the current economy, a permanent employee is an oxymoron (Greco, 1998). Consequently, individuals may view knowledge as a source of power, as leverage or as a guarantee of continued employment. In these respects, knowledge has value for the.
There are, then at least four perspectives from which the value of knowledge can be perceived: the organization; its shareholders; its current and potential partners; and individuals within the organization. Since knowledge is an intangible asset, it cannot be valued objectively nor precisely by any of these four, and this confounds the issue further.

Knowledge And The Intellectural Capital Of The Organization

In the new economy of the millennium, knowledge has emerged as an asset to be valued, developed and managed. The quest for knowledge is not new: in the fourth century BC, Aristotle noted "All men by nature desire knowledge." Now, 25 centuries later, knowledge drives the global economy. No longer is knowledge considered only an individual's personal wisdom; knowledge is a component of the intellectual capital of organizations (Stewart 1997). In the global economy of the millennium, data and information proliferate, and the applications and uses to which they are put transform them into knowledge. To make use of data and information, transform them into knowledge, then maximize the value of knowledge is the new challenge in achieving a sustainable competitive advantage. The 'information age' of the 1990s has evolved into the 'knowledge age' of the millennium.

Knowledge is increasingly acknowledged as a corporate asset; indeed, some are it has supplanted the traditional factors of production - land, labor and capital - to become the pre-eminent corporate and competitive resource (Havens and Knapp, 1999). Knowledge, however, is an intangible asset; its very elusiveness and intangibility create myriad challenges.: how to manage it; how to valuate it; how to measure it; how to process it. If it is a corporate resource, how does the corporation manage it? Who, within the corporation, assumes responsibility for acquiring, developing and marketing it? Knowledge management (KM) has emerged as a principal component of the new economy. Likewise, the learning organization has become the site of effective KM (Argryis and Schon, 1978; Senge, 1990).

Individual Knowledge and Learning

Learning is an innately human activity. Growth in knowledge is a function of maturing and developing. For adults, experience plays a significant role in knowledge acquisition: Kolb (1984, p.38) asserts, "Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created by the transformation of experience". Kolb's theory of experiential learning informs much of the literature on adult learning in general and human development and training in particular.

Humans bring to an organization their prior education, experience, knowledge and skills, and as they interact within the organization they draw on this experience to develop their skills and knowledge further, thus adding to their human capital and to the value of the organization.

Economists have identified a steady growth in human capital per worker in the industrialized world in two areas:

1. Capital deepening - individual workers have improved their performance of particular skills.
2. Capital widening - individual workers have exhibited an increased ability to acquire a variety of skills (Lindbeck and Snower, 2000).

Human capital, however, while contributing to the value of the organization, remains the possession of the individual. Individuals can and do learn, develop and acquire knowledge both independently and with the organization. In order to learn, they require neither organizational assets nor organizational capital, yet they can, and do, learn from their experience in the organization. The organization, conversely, cannot develop, learn, or grow independently of its human capital.

Organizational Knowledge and Learning

Knowledge is recognized as a corporate asset and, like all corporate assets, it must be managed: thus, the emergence of KM. Ideally, KM captures, transfers, and leverages what everyone in the organization know. This, of course, is a daunting challenge. Who is "everyone in the organization", and how does the organization manage their knowledge , their human capital, thus transforming it into organizational intellectual capital?

Intellectual capital extends beyond mere knowledge: Stewart (1997) identifies three categories of intellectual capital:

1. Human (evidenced in staff's knowledge, skills and talents).
2. Structured (comprised of systems for codifying, storing, transmitting and sharing knowledge).
3. Relational (resulting from connections between organizations and clients, vendors and partners).

The three must interact. Indeed, managing intellectual capital has been described as capturing individuals' tacit knowledge and making it explicit in the organizational structure (Lynn, 2000). Managing and developing intellectual capital is a dynamic process that creates a tension between assimilating new and exploiting old learning (Crossen el al., 1998) . Effective KM systems do three things:

1. Filter out information that does not support an individual's immediate or long-term need or goal.
2. Present information in the form appropriate for the context and the individual needing the information.
3. Focus information into the hands of those who can act upon it and give it value (Covley-Durst, 1999).

The last item is the crux: until it is acted upon, knowledge has no real value. Until a human puts knowledge to use, it is an un-valued asset. Until a human shares tacit and explicit knowledge within the firm., it is the individual's human capital, not the organizaions's. The knowledge possessed by the employees represents a key source of sustainable competitive advantage for organizations (Elsdon and Iyer, 1999). Knowledge is an asset, but it is a slippery asset to value, manage and measure.