No. 558, January 8, 2007

Wisdom grows in Danish business

Two colleagues from Denmark are in town. "Can we meet?" they ask on the phone. A bright autumn day we meet in the beautiful part of Stockholm called the Old Town. They talk with enthusiasm on how they have made wisdom an acknowledged concept in their work in the Danish business world.

Michael Ørbach and Lars Borgmann are consultants at the Danish consultant company Wisdom Aps. Michael tells me that their basic question when working with managers, teams, social workers and hospital staff is the following: "How can this challenge be solved in a wise way?"

Michael has lived many years in Africa and Lars has also travelled extensively. They tell me about an 84 year old Native American chief who invited them to the US to talk about leadership. "It was sometimes hard to keep up with him", says Lars who is soon 40. Both of them contend that aboriginal people have methods of wisdom which can be used with great benefit in western business life.

"What is wisdom?" I ask. Michael says that wisdom builds on experience and inner listening – not on knowledge. Not that knowledge is unimportant, only that it is insufficient. Lars draws three circles which he denotes "production", "reflection" and "decision-making". We use 98% of our time in production, says Lars. Reflection sometimes happens in a coffee break. Managers agree that reflection is important but seldom find the time.

We get into the real urgency of the matter when we start talking about the demographic challenge with an ageing population in many parts of Europe. It is wrong to see elders as a problem, says Lars. We do not make use of the wisdom of our elders. Neither does work life encourage wisdom among working people.

I think about the three circles again and see our world as being stuck in production with little reflection. We produce and produce. The problems it creates we try and solve with more production. In spite of the material wealth in the western world we have problems with stress related disease, a polluted environment and growing psychological problems among our young. But do we ask for a really wise way to solve these problems? My Danish colleagues do have a point.

"How do we get more wisdom at work?" I ask and feel like a journalist. Lars smiles and says: "We don’t need to get it. It is already there." We only need to acknowledge the wisdom and make use of it.

Wisdom from Native Americans and Tibetan monks are now present in Danish business. What about the rest of Europe?

Things were not always better in the past, but we have lost some important values on the way, one of them being wisdom. We need to recapture wisdom. About this the three of us are in total agreement on this sunny Friday afternoon.

Creative regards! Jonas Himmelstrand

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