kindly a summary for this article

MANAGERIAL WISDOM Dennis J. Moberg .. although our age far surpasses all previous ages in knowledge, there has been no correlative increase in wisdom Bertrand Russell ABSTRACT Wisdom is a concept with no consensual definition. Nevertheless, it has been the subject of significant work in both philosophy and psychology. This work is summarized, and implications to the development of a concept of managerial wisdom are provided. At the very least, these notions provide guidance to managers in need of direction in how they can best express their managerial virtues. INTRODUCTION There is unquestionably more known about how to manage an organization than ever before in human history. Yet, as the opening quotation indicates, it is doubtful if this knowledge is being put in the service of wisdom. Too often, contemporary management practice apes fashion, trades on psycho-babble, and descends into hypocrisy. In the age of Dilbert, a wise manager seems an oxymoron. This cynical viewpoint is difficult to deny. All of us have witnessed managerial decisions that are at best ill-considered and at worst stupid and self-serving. The Next Phase of Business Ethics, Volume 3, pages 377-396. Copyright 2001 by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISBN: 0-7623-0809-5 377 378 DENNIS J. MOBERG A number of business ethics scholars have resisted the temptation to pile on. Instead of weighing in on the side of vice, they have set their sight on management virtue (e.g. Solomon, 1992; Moberg, 1997). As a result, a list of managerial virtues has emerged that includes conscientiousness, trustworthiness, sincerity, and honesty. In the classic sense, wisdom is quite relevant to the expression of these virtues. Aristotle held that to be wise is to have virtues that are rightly disposed, such that one's choices promote the flourishing of one's human and humanizing attributes. This implies a special role for wisdom as a director for the expression of other management virtues. Yet, it is not just the growth of virtue ethics in business that necessitates attention to this subject. Another reason managerial wisdom should be studied has to do with the association between wisdom and experience. Experience has always been a valued managerial attribute. Applicants for management jobs seldom earn an interview without it, and management advancement is often predicated on experience. Clearly, there is more to experience than the facts that one has learned and the years one has accumulated on the job. Indeed, it is probably wisdom that organizational officials are really after when they select an experienced person over an inexperienced one for a prime managerial assignment. Additionally, the mentoring process so prominent in discussions about career advancement has more to do with the development of wisdom than the transmission of information (Aryee, Chay & Chew, 1996; Scandura & Viator, 1994). Looking at managerial wisdom allows us to understand better the basis for this standard of practice. A third reason to study managerial wisdom is that the workforce is aging. Since wisdom is thought to be a talent reserved for seniors, it is important that organizations gear up for this enhanced resource. I will say more about the relationship between wisdom and aging later in the paper. Finally, wisdom should be a focus of our concerns for its own sake. For over a thousand years, wisdom has been conceived as the pinnacle of human knowledge. The wisdom tree, a prominent image in the art of the Middle Ages in the Western World, was a concrete expression of this view. The wisdom tree depicted the liberal arts (at the time: astronomy, geometry, music, arithmetic, grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics) arranged as branches of the tree with wisdom being at the top (Clayton & Birren, 1980). The view that wisdom was the integration of all knowledge into a coherent whole persisted through the Enlightenment. Unfortunately, wisdom as a subject for academic inquiry virtually disappeared sometime during the last century (Chandler & Holliday, 1990). Thankfully, renewed interest has been rekindled and this capstone of all human knowledge is being studied again. Managerial Wisdom 379 This paper begins with some attention to the alternative definitions given to wisdom. Following that, I will sketch out some of the historical traditions that have influenced contemporary thinking on the subject. Next, I will devote a section to the philosophical treatment of wisdom. There, we will ground ourselves in the classics but quickly move into contemporary analysis on wisdom by John Kekes (1983, 1995). I will then examine the work of a group of developmental psychologists and gerontologists who have been trying to conduct empirical research on the subject. This will lead us into some work by psychologists on intelligence in the pragmatics of life. And finally, I will attempt an integration of these ideas with special attention to how wisdom unfolds in the context of being a manager. WISDOM DEFINED Three alternative meanings of wisdom appear in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED): (1) the ability to judge rightly in matters relating to life and conduct; (2) knowledge, learning, or erudition, especially in relation to philosophy or science; and (3) wise discourse or sayings. While not in conflict with these definitions, the following additional definitions tease out nuances not captured in the OED. Consider first, four definitions from philosophy: a true and reasoned state of capacity to act with regard to the things that are good or bad for man (Aristotle, Niomachean Ethics, 1140 b 5-6); insight into certain connections existing in human life and in the world and modes of behavior derived from this insight and put into the service of instruction and education (Rudolph, 1987); capacity to exercise virtue in a way that is sensitive to both moral means and ends in the specific situation (Sherman, 1992); is a character-trait intimately connected with self-direction. The more wisdom a person has the more likely it is that he will succeed in living a good life (Kekes, 1983). Compare these to the following definitions offered by developmental psychologists: capacity of an individual to see and accept that his/her own life is coming to a conclusion and accept the cycle of his generation concluding itself in the next (Erikson, 1964); the ability to grasp human nature, which is paradoxical, contradictory, and subject to continual change (Clayton, 1982); an expert knowledge system in the fundamental pragmatics of life permitting 380 DENNIS J. MOBERG excellent judgment and advice involving important and uncertain matters of life (Baltes, 1993); the ability to tolerate uncertainties, doubts, and contradictions, and perhaps to make use of these in an imaginative and constructive manner to achieve understanding (Meacham, 1983); an integration of cognition with affect, affiliation and social concerns (Orwoll & Perlmutter, 1990); a fundamental cognitive process of reflection and social judgment that often takes the form of problem finding ability (Arlin, 1990); the recognition of and response to human limitation (Taranto, 1989). A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE WISDOM CONCEPT While a reverence for wisdom exists in every human culture, different peoples have very different perspectives on its precise nature, origin, and development. In appreciation of both the diversity of approaches to wisdom and the legacy these approaches have left us, our brief history begins with the oral tradition in prehistory, moves through the Hebrew, Greek and Christian Traditions and end with some attention to the Eastern Tradition. The Oral Tradition No one can state with certainty what the contours of wisdom were in prehistory. Based on the artifactual record together with our understanding of pre-literate societies, there are some credible conclusions (Lobsang, 1965). First, it seems clear that wisdom refers to a special mastery of the challenges of life. The earliest human writing dating back to 2500 BC in Egypt and Mesopotamia contained homilies, fables and proverbs that conveyed principles of moral living and the good life. Without question, this early wisdom literature (Wood, 1967) is rooted in an even earlier oral tradition in which people passed such notions from generation to generation. Such "conversations" appear to have dealt with an array of subjects from the fundamental pragmatics of life to understandings regarding the mysteries of their lives. Stories and parables meant to entertain as well as instruct were the likely media for the prehistoric transmission of wisdom. Later in time, as this oral tradition was entrusted to scribes, the subject seems to have changed from the mundane to the philosophical (Holliday & Chandler, 1986). Managerial Wisdom 381 Hebraic Tradition The Hebraic approach to wisdom is commonly represented in what is known as the wisdom literature (e.g. Rad, 1972). This consists of the Book of Proverbs which is the oldest, most central collection of Hebrew wisdom teaching, and the Books of Job, Solomon, and Ecclesiastes (Clements, 1992). The distinction between religious and secular wisdom emerges in Hebraic wisdom. A central tenet of the Jewish faith is the covenant believed to exist between God and the Israeli people. Religious wisdom was conveyed through the Torah (translated as law or divine instruction). Secular wisdom in the Hebrew tradition was offered to the inquiring spirit of all people. Thus, while religious wisdom appealed to authority, secular wisdom looked to the evidence of experiences and verifiable observation (Clements, 1992). Greek Tradition Nothing represents the Greek wisdom tradition any better than the Platonic dialogues (Robinson, 1990). Here wisdom takes three distinct forms: sophia, the theoretical wisdom that is the gift of the philosopher who ponders the meaning of life, phronesis, the practical wisdom that arms any public person with prudence and self-control, and episteme, the scientific wisdom about how things work. Phronesis was given special political status, for Socrates could envision no one in authority without it (Robinson, 1990). This notion of wisdom is so central to a managerial wisdom that we will take it up later in this paper. Among the many contributions Aristotle is the special role he assigned to contemplation in the cultivation of wisdom. To him, the acquisition of theoretical wisdom was critical to a life of wisdom. This involves an understanding of the causes of things, and ultimately the so-called final cause for the sake of which other causes are engaged. The path to understanding this final cause is only through contemplation, an activity Aristotle considered most elevating and vital to human flourishing. Indeed, when Aristotle was asked to choose between a practical life and a contemplative life as the path to the good life, he chose the contemplative (Lawrence, 1993). Christian Tradition Within the Christian Tradition, we find not surprisingly, a strong legacy from Hebraic culture. Notably, the New Testament echoes the Jewish theme that ultimately wisdom is divine and that in order to become wise, man must follow 382 DENNIS J. MOBERG God's Law, in this case, the Sermon on the Mount. In this sense, wisdom is a gift God bestows on man as a result of prayer and humility. Perhaps the most distinct feature of Christian wisdom is its abject simplicity. While the path of wisdom can involve intellectual sophistication (Gilby, 1967), wisdom can also accrue to those with the simple faith that God is the source of all good (Wood, 1967). The Eastern Tradition The Eastern Tradition as represented by Zen Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism holds that too much rational, intellectual analysis seriously impedes the development of wisdom (Conze, 1958; Cragg, 1976; You, 1972). Within this tradition, direct experience rather than abstract thought is the only path to enlightenment. But one must be prepared to apprehend the essence of experience through meditation and careful instruction (Pelletier & Garfield, 1976). Thus prepared, the wise person is able to abandon opinions, speculations, and preconceptions and see things as they really are. Compared to others, wise persons are more compassionate, tranquil, intuitive, and prone neither to ambition nor fear. There are two tensions implicit in the history of the wisdom construct that are reflected in contemporary treatments of the subject. First, while it is clear that wisdom involves a very high level of mastery that is not readily acquired through conventional pedagogy or mere experience, there is the tension between whether wisdom involves life's most difficult pragmatic challenges or man's most elusive mysteries. Second, while it is clear that wisdom involves mental sophistication, there is tension about how the self is implicated. Faith, contemplation, and meditation seem to be the three essential pathways to human wisdom identified in these historical traditions. In order to manage the scope of this paper, I will give emphasis to those forms of wisdom dealing with the pragmatic rather than mysterious and to practices of discerning wisdom that emphasize contemplation rather than faith and meditation. MODERN PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS OF WISDOM Contemporary philosophical views of wisdom owe a considerable debt to the work of Aristotle. He included wisdom among his list of virtues, but he seemed to single out wisdom as having a kind of executive role over all of the other virtues. According to John Kekes: . . wisdom is certainly a major virtue, but it has a claim to be even more: the most important of all the virtues. All the other virtues, both major and minor, are concerned with good conduct in some specific area of life. Good conduct, however, requires knowing what the Managerial Wisdom 383 good generally is in that specific area, how to evaluate the particular situation we face in the light of that general knowledge, and how to judge complex situations in which knowledge and evaluation are difficult. And these, of course, are precisely the capacities moral wisdom provides (1995, p. 205). Thus, the other virtues presuppose wisdom because the knowledge, evaluation and judgment their exercise and expression depends on are provided by wisdom (Jacobs, 1989). In modem philosophical treatments of the subject, wisdom is often described as an antidote to the uncertain vicissitudes of life. In this sense, a function of wisdom is to arrange human affairs for the benefit of humanity in the face of an indifferent reality (Kekes, 1983). This requires a thorough understanding of the limits on our efforts to live a good life, preparation to face these limitations, clarity about our own motivation and weaknesses, courage to reckon with these conditions, and steadfastness in persisting against them. Relevant limitations are due to one's physical capacity, health, temperament, emotional range, talents, society, culture, historical period, and so on (Kekes, 1983). Death is, of course, an ultimate limit, but so too are the predictable seasons of a person's life. Kekes (1983, 1995) bases his insights on wisdom on the development of two concepts: moral breadth and moral depth. "Breadth is the recognition that the conventional description of situations regarded as paradigmatic in one's own context is just one option among many. Depth comes from understanding that underlying the manifold differences among human beings, there are the fundamental similarities of basic assumptions" (Kekes, 1983, p. 279). Thus, wisdom is expressed through moral breadth when the agent has the perceptual flexibility to see things in unique ways. And moral depth implies an ability to deal with the essences of the human condition. Increasing depth occurs in predictable stages the first being a descriptive and emotional understanding of the human condition. The second stage is when the person recognizes the futility of human will and intellect in advancing human flourishing. The third stage is to feel hopeful even though we cannot effect the ends we desire. And the final stage of moral depth occurs when we realize that each progression is an individual one, such that we can never find our moral depth in others (Kekes, 1995) These philosophical ideas enlighten our effort to refine the concept of managerial wisdom. First, it is clear that wise managers draw upon their (practical) wisdom in decisions about how to exercise their virtues. For example, if agreeableness is a managerial virtue, then managers need to know when to act agreeably (allow their virtue to be expressed) and when to suppress their virtuous inclinations. Right character alone does not automatically produce decisions that advance human flourishing. Wisdom provides direction to these natural and good inclinations in the virtuous manager. 384 DENNIS J. MOBERG A second implication of the philosophical work on wisdom concerns the role that wisdom plays in dealing with the limitations of life (e.g. health, temperament, talents, etc.). While it is true that virtually every management position involves working with limited resources, wisdom highlights the prudential options of timing and inaction that receive scant coverage in professional management education. A third implication regards the development of moral breadth and depth within the managerial role. As far as breadth is concerned, most curious managers can avail themselves today of a wide array of paradigms by which they can monitor their situation. The professional press is forever heralding its new books with terms like, "breakthrough thinking", and "paradigm shift". While some of this is obviously hyperbole, books like The Fifth Discipline and Habits of the Heart profoundly challenged conventional thinking about management and community. Moral depth is more elusive to the contemporary manager. Its acquisition seems a highly personal voyage through contemplation and reflection. "Representation, conceptualization, emotion, inference, evaluations are all involved in this sort of activity. It involves taking into account and taking seriously the concerns, feelings, prospects, and abilities of oneself and of others" (Jacobs, 1991, p. 32). MODERN PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEWS OF WISDOM The earliest contributors to a psychological theory of wisdom were developmental psychologists concerned with adult personality development, most notably Eric Erikson (1950, 1964), Lawrence Kohlberg (1973), and Jean Piaget (1972). A neo-Freudian, Erikson laid out an eight stage model of adult psychological development that ended with a stage in which people come to terms with their own lives and experience wisdom. It comes when an individual recognizes his/her own mortality and either becomes wise or falls into despair (Clayton, 1975). Kohlberg's views on a seventh and final stage of moral development involve the wisdom that comes from a sense that one is part of a universe of ideas and entities. He is vague about the nature of this seventh stage, but it is the closest a to nascent sense of wisdom. Jean Piaget defines an ideal adult developmental stage in terms of cognitive maturity, reflected in the capacity of engaging in abstract thought, exploring hypotheses on a mental level, solving complex verbal problems, and employing proportionality and combinatorial systems of problem solving. While this developmental stage can by no means be considered equivalent to wisdom, it does leave the question open as to whether individuals can attain wisdom without passing through Piaget's adult stage. Managerial Wisdom 385 The existence of these developmental frameworks encouraged a group of gerontologists who suspected that there are exceptions to the association between increasing age and psychological decline. Among the first to single out wisdom as a key variable was Vivian Clayton and James Birren (1980). Following an impressive historical review of the concept of wisdom, they reported the results of questionnaire data that showed how educated people describe those that have wisdom. They found that descriptions were consistent with the view that wisdom is an integration of cognitive, affective, and reflective qualities. Moreover, they found that most people consider wisdom a gift especially of the old. Paradoxically, the oldest subjects in their study took odds with this generalization and actually attributed more wisdom to the young. It was this latter result that intrigued J. A. Meacham (1983) who saw parallels with the famous dialogue between Socrates and the oracle of Delphi. Specifically, Meacham pointed out that anyone who claims wisdom is not wise. The challenge of wisdom is not to simply acquire new knowledge but to continually discover new uncertainties, doubts, and questions. He concludes that wise people probably know no more or behave no differently than others. Their talent, he opines, is in asking questions and being open to experience, not in feeling wise or claiming wisdom. Another development during the 1980s in the psychological literature on the subject of wisdom is a monograph by Holliday and Chandler (1986). Based on questionnaire data from 150 subjects, they found that people ascribe the following attributes to wise persons: exceptional understanding (e.g. uses common sense, perceptive), judgment and communication skills (e.g. aware, comprehending), general competencies (e.g. curious, thoughtful), interpersonal skills (e.g. fair, sensitive), and social unobtruciveness (discreet, non-judgmental). They conclude, after Habermas (1970) that wisdom is composed of technical knowledge, practical knowledge and reflective knowledge. Of all the psychological work done on wisdom, none is more significant than that produced by the Berlin School (Baltes, 1993; Baltes & Smith, 1990; Baltes, Staudinger, Maercker & Smith, 1995; Dittmann-Kohli & Baltes, 1990; Smith & Baltes, 1990; Smith, Dixon & Baltes, 1989; Smith, Staudinger & Baltes, 1994; Staudinger, Cornelius & Baltes, 1989; Staudinger, Smith & Baltes, 1989). A group of adult developmental psychologists, the Berlin School began with the observation that certain forms of adult intelligence do not decay (as academic intelligence does). Further, their theorizing about the nature of wisdom has resulted in the following conclusions (Baltes, 1993, p. 586): Wisdom deals with important and/or difficult matters of life and the human condition. Wisdom is truly superior knowledge, judgment, and advice. 386 DENNIS J. MOBERG Wisdom is knowledge with extraordinary scope, depth, and balance applicable to specific situations. Wisdom when used is well intended and combines mind and virtue. Wisdom is very difficult to achieve but more easily recognizable. More controversial is their model of the composition of wisdom. They propose that wisdom includes: (a) factual knowledge about the context, (b) procedural knowledge about the fundamental pragmatics of life, (c) attention to life-span contexts in problem definition and solution, (d) uncertainty as a characteristic of problem definition and solution, and (e) awareness of relativism in judgment and recommendation involving action. For example, wise astronomers would be knowledgeable about celestial bodies. Additionally they would know the pragmatics of being a member of this profession including those skills that are learned through practice and experience. Wise astronomers would be aware of how the life cycle affects their own and others' perceptions of astronomical reality. They would also be cognizant of the uncertainties in their discipline and be open to the insights and approaches of others. Scholars in the Berlin School have developed measures based on these five attributes of wisdom. Typically, they ask subjects to describe the advice they would give a person facing a genuine life dilemma (e.g. someone considering suicide, facing an irreversible career decision). Their responses are coded according to the extent to which they epitomize the five elements of wisdom cited above. Among their most important empirical findings is that unlike other cognitive skills, wisdom is indeed a skill that does not erode with age (Baltes, Staudinger, Maercker & Smith, 1995; Staudinger, Smith & Baltes, 1992; Smith, Staudinger & Baltes, 1994). In fact, in one study, the highest scores were obtained by the oldest subjects (Staudinger, Cornelius & Baltes, 1989). Not surprisingly, subjects exemplified more wisdom to the extent that the life dilemma was relevant to their age and background. While clinical psychologists demonstrate more wisdom in the Berlin School's measures, the highest scores of all have been recorded among older persons nominated as being wise, an indication of the validity of their approach. Clearly, the Berlin School's research leaves many questions unanswered, but it does offer a beginning look at one way of conceptualizing human wisdom. The Berlin School are by no means the only developmental psychologists doing empirical work on wisdom. Some have come at the subject through Kohlberg's model. In his work shortly before his death, Kohlberg (1973) discussed a final stage to his model of moral development. While he never explicitly associated this seventh stage with wisdom, he indicated that Stage 7 thinkers possessed a perspective that is more transcendent and possibly reflective Managerial Wisdom Table 1. Orwoll's Requirements of Wisdom. 387 Intrapersonal Interpersonal Transpersonal Personality self-development empathy (Feeling) Cognition self-knowledge understanding (Thought) Conation integrity maturity in (Action) relationships self-transcendance recognition of limits in knowledge/understanding philosophical commitments Source: Achenbaum, W. A., & Orwoll, L., Becoming Wise: A Psycho-Gerontological Interpretation of the Book of Job, International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 32, pp. 21-39. of wisdom. In any event, those who have studied the effects of age on moral reasoning have generally found no decline with advancing years (Pratt, Diessner, Hunsberger & Pancer, 1996; Chap, 1985-1986). One study showed that with highly educated groups, age was associated with increased moral development (White, 1988). Last but not least, we need to acknowledge the work of Linda Orwoll and her colleagues (Achenbaum & Orwoll, 1992; Orwoll & Achenbaum, 1993; Orwoll & Pedmutter, 1990). Theirs is a model that is perhaps the most conceptually complex but also the most intriguing. As depicted in Table 1, their model of wisdom is composed of intra- inter- and transpersonal phenomena dealing with feeling, thoughts, and actions. The resultant nine-fold model creates a rather imposing, but not unrealistic requirement for wisdom. While there is presently little in the way of empirical evidence to support this scheme, it remains an intriguing integrative model. There are several implications of these psychological approaches to wisdom. First, it seems clear that if a managerial wisdom exists it is not likely to be a manifestation of a generalized attribute. Indeed, managerially wise persons may not at all be wise in other spheres of their lives. Second, managerial wisdom may be enhanced by virtue of some education in the human life cycle. Managers who understand their own stage of development together with the developmental stage of those with whom they work may have more wisdom potential than those who do not. Third, wisdom is not simply knowledge. It is insufficient to attend a course or read a book (Nichols, 1996). There must be a healthy skepticism about one's own knowledge (Meacham, 1990), an appreciation of uncertainty and how to deal with it, and an ability to productively reflect on life's gifts and struggles. This may require the experience of a profound disruption in one's professional life. For example, when successful senior managers discuss the history of their own careers (Jones, Fry & Srivastva, 388 DENNIS J. MOBERG 1989), they almost always refer to a crisis of self-confidence they have overcome. While I am not arguing that senior managers are necessarily more wise than others in a work organization, one would hope that they are not their organization's greatest fools. Finally, there is the role of reflection in the cultivation of managerial wisdom. Not only is wisdom unlikely among those with little self-knowledge, the development of wisdom seems predicated on a perspective that benefits from contemplation and perhaps counsel from other wise persons. Indeed, one might carry that to the point of advocating contact with learned persons of an advanced age (Mergler & Goldstein, 1983). Once again, successful senior managers mention the presence of such individuals in their lives (Jones, Fry & Srivastva, 1989). WISDOM AS COMMON SENSE INTELLIGENCE Most people differentiate in their minds between an intelligent person and a wise person. Yale psychologist Robert Steinberg looked into that distinction by asking people to describe individuals they thought either wise or intelligent (Steinberg, 1985). He found that: . . the wise individual is perceived to have much the same analytical reasoning ability that is found in the intelligent individual, but the wise person has a certain sagacity not necessarily found in the intelligent person. He or she listens to others, knows how to weigh advice, and can deal with a variety of different kinds of people (p. 622). Especially interesting for our purposes is that some of Sternberg's subjects were business school professors and philosophy professors. Accordingly, we could discern implicit theories of wisdom as they apply in those two professional fields. The business school professors admired wisdom that took the form of ... maturity of judgment, understanding of the limitations of one's actions and recommendations, knowing what one does and does not know, possession of a long-term perspective on things, knowing when not to act as well as one should act, acceptance of reality, good decision making, the ability to distinguish substance from style and appreciation of the ideologies of others (p. 624) In contrast, philosophy professors emphasized balanced judgment, non-automatic acceptance of the accepted wisdom, concentration on fundamental questions, resistance to fads, looking for fundamental principles or intuitions behind a viewpoint, concern with larger purposes, openness to ideas, ability to use facts correctly, avoidance of jargon, possession of a sense of where future progress is possible, unwillingness to become obsessed with a single theory, attention to both detail and scope and a sense of justice (p. 624). While these two lists appear quite similar on the surface, they are actually quite different. It is as if business professors are more concerned about Kekes' moral Managerial Wisdom 389 breadth and philosophy professors are more appreciative of moral depth. "Business wisdom", if it can be called that, connotes being deliberate, experienced, resistant to the superficial, and counter-impulsive. In contrast, wisdom in philosophy implies being thoughtful, penetrating, comprehensive, resistant to fashion and open to experience. These differences give credence to the notion that wisdom expresses itself differently in different spheres of life. This explains, in part, the consistent failure to discover a single mental ability as a predictor of performance in different types of jobs. The average correlation coefficient between intelligence and measures of job performance is a paltry 0.2 (meaning that only 4% of performance is accounted for by intelligence). Thus, while test performance in school is a strong function of intelligence, performance in later life is not. This reflects the difference between academic problems and practical problems. Practical problems are characterized by, among other things, an apparent absence of information necessary for a solution and for relevance to everyday experience. The pragmatics of everyday experience was mentioned earlier as a factor in the Berlin School's definition of wisdom. It can now be reintroduced as a measure of what might be termed common sense intelligence. Common sense is not only common opinions as embedded in maxims and proverbs but also ordinary intelligence including rational accounts and good judgment about everyday phenomena (Schweiso, 1985). It is this second meaning, also known as tacit knowledge, that is closest to wisdom (Fletcher, 1982). Tacit knowledge refers to action-oriented knowledge, acquired without direct help from others, that allows individuals to achieve goals they personally value. It is procedural in nature (Wagner, 1987). Steinberg and his colleagues (1995) have tried to discern what tacit, or common sense intelligence differentiated between those who were successful in management roles and those who were not. What they found was slight differences between three strata of managers: senior managers, middle managers, and first-line managers. In general, however, managers needed knowledge about how to: seek out, create, and enjoy challenges, maintain appropriate levels of control, complete tasks and deal with the business environment, be self-directed, self-aware, and self-motivated, influence and control others, support, cooperate with, and understand others. Managerial wisdom, then, may reside in the answers to these typical issues. Interestingly, Sternberg et al. (1995) do not report differences between 390 DENNIS J. MOBERG experienced and inexperienced managers regarding these forms of common sense wisdom. Apparently, experience alone is a poor teacher of managerial wisdom. Once again, it is useful to ascertain implications from this line of research. Here it is not difficult because the research on tacit knowledge is not about wisdom, per se. Any connection is speculative, and we are at not in a position of suggesting that managers possessing this knowledge are wise. However, learning what constitutes the everyday intelligence/tacit knowledge of those in the managerial ranks may be a necessary step in developing wisdom. CONCLUSIONS In this one of the first treatments of managerial wisdom (cf. Bigelow, 1992; Weick, 1998), I have reported the voices of philosophers and psychologists as a means to insights about this fascinating subject. Classically, wisdom has been touted as the ultimate in all human cognitive development. Although there is a wide diversity in the meaning ascribed to the term, there is the sense that it is different from intelligence and exists as a concept that has both breadth and depth. John Kekes appears to be the most prolific contemporary philosopher on the subject, and the Berlin School is probably the most prolific group of psychologists devoted to wisdom. Many of the insights gleaned in this paper have implications, although the evidence makes some implications more significant than others. Somewhat incredibly, many of the scholars involved in wisdom research do not think wisdom can be taught. Both Kekes (1995) and Sternberg et al. (1995) offer this conclusion, yet they provide little evidence (argumentatively or empirically) to support this conclusion. After living with this subject for some months, I am less pessimistic. In order to present these implications in as poignant a way as possible, imagine that you were a faculty member in the Johnson & Johnson School of Business Ethics (one can dream, can't one?). Imagine too that the dean asks you to develop a course on managerial wisdom in return for a healthy summer stipend (this is really dreaming). How would you approach this assignment? The first requirement I would specify is a healthy list of prerequisites. Perhaps I am too jaded about undergraduate education, but I cannot imagine a course on managerial wisdom that would be any more than an abstract exercise to a group of post-pubescent pre-adults. Required, I think, is sufficient seasoning to enable students to have begun to question their own mental models (some moral breadth) and to have understood the limitations of their rationality (some moral depth). I do not know how to operationalize such requirements, so I would be tempted to place "permission of instructor" as an imprimatur for enrollment. Managerial Wisdom 391 As for the curriculum, there is knowledge I would choose to convey and there are some skills I would choose to develop. The knowledge I would attempt to cover would include: (1) the wisdom classics and narratives, (2) knowledge about the different ways in which people integrate work with their other life priorities, (3) the predictable stages in the human life cycle, and (4) the tools for dealing with uncertainty. It goes without saying that the wisdom classics would consist of works from a diverse array of wise figures from history (in spite of traditional slights granted to anyone not white and male). For example, there is a fascinating literature regarding African wisdom that ought to be sampled. Narrative themes I would sample include intergenerational advice (satirized in Polonius' advice in Hamlet) and judicial wisdom (e.g. the Solomon decision to threaten to cut the baby in half in I Kings) (Assmann, 1994). As for the second point about work-life balance, I am often struck by how little time we devote to how employees integrate their work priorities with the other priorities in their lives (e.g. some want work to be expressive, others instrumental, and others in balance with certain other concerns). It is as if we assume that employees should choose work over their other life priorities (e.g. Lewis & Lewis, 1996). In fact, this assumption leads to many foolish management actions that might be wiser if individual life priorities were taken into account. In a similar vein, managers are often indifferent to how a person's stage in his/her own life cycle impacts on their work commitment. Some differences are largely demographic. Parent conferences at school aren't typically an issue to a fifty-something employee and stock market clubs are seldom an activity for the twenty-something employee. Yet, there are more subtle considerations that most management students are ignorant of (e.g. Rybash, Hoyer & Roodin, 1986). For example, many students are unaware that one element of a manager in his/her late fifties may be to leave a legacy. Moreover, students may be naive to the juggling act the parent of a pre-schooler must face in planning for a business trip or the concern a grandparent feels about a relocation that creates a separation from grandchildren. A final life cycle issue concerns tools for dealing with uncertainty. These include consulting experts, integrating divergent viewpoints, maintaining flexible commitments, seeking information about interim developments, and sampling environmental reactions. These tools often receive little attention in management education, so there would be little fear of overlapping with other course offerings. The skills I would focus on are reflecting and counseling. A number of scholars whose work is reported in this paper put a high premium on reflection 392 DENNIS J. MOBERG and contemplation. Whether its basis is self-knowledge or an acuity of life's mysteries, taking the time to reflect on one's experience is universally heralded by wisdom researchers as having a salutary impact. The problem is that contemporary managers have no idea how to reflect or contemplate (Daudelin, 1996). As an instructor, I would shy away from new-age techniques of reflection on behalf of modes of reflection that are age-old and proven. One example is the 450-year-old Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, the structure of which may be adapted for non-Christians (Moberg & Calkins, 1999). As for counseling skills, I would strive to help students understand the process of "client-centered" rather than "interviewer-centered" counseling. Required practice would be such skills as reflective listening, probing, and paraphrasing. Clearly, if one is wise, others must benefit from this wisdom, and that means that wise people must have clinical if not therapeutic skills. Otherwise, mentors fail to pass on the potential wisdom they have to impart. There is a rich and practical literature on advice-giving that may be helpful in this regard (Goldsmith, 1992; Goldsmith & Fitch, 1997). Much of the material on wisdom can probably be taught through modeling (Moberg, 2000). That means including in the curriculum biographies of historical figures known to be wise. In these treatments, I would focus special attention on behaviors that are clear exceptions from the character attributes of the people involved (e.g. Abraham Lincoln's expressions of intemperance toward General Sherman, Martin Luther King's temporary indecisiveness in Memphis). If wisdom is the intervening consideration between character and behavior, these exceptions should be quite instructive. In addition, I would seek wisdom models who excel through inaction rather than action (e.g. Stalin's military strategy in 1941; Jesus' treatment of Judas). The dominant managerial ideology in North America is the manager who "does things". It is obvious that this runs counter to a posture that might be wiser. Similarly, I would try to find historical incidents where protagonists exhibit good timing regarding when they acted. Finally, I would bring into the course tacit or common-sense knowledge about management wisdom. This would not be done in the form of axioms and proverbs but in terms of "rules" genuinely wise managers subscribe toJ Properly conceived and executed, this could constitute the beginnings to a phronesis of management. Obviously, there are legions of men and women who have parlayed their material success and celebrity into platforms from which they espouse counterfeit wisdom. Such impostors make speeches and publish books, but their rules are no more enduring than footsteps on the beach. I am not sure whether my course in managerial wisdom so designed would be popular or effective, but I think I would relish teaching it. My humility in offering to teach this course may qualify me, but I am not sure. Managerial Wisdom 393 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Portions of this paper were presented at the Society of Business Ethics meetings in August, 1997. The author wishes to thank Kathleen Kiehl and John Dienhart and two anonymous reviewers for their wise counsel on an earlier draft. Any foolishness which remains is the author's.