Part - I

Companies spend dearly to gain learning from external sources, but fails to take learning from people within. External knowledge can be obtained by any one, even your competitor, at a price. Internal knowledge cannot be bartered, which can give you real competitive edge.

Does external knowledge earns a manager more status within the organization?

Many times it may so happen that within a particular environment managers earn more status within company by bringing in things from outside, rather than building upon things already prevalent in set up. Specially when spin doctors are roped in, they perceive everything done earlier was wrong. This might actually be far from reality. In actuality there might be profound knowledge within the system awaiting exploitation. But in wake of horn effect (A psychological phenomenon where one large negative in a person overshadows our perception to see everything as negative in him) of negativity everything goes unutilized or under utilized. Even within managers there is latent competition to get ahead of others. Bringing something new gives specialist status to a manager, and makes him think being "worth more than others".

Does external knowledge provide competitive edge?

When external knowledge is valued it is more likely that talented people inside the system feel hurt intellectually. When their say is ignored, while company is spending money to hear exactly what they are saying to the company. This devaluation is extremely de motivating to achievement oriented people who form the backbone of company's think tank. What a company can get from outside, any other company can also obtain it. Whereas the things which can give company much more competitive leverage is the knowledge from within, which is harder to copy by a competitor.

Knowledge coming from inside the organization gets devalued and not used. Knowledge coming from outside, which is paid for seems to be very important to organization. Everybody from top till bottom management works extra mile to understand that un-comprendable learning. Actually, source of the knowledge should not matter; merit must matter. Companies who fail to understand this, carry de motivated people who feel undervalued and in competitive, which reduces the overall competitiveness of organization.

Next

* Contributed by: -
Dhyan P. S. Chauhan is an alumnus of Delhi School Of Economics and working with TechBooks as Manager-HRD.