Knowledge & Wisdom

 I work in the knowledge industry and as such have had multiple interactions with vendors, job seekers and have also given my share of interviews to other companies in the same industry. There is an interesting pattern that I have realised in this process; before I explain the pattern it is important for me to explain what are the basic components of this pattern. I am sure that this pattern exists outside the industry and many people fall into the trap that this pattern exhibits. 

Let’s start by understanding the difference In Knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is defined as an understanding or familiarity, or awareness of someone or something, such as fact. In other words it is a measure of the retention power of your brain to remember. One can know certain amount of facts or a subject because he or she retains that in long term memory and is able to recall the needed information when required. A person is knowledgeable because he or she remembers. 

Wisdom on the other hand is defined as the ability to utilise intuition and logic to apply and act on information that you have . That is in other words the ability to work with the knowledge that one has and utilise it to do. 

Simply put Knowledge is the art of knowing and Wisdom is the art of doing. 

Now to the pattern - most of us use wisdom and knowledge as words that are synonymous which is absolutely wrong, without realising and have created systems that believe that the words are synonymous.  Take for example K10 life of a student the systems are geared towards testing the ability of a student based on his or her knowledge and not on their wisdom. Move it further and the entire process of hiring a person is based on his or her marks / degree etc.. again based on potential recollection and some measurement of knowledge; job givers are always on the lookout for someone who shows wisdom but want to select people based on their knowledge. A degree or a diploma does not prove that you have what it takes to solve a problem but for sure proves that you have the knowledge.  Most get stuck as interviewers talking to the potential candidate and asking about their knowledge when in reality the requirement is for someone with wisdom. 

We tend to measure our friends, family and acquaintances with the same scale and will believe that one who is knowledgeable will for sure be successful and then are left wondering what went wrong or what happened to that person who was knowledgeable but was not successful. Knowledge is not a guarantee for success but wisdom is. 

I believe that I am knowledgeable (could be debated by some of my family and friends) and am in the process of becoming wise (again debatable). What do you consider yourself to be ?

C