The Lessons of History

Analogous to the erudition stemming from organization-particular lessons of history, this component of experiential learning is otherwise known as corporate or management history when transposed into books or other treatises. It is the part of experiential learning that addresses how individuals can better acquire their employers’ own hindsight that can, with the necessary know-how, then be applied to changing circumstances. Academics call this wisdom, insight, enlightenment, or 20/20 vision—having the quality of being sensible. For any employer, their OM characterizes their ability to perform and is the basis for decision-making excellence (Kransdorff, 1998). It has been paid for at great expense, yet it is subject to individuals’ innate forgetfulness alongside the Alzheimer-like effects of staff turnover.

Why academia—or for that matter industry/commerce—has not more widely accepted the fuller portrayal of experiential learning as a dedicated business discipline is difficult to fathom, even despite corroborating research that acknowledges that an organization’s ability to collect, store, and use knowledge generated through its experience can have important consequences for its performance (Olivera, 2000). Is it a genuine oversight? Is it too difficult? Are managers too resistant? Or is it behind the common cry of “we know better”?

In operational terms, relatively few resources are even targeted at its development, while organizations and managers are even now undecided about hindsight’s value. Given industry and commerce’s importance to all our lives and the fact that productivity growth is withering, it must surely rate as one of the 21st century’s more weighty imperatives so that organizations of all sorts (businesses, government, nongovernment organizations, charities, etc.) are more proficiently managed.