Why is sharing knowledge relevant and important?
Thinking about industrial or commercial perpetuity or the business of sustaining education; will they survive without transferred knowledge from parting workers to seemingly younger workers or, students whose minds have yet to develop?
Parting workers, usually elder workers, have spent likely decades in studying and analyzing concepts and procedures to facilitate production or movement within an organization that will be lost once they part with the company they presently serve.
Some have referred to this as Brain Drain, the absence of knowledge in the workforce once this exiting process is complete.
Often the parting worker is left with the unproductive activity of his knowledge, left to wither as if on a dying vine.
Elder workers are seen by the younger workforce as incapable of or lack the energy or knowledge, to be relevant today.
The irrelevance of the knowledge taken from the workplace, lies within the ignorance and minds of the younger worker.
Perhaps through ignorance, disconnection, ego or, some other adjective that describes the arrogance of disallowing shared knowledge. Intimidation comes to mind but, do younger workers lack the knowledge to understand themselves?
I understand the “Can Do” attitude that lies within the ego of the younger worker but, I also understand the lack of understanding in what the younger worker does not know.
It seems so simple from afar, to look back and see this all acting out in our understanding of the matter.
Unfair to the elderly, you say? Unfair to the consumer, you say? Unfair to the economy, you say?
I say, Unfair to Mankind!
So much has transpired in creating the environment in which we live today.
Hasn’t it been the result of the older workers’ contribution to mankind that has created this opportunity for us today?
That opportunity is whatever you wish it to be!
That is the contribution of the retiring worker. The opportunity that we glean today from the activities of others that have gone before us, was created by a mind that will no longer be available to us in perpetuity--lost forever.
Think about Albert Einstein and the many contributions to mankind he left behind for us to traverse to this point in time. Wouldn’t we be much more educated if his mind was still available to us? Of course!
And, in a way, his mind is still with us in that we have recordings of his accomplishments and contributions to mankind.
But, do we have the use of his mind today?
May we get a response from this learned mind for a present day equation needing to be solved? Of course not.
With this short essay about knowledge lost, I think we can see the value to mankind in retaining the minds of departing workers in that they will share their knowledge with us to facilitate the next great happening for mankind?
Capturing the minds of departing workers will create an environment and library of knowledge for mankind that will facilitate growth and development into perpetuity.
A departing mind, withering on a decaying vine, is lost knowledge, forever gone, never again to assist mankind in developing further.
Casting aside the minds that have created your environment, is counter-productive to mankind’s perpetuity.
