The Wisdom Equation: Defining Wisdom in the Workplace

Wisdom is a fuzzy concept; we know it when we see it, but we can’t always put it into words. We believe it is associated with age or experience.; but we also recognize that someone can have experience, but not be wise. 

The concept of wisdom has a long history. It has been widely described, which makes it open to definition. And once captured in a definition, the components of the phenomenon can be examined.

Does that mean that wisdom can be learned? Yes – for as description leads to definition, and definition leads to deconstruction, so deconstruction opens the door for development. Or in other words, key elements of wisdom can be improved through training, study and intentional practice.

The wise individual

Researchers in a variety of fields (including anthropology, psychology, and neurology) have been studying the phenomenon of wisdom for some time. Their work clearly established that the concept of “wisdom” has existed since prehistoric times, and is found in the most ancient human texts.  It is also common across all human cultures. This means that wisdom must be a function of human evolutionary biology, and not an artificial construct of a given society.

In 2019, Dilip Jeste and Ellen Lee undertook a major survey of recent academic literature on wisdom.  In addition, they convened a panel of experts and asked them for further comments on the trends and patterns emerging from the literature. They determined that all those studies and experts converged on a list of six components that combine to make up wisdom.  

The list includes:

• General knowledge of life and social decision making
• Emotional regulation
• Prosocial behaviours like compassion and empathy
• Insight or self-reflection
• Acceptance of different value systems
• Decisiveness

While the list is standard across every group and culture studied, the actual weighting of the different aspects varies in different societies and for different observers.

In addition to the six shared elements, three other components were supported by some studies, but not universally:

• Spirituality
• Openness to new experiences
• Sense of humour

Finally, the experts also agreed that wisdom is driven by experience, and increases with age.

Wise Leaders

While wisdom can be a characteristic of people in any role or setting, it manifests differently in the case of leaders. Effective leaders use their wisdom to motivate, to make decisions, and to achieve outcomes.

In a 2011 HBR article, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi defined six characteristics of “the wise leader”:

• Wise leaders can judge goodness
• Wise leaders can grasp the essence
• Wise leaders create shared contexts
• Wise leaders communicate the essence
• Wise leaders exercise political power
• Wise leaders foster practical wisdom in others

While there is a clear link between wisdom and morality, the authors feel that wise leaders can be stubborn, manipulative and even Machiavellian in accomplishing their goals.

An operational definition

In a business setting, wisdom is only useful if it is operationalized - that is, if it comes into play. This is not just the prerogative of leaders. Instead, wisdom can be defined as “employing thoughtful judgment, based on a broad perspective, to influence or make good decisions.”

Considered this way, operationalized wisdom breaks down into three groups of strengths or competencies.

The first set of competencies relates to the wise individual’s perspective; they include the following:

• Subject matter experience (personal knowledge about the area being considered)
• Social knowledge (general knowledge about decision making and social systems)
• Ethics (the ability to measure options by a moral criteria)
• Relativism (understanding that other value systems and ways of being exist, and must be respected)
• Humility (in particular, humility about the universe of information and experience available)
• Self-awareness

The second set of competencies all relate to the exercise of judgment. Through judgment, wise individuals take advantage of their perspective and contribute to action. Judgment involves consideration of a complex and chaotic set of relationships, values and outcomes; this ability sets humans apart from artificial intelligence or machine learning.

The exercise of judgment requires strength in all the following areas:

• Risk assessment (the ability to measure risk objectively)
• Evaluation of choices (having a considered way to compare options)
• Experience in decision-making
• Moral standards
• Holistic/systems thinking (understanding how one change can impact the big picture, and vice versa)
• Critical thinking
• Compassion (the ability to recognize the human impact of decisions)

Finally, wisdom is ineffective if it is not communicated, so a wise individual requires a third set of competencies, related to communication. These include:

• Empathy (the ability to understand another’s viewpoint)
• Listening skills
• The ability to use figurative language (such as allegory or story telling)

With these three competency sets outlined, the equation for wisdom becomes clear:

WISDOM = PERSPECTIVE + JUDGMENT + COMMUNICATION

Does wisdom come with age?

Traditionally wisdom is seen as a function of age; it is not surprising that there is evidence to support that correlation. To be precise, some of the key behaviors and characteristics associated with wisdom are found more broadly among older individuals. For example, studies comparing decision making between different age groups show that older adults (age 50+) are more likely to tolerate other opinions, be aware of long-term consequences, or be aware of their own limitations.

Wisdom also depends on experience, and experience accumulates with age. Knowledge about specific topics, exposure to different people and places, or experience with how decisions play out all require time to build up. Of course, different individuals will accumulate them at different rates; one person might gain the experience in a decade that takes someone else a lifetime.

So in general wisdom is correlated with age, but it is not an absolutes and linear relationship. Not every wise person is older, and not every older person is wise. 

Developing and measuring wisdom

While it is true that certain aspects of wisdom are likely to increase with age, that is not the only route; many of these competencies can be nurtured and developed through training and intentional practice. Some individuals may already posses more of certain characteristics through natural inclination or past experience, but everyone can benefit from a program of support and improvement.

We can recognize wisdom, and we can also observe individuals become wiser over time – but measuring wisdom on an objective scale is much trickier. Most studies which seek to quantify wisdom, do so with measurements based on self-reporting by subjects. Despite the inherent limitations, this approach has shown evidence of improvement after participating in targeted programs of development.

This work has also uncovered one intriguing correlation: those who score higher on the wisdom metrics also score higher on general happiness and mental wellbeing. Several years ago, Robert Wright commented on the potential causal relationship between wisdom and happiness, after reviewing a similar academic study. He asked:

Does the wisdom lead to the well-being or does the well-being lead to the wisdom?

The latter is certainly plausible. When I'm in a good mood, it's easier to consider the perspectives of other people, and easier to focus on compromise--two components of wisdom as defined here. And presumably if I were in a good mood more often--if I had an enduringly high sense of well-being--my ability to thus exercise wisdom would remain pretty high.

 If nothing else, it seems that wisdom breeds contentment.

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Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels.