How to Increase Your Company’s Revenue or Gross Income – Part 15

Welcome to LeadEtics® Consults Actionable Business Advice Series.

Today, we shall take a look at the most vital element of living, association, and sanity – Knowledge, and what it has to do with operating a successful business.

We may recognize that the description of knowledge in the Genius Characteristics is incomplete. Knowledge includes information but is much broader, more fundamental, and of greater significance than the accumulation, evaluation, and utilization of data and information.

Knowledge has two faces or forms. There is information or data knowledge. Examples of this are the arithmetic formula that 1 + 1 = 2; the descriptive names of a person, something, or part of something; the content of a company’s annual budget, etc. which are information or data knowledge. 

The other knowledge is certainty. Yes. Certainty is knowledge. Knowledge is a certainty. There is no word to describe knowledge as certainty. Knowledge certainty is that with which we create data knowledge. 

For instance, you know ‘something’, yet this ‘something’ cannot be spoken of or described as there are no words with which to communicate it. Yet, you are certain of what you know. For example, the certainty that you are alive is such a knowledge. No philosopher has been able to describe or define this in the absence of the byproducts of life. Can you? If you can, please, let me know.

For one to be successful in business or any endeavor for that matter, one must have 1) the right type, 2) the right quality, and 3) the right quantity of applied or utility knowledge. 

The acquisition, memorizing, and glib rendition of smart-sounding words do not qualify as knowledge. 

We can tell the difference between a person with the right knowledge and a person with false knowledge thus: 

1. a person with the right applied knowledge gets things done without shifting or shirking responsibility. 

2. a person with false knowledge lacks this fine attribute as they get nothing worthwhile done, but blasts blame on everyone and everything but themselves. 

With knowledge, comes something we often find very difficult to accept and take ownership of – Responsibility. Most people prefer that someone or something else takes the blame for identified shortcomings or failures. If you find this kind of people in your employ, you have work to do to set them straight or else…

We can identify the elements of real knowledge by asking these questions:

1. Can I understand the knowledge?

2. Can I relay the knowledge with understanding to others?

3. Can the knowledge be used to produce the outcome, byproduct, or effect it claims?

Can I understand the knowledge? If we can’t understand something after suffering through the process of knowledge acquisition – study, investigation, and evaluation; we must assume that something is false. If we are told that only a special or selected small number of people can understand it, then it is false.

Can I relay the knowledge with understanding to others? If we think we understand the knowledge, can we relay it to another person such that they understand it as well? If not, then we did not understand it. Therefore, we need to suffer through the knowledge acquisition process again to ensure we attain the expected understanding. If we cannot understand it still, then the ‘knowledge’ is false. 

Can the knowledge be used to produce the outcome, byproduct, or effect it claims? The core value of knowledge is its utility or usefulness. The knowledge must do something. We must be able to use the knowledge to do or produce an effect or product. 

Yes, there is knowledge as certainty or wisdom which in itself is worthwhile even though we cannot use it to produce any physical effect. Even such knowledge must produce a wise person, right? So, knowledge by its nature is a catalyst: it produces something when applied or used.

In conclusion, assuming we have defined our goal (or resolution) for the new year; assuming we have resolved to apply ourselves unwaveringly to the attainment of the goal or resolution, the next ingredient we need is the acquisition of the right type, right quality, and right quantity of applied knowledge. 

We need the right applied knowledge to power our way through the obstacles we have defined to confront. These obstacles are the portions of the plans of our goal. 

When we overcome all the obstacles (sub-plans of our goal), we will realize that we have created happiness, prosperity, and abundance of all we desire.

Let us continue to strive to thrive!

Babatunde Odutola
LeadEtics® Consults