ABSTRACT

Conceived as one of the most debatable issues of our time, Education, in the so called era of " Knowledge Economics", stands out as a great challenge. Over and over again it becomes necessary to learn more, and quicker, at the same time that it is necessary to unlearn more and more in order to keep track with transformations which take place every day, in order for one to adopt new concepts, behaviours, beliefs and values.

Ranging from the Agricultural Society whose pillars were the land, slave manpower and capital to the Industrial Society the latter being characterized by highly hierarchical organizations which employed human capital as machines and where the State was the great driving force, to the Information Society, supported by technological developments, and more recently to the Knowledge Society whose fundamentals seem to be information, knowledge, intellectual capital and obviously people who participate in these different contexts.

Along with the technological evolution which automates routine and even intellectual processes machines take over industrial society man’s ancient role. It is now up to man to think, to create, to innovate, to plan, to undertake and, mainly, to take care of his own destiny. Complexity increases and man frees himself from a well-known type of work, becoming confronted with the challenge of complexity, of the unknown. It is necessary to invest on Human Development so that the latter can remain aligned with, in terms of evolution levels, the Technological Development and moreover so that an effective transition towards the real Knowledge Era may occur.
 

CHANGES AND HABITS THAT ARE DETERMINED BY THEM

It is imperative that the awakening of both "a new man" and the search for a " dynamic equilibrium " which will guide him towards conquests in the third millenium. Education and Business will happen based on exchanges with allies, partners who will help one another in search of overcoming challenges in the different dimensions of human relationships and needs.

The new model of Knowledge Economics points to many striking consequences in the lives of individuals which will be originated by changes that are already taking place; some of them are cited below and on their own will be great motivators in the decision process of utilizing some kind of personal tool which might help the planning of one’s life so as to strike a balance amongst the various existing dimensions in a complex world.

• Paternalism : will be replaced by shared responsibilities in organizations and in other institutional forms.

• The Process of Work Choice : individuals will choose the organizations they want to work for, and not the opposite; they will offer their skills and their talents, and not their curricula demonstrating their experience and years of organizational loyalty.

• Work : jobs will be displaced to make room for work; in the Knowledge Economics era it will be common for the individual to work in several projects, even being in different organizations. We can already see the NGOs as thecell of the new future entrepreneurial park structure. While one adds value to the business one will remain belonging to an Organization, will have " employability".

• Values : will be seen as a means of support and inspiration for human growth and development; the individual will acknowledge if the Organization or Team which he intends to join is in alignment with his individual values. Healthy relationships, the competence for managing one’s own life, contribution to the whole are all imperative values in the new Society.

• Leadership and Teams : one of the major transformations which begins to be noticed: from leadership as a result of stipulating common purposes to leadership for strengthening one and all where the individual perspective only makes sense if subordinate to the building of a more dignified society, here being considered the collective environment to which each individual belongs, the nation, the world, the planet and life itself.

• Integration Between Work and Personal Life : work wiill be seen from a different perspective in all individuals’ lives; the transition from work for subsistence to work because one has talent and a personal mission . Time will not be managed any longer depending on circumstances, but rather will belong to each individual’s own self-domain who in turn will choose what makes more sense to his own life. Both work and leisure alike are life.

In 1992, Robert Kaplan and David Norton conceived the Balanced Scorecard. (The Balanced Scorecard, by Harvard Business School Press), and demonstrated how managers can turn a Vision into strategic goals in a very simple way. It has been defined as a set of indicators which constitute a managerial system well suited for channelling one’s energies, skills and individuals’ specific knowledge in search of the attainment of the organization’s long-term goals. The BSC, as it is equally known, serves as a guideline to one’s both present and future performance. The original "dimensions" presented in the beautiful project through which it has been originated are: financial performance, client knowledge, internal processes and learning and growth in order to align individual, organizational and interdepartmental initiatives. Also to identify processes whose purpose is to meet clients’ and shareholders’ goals.

From the stimulus provided by the book’s writers, that is, the choice to work with the BSC framework in dimensions which make sense to every entrepreneurial specific undertaking, we have intuitively chosen the alternative of applying the model to one’s personal life, in the sense of searching for one’s dynamic equilibrium which may lead to a more enlarged and harmonic view in terms of quality of life. We have named the framework or process Personal Balanced Scorecard the latter maybe being better applied to the setting.

FRAMEWORK

The Personal Balanced Scorecard is based on Human Being’s Quality of Life criteria which form the basis for the adjustment of the various dimensions where the individual is supposed to act. Focusing on three natural and inherent dimensions to human beings it comes into existence through a Personal Management System which helps balancing needs and desires (dreams), considering both one’s individual perception and his prospective view inside a very dynamic context otherwise not determinative but rather probable. The purpose of this framework is to provide a working tool so that each individual can better visualize , define, plan, decide and act with a more integrated view of the variables that interfere in each dimension that is part of life.

In the context of change perceived as necessary it becomes essential to coordinate life’s various dimensions through the creation of new habits, attitudes and actions which bring about synergy. The new world is characterized by the need to manage complexity which is its own subject matter as state Wheatley & Kellner-Rogers. The Personal Balanced Scorecard as a work tool aids one to perceive and explicate one’s life goals. It also helps to orientate choices and decisions, in personal growth, in the productive sharing of values, in personal visions and missions, in time management and in minimizing stress. Moreover it runs along with the trend to increase the quality of life in the context of present complexity.

It is still essential to bring back the belief that all people have a mission, a talent, a desire to contribute to society as a whole; it is intrinsic to each human being despite the fact that there is little opportunity for this to be discovered. Building up attempts guided by an individual decision will lead to Organizations that will produce the great social transformations that will make life possible in our planet. This form of demand already exists in the generation which lives in the Knowledge Era. " If man can not make new and original adaptations in its environment as fast as science can alter it, our culture will be annhilated ... Annihilation being the cost for lack of creativity." (Carl Rogers, 1994).

The Personal Balanced Scorecard as presented in Figure 1 is based on three dimensions:

1. Personal Competence: relates to one’s intrinsic physical and intellectual potential which is built up during the years. In the framework adopted it can be divided into the following fields:

• Talent: the " innate ", competences inherent to each individual human being.

• Formal Education : formal courses attended or recognized knowledge

• Durable Competence : the ability to think strategically, systematical thinking, the ability to look at things as a whole, to dissociate things, to innovate and create, to reach the essence of things, to make happen, to communicate, to negotiate and to establish connections, to establish relationships, to initiate change. It also relates to the ability to change, to energize people, to create mental images, to observe, to be alert, to read, understand and extract things. In short, all are a competence which can be utilized in any kind of situation, independently from the nature of the business or context wherein one is acting.

• Culture: relates to having general knowledge, to being aware of the most recent news, of establishing associations with the present environment. It also relates to retaining information and general knowledge, to taking part in conferences, in discussion groups, in social groups, to being curious in relation to other cultures and ways of life, to the ability to adjust to available technologies, etc.

• Health : it relates to investing in healthy food and quality of life, development of one’s physical form, of leisure. It also relates to caring for one’s body as the soul’s abode, to contributing to the preservation of life and of the planet itself. Moreover it includes one’s calmness and low level of anxiety, the exercise of being non-judgemental which inhibits one’s veiled potentiality, investing in physical and emotional anti-stress practices, etc.

 
• Work: the ability to add value to products and services generated, to perform tasks objectively, with happiness and lightness, without stress, the ability to meditate, to create and apply knowledge and talents to what one does, the ability to learn continuously, to make positive use out of one’s talents, the ability to make use out of one’s intelligence and durable competence so that other forms of intelligence can also stand out. It also relates to the ability to make use of adversities as an opportunity for personal growth, to the ability to deal with cultural diversity, to contribute with one’s fellows and with society, to be and feel useful, to be sufficiently detached so as to strike a balance between paid and voluntary type of work thus contributing to both of them. Moreover it includes the ability to discover the meaning of work and the potential to live together with spiritual values.

• Citizenship: it is to be an active element, to be capable of influencing people and making a difference among one’s peers, to be an actor rather than spectator. It also relates to the ability to participate in the rebuilding of the economic and social processes of development, of cultivating new values as well as moulding behaviours in a more promising and conscious way as a legacy to the future generations, privileging actions that promote sustained development. Still, it relates to be capable of thinking about how man is building his future and to contributing to the process of rethinking new ways to organize all human activities. It is also the ability to adopt values such as continuous growth and to increasing levels of social awareness.

• Family: to value affective and familiy relationships cultivating in one’s own home a process of learning the facts of life and its entire range of possibilities at the same time that it transmits everlasting ethical and moral values which will help all forms of family growth. It also relates to the ability to find worth in spiritual growth and in increasing the levels of life awareness which lead to actions related to enhancing one’s own quality of life and that of the planet we live in.

• Social: to value personal relationships, to establish connections with groups of friends and partners, to perceive oneself as being part of a whole, to develop the ability to establish relationships despite other cultures, beliefs or values. It relates to the ability to contribute in creating the habit to avoid prejudices and building the richness of friendships as well as of all of the potential that can originate from relationships.

• Image: to be able to recognize one’s own personal image as being a tool to motivate continuous change, leading one’s life in such a way so as to serve as an example to be followed.

3. Aptitude For Self-Actualization: relates to the dynamic equilibrium between one’s inner and outer self. Derived from this aptitude is the ability to strike a balance amongst one’s various possibilities for self-actualization. It can be divided into the following categories:

• Economic-financial : it relates to the balance between work and finance, to make for provision of minimal resources that can provide enough material security in order for one to have free choice concerning decisions which may change the course of one’s life. It is also to free oneself from materialism and consumerism, to work in search of a state of equilibrium which in turn reinforces the good quality of life. To make use of wealth as means of generating wealth for others. To find a meaningful kind of work and create at the same time opportunities and choices for others.

• Intellectual: relates to strike the balance between learning/work and the other dimensions of life, also adding personal aptitudes, starting from those which are the dominant ones; it is to ask for and at the same time offer help; it is to act as mentor when one perceives one can help another person’s growth.

• Emotional/Affective: it refers to a state of equilibrium in relationships, to strike a balance among duties, devotion and satisfaction. It is also to try to be one’s own self, to work for one’s own " inner self " in an attempt to create and maintain peace of mind. It is to develop with each passing day the assurance that it is you exclusively who tells yourself which is your emotional state of mind. It is to search to create a climate of satisfaction in all relationships.

• Personal Evolution: is to know oneself, it relates to the degree of awareness of life and its values, to spiritualization, to the recognition of human essence, of the meaning of life, of different ways to carry out our greatest mission on earth. It also relates to the recognition of intuition development and of states for meditation; to search for inter and intra personal evolution; to show openness for growth; of sharing and education for general growth surpassing the group to which one belongs; to develop spiritual values, peace of mind and awareness.

Considering the dimensions cited herein as being vital to the formulation of PBSC, if one proceeds to detail them one will find the building blocks for the kind of work to be developed by each individual. This process will then form the basis for individuals who desire to plan their lives in terms of balanced dynamics.

According to Denis Waitley: " The passion of knowing what you want to do and where you want to go leads you halfway to the empire that exists inside your mind. However only a tiny percentage of individuals takes this crucial aspect into account. The majority of people, so it is said, spend more time making preparations for a family excursion rather than setting goals for their own lives ". There is no replay in the game of life!
 

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Martius Vicente Rodriguez y Rodriguez: is professor of business administration at Universidade de Marilia, in São Paulo, Brazil. Master in knowledge management, working for Petrobras, a Brazilian Oil Company. Author of the book Information Technology for the 21th. Century: Managing the Changing, CML Publications, UK, 1996.

Renilda Ouro de Almeida: is part of the Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development. She is known for her work in change management. Master in business administration and specialized in marketing.