Knowledge is No Longer Power, Creative Thinking Handbook Author Chris Griffiths

“Knowledge is power” might well be the most used saying in the business world… from the past. People felt pride in knowing it all and showing it off. Knowing everything and being an expert in your field gave you an “edge” over others. Although, that’s not the case anymore.  

Knowledge is No Longer Power, Chris Griffiths

In today’s fast paced world, having huge loads of existing knowledge isn’t enough. While it is still very useful, it doesn’t help you thrive in your work. Even though the activities that we do in our day-to-day lives have remained the same, the way they are carried out has changed. Compared to life 30 years ago, we now eat differently (convenience foods, multicultural cuisines), communicate differently (mobile phones, email, social media), shop differently (online, huge one-stop supermarkets), work differently (automation and technology, the rise of remote and hybrid working), we even learn and study differently (virtual learning environments, interactive whiteboards, internet research).  

It is a long and shocking list of how many things in the world have changed in just three decades! 

This just goes to show that no matter how talented or smart we are at one point in time, as things inevitably move forwards, we need to adapt and evolve in professional as well as personal spaces. The only problem is, while everything around us is changing, our methods of thinking are very much stale. We still prefer sticking to our assumptions, patterns of thinking and belief systems that we’ve carefully put together over our years of expertise, tackling challenges and opportunities using established strategies that have proven to work in the past.  

After all, as I say in the second edition of my book, The Creative Thinking Handbook, “We’re paid to have all the answers. However, 21st-century business problems contain too many variables and unknowns to be answered with existing knowledge alone.” Therefore it’s high time that we realise that the solutions used in the past may not work perfectly in tackling future obstacles. In such changing times, it’s important to imbibe creative thinking in our methods of operation and adapt innovative ways to glide around new obstacles. 

As a result I would say, creativity is the new power. Success is now defined by what and how we innovate to produce resolutions rather than the amount of knowledge we hold. Conventional thinking habits can in fact hold you back from being creative and generating news ideas. They block the ‘outside of the box thinking’ which everyone talks about, but are rarely seen implementing and therefore miss out on the chance to bring in innovation to their work. If we get too comfortable with conventional thinking manners, it eventually leads to blocking innovative thinking which could help us achieve our goals faster. As good a reason as any to realise that creativity is the usurper of stale knowledge. 

An expert in any field is a bygone of yesteryear, arriving at what is already known and going no further. A discoverer ushers in revolution and drives change. If you don’t want to limit the goals you set for yourself, then thinking differently is the key. With creativity you will unlock the best, most innovative answers to your business challenges, and although the known provides comfort, innovation has the power of making things happen better and faster. So let go of the reins of conventional thinking because it is inventive thinking which will give you the edge that the business world is now looking for!  

Written by Chris Griffiths, keynote speaker on learning creativity, author of The Creative Thinking Handbook and founder of ayoa.com, the mind mapping app transforming education, businesses and inclusion.