This infostructure is dependent not just on advances in computer based technology, from parallel processing to the World Wide Web on the Internet, but it is also dependent on a shift in our attitudes or mindsets. In the first part of Fifth Generation Management, Charles uses the analogy of high jumping. People reach higher levels because they are willing to rethink their mindsets. On the Web, people are valued not because of a fancy title or big car, but because of the quality of their interaction. It is not communication or discussion, but quality conversation and dialogue which count.
Questions are more valuable than statements, because they nurture exploration and discovery.
Our tools are changing. In the Industrial Era we used heavy hammers to break apart the earth to free its riches. In the Knowledge Era we use probing questions to uncover the underlying patterns of thought, the new riches. The one breaks apart, the other helps weave fragments of tiny ideas into larger actionable patterns. Indeed, in the Industrial Era we could only deal with complexity by breaking it apart, often to such an extent that we lost an understanding of the whole or the compelling context.