Section Fourthe information age has been that we now have vastly more
information but will never have enough time to teach it.
Therefore, we need to be better thinkers to benefit from this
information.^49 Naisbitt and Aburdene have summarized this
need as follows:
The more information we have, the more we
need to be competent thinkers. This is the
quandary of the information society: We have an
overabundance of data. But we lack the
intelligence, the thinking ability, with which to
sort it all out. That is why thinking is now as basic
as reading.^50Unfortunately, training programs often focus on mid to
upper-level managers and do not place much emphasis on
lower-level employees.^51 The survey results in Table 4-3
indicate that salespeople, professionals, and first-line
supervisors receive the most training: 40.7, 35.5, and 35.4
hours per year, respectively. Further, middle managers, first-
line supervisors, and executives are the most likely to receive
training, with 75.9, 73.3, and 67.3 percent of companies
providing such training, respectively. In contrast, production
workers are the least likely to receive training as only 33. 3
percent, respectively, of organizations provide such training.^52