Knowledge-worker productivity requires that the knowledge worker be both seen and treated as an asset rather than a cost.
Work on the productivity of the knowledge worker has barely begun. But we already know a good many of the answers. We also know the challenges to which we do not yet know the answers.
Six major factors determine knowledge-worker productivity.
- Knowledge-worker productivity demands that we ask the question: “What is the task?”
- It demands that we impose the responsibility for their productivity on the individual knowledge workers themselves. Knowledge workers have to manage themselves. They have to have autonomy.
- Continuing innovation has to be part of the work, the task, and the responsibility of knowledge workers.
- Knowledge work requires continuous learning on the part of the knowledge worker, but equally continuous teaching on the part of the knowledge worker.
- Productivity of the knowledge worker is not—at least not primarily—a matter of the quantity of output. Quality is at least as important.
- Finally, knowledge-worker productivity requires that the knowledge worker be both seen and treated as an “asset” rather than a “cost.” It requires that knowledge workers want to work for the organization in preference to all other opportunities.
ACTION POINT: Apply steps one through five to your knowledge work.
Management Challenges for the 21st Century
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker