A knowledge organization has to be both a learning organization and a teaching organization.
Knowledge workers must have continuous learning built into their tasks. And a knowledge organization has to be both a learning organization and a teaching organization. Knowledge today, in all areas, changes so fast that knowledge workers become obsolete pretty soon unless they build continuous learning into their work. And that is not just true of high knowledge such as that of the engineer, the chemist, the biologist, or the accountant. It’s increasingly just as true of the cardiac nurse, the person who handles payroll records, and the computer repair person. But also, a knowledge organization depends on knowledge specialists understanding what their colleagues are doing or trying to do. And each of them has a different specialty. Knowledge workers need, therefore, to hold themselves responsible for educating their colleagues, especially when the knowledge base of their own specialty changes.
This means that knowledge workers are well advised to sit down and answer two questions:
- What do I need to learn to keep abreast of the knowledge I am being paid to know?
- And what do my associates have to know and understand about my knowledge area and about what it can and should contribute to the organization and to their own work?
ACTION POINT: Answer the two questions at the end of this reading.
Management Challenges for the 21st Century
Knowledge Worker Productivity (Corpedia Online Program)
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker