Personal Validation: Knowledge Worker as King

I am currently reading over Stephen Covey’s ‘The 8th Habit’ on the recommendation of my friend Seth. When he said that this was the book I needed to read to get the lay of the land for today’s professional (and inter-personal) landscape, he was right.

Covey quotes Peter Drucker by saying:

“The most important contribution managements needs to make in the 21st century is similarly to increase the productivity of knowledge work and the knowledge worker.

“The most valuable assets of a 20th-century company were its production equipment. The most valuable assets of a 21st-century institution, whether business or non-business*, will be its knowledge workers and their productivity.” [emphasis mine.]

Callin’ Out the Know-Hows

Simply put, Drucker is saying “management, wisen up and invest in the workers who can and do transact with knowledge.” The conclusions that Covey follows up with are powerful and shocking, but I will save that for my review of this book.

I guess I wanted to point this out for the shear fact that I have been sharing this with my clients and non-profit partners forever. I see a significant lag in the humanitarian and non-profit sectors. One could invest a short time and find proof upon proof that the non-profits that are currently thriving are [gasp at the surprise] the ones utilizing knowledge workers and leveraging the tools of an information society. (Think back just a decade or so ago and picture the classic non-profit: lost in the bush for years, returning for a season of fundraising. Today, we can simply log on to join the adventure!)

Knower Begets Know-How

An interesting point about knowledge workers is that we ‘know how’. We know how to get more know-how. We know how to invest in our own knowledge acquisition. We are familiar with the current (and up-and-coming) tools that help us become more productive.

Therefore, I believe that this makes management’s job even easier than it first seems. Instead of having to invest too much or change too much, simply give us a little space.

Possibly:

• Give your knowledge workers the respect they deserve.
• Trust that when they give you time estimates on how long a project takes that they know what they are talking about.
• Take time to learn how quickly they change and adapt (because, after all, they have to adjust with the pace that information is flowing our direction.)

Knowledge workers aren’t just  jean-wearing, night-owl, alternateens from the 90′s all grown up…well, maybe we are those things… But still, we ARE grown up now. We did grow up with an Atari joy-stick or Nintendo Powerglove in our hands.

This used to be the point where previous generations “pshawed” us and shook their heads. “When will they learn to focus?”

Well, we are finding that those very traits are what makes us, knowledge workers, more equipped to hand the 21st century as Drucker sees it as well as the conclusions that Covey makes.

Prediction

I venture a guess that Covey will make an argument that a) those businesses focused on knowledge work will thrive (a la Indian outsourcing, nuff said), and, possibly, b) that shortly after that will be a need for what I will call wisdom workers, those who do more than exchange knowledge but can make sense of it. (Wisdom is knowing what to do with knowledge.)

In fact, you may see this in a resurgence in the non-profit/religion sectors. If you have read it, don’t pop my bubble yet!

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Tagged as: 8th habit, alternateens, atari, book, Books, know-how, knowledge worker, nintendo powerglove, nonprofit organization, peter drucker, productivity, religion, Sparking, stephen covey, steven covey, work we enjoy