What matters in knowledge work

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This Venn diagram by Oscar Berg says a lot about the nature of work and management today.

KnowledgeWorkerProductivityVennWhat I see on the right are all the attributes of being a free agent and working in trusted networks like the Internet Time Alliance. The only thing missing from these networks is a salary. Almost everything on the left is a control measure in return for a salary. It reinforces the blunt stick of economic consequences as the prime motivator to do work.

If we want knowledge workers to be truly productive we have two major options. We can create new organizational models. These could be new or based on one of the well-known 18 bossless companies. Or we can try a hybrid model, as Rod Collins advocates to Steve Denning [Collins’ other two models are a sub-set of the 18].

The third option is the hybrid option. This is more likely what a big old firm is going to use. Hybrid options are transition options. You are blending network features with a hierarchical structure. It can happen in a couple of ways.

That’s about it, because the status quo is not really an option. Not for leadership and not for dealing with complexity.

Scaling knowledge

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Most organizations grow from simple to complicated structures and in so doing keep adding layers of control. These complicated organizations usually wind up getting industrial disease. On the other hand, networked organizations can scale because they do not need to control every connection. People who participate in structures like open source software projects can join and connect to others at will. Designers of these open organizational structures understand that in complex un-order, loose hierarchies and strong networks are best.

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Make Work More Human

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2013: The Incredibly Shrinking American Middle Class — Bill Moyers

2013: Five Myths about Canada’s Middle Class — Globe & Mail

2013: RIP: The Middle Class — Salon

2013: The Next Middle Class — Harold Jarche

2014: The Middle Class is Steadily Eroding — New York Times

The titles above indicate a shift in the economy and many of our assumptions about the nature of work, at least in my part of the world. There are many definitions of what middle class means, but for me it is the class of people who are experienced, trained or educated yet still have to work to earn a living. Where I grew up, many of our parents were immigrants who all had jobs. We were lucky. School did not require fees and most extracurricular activities were free. Many things have changed since then.

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Learning and Emergent Leadership at Google

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Two themes I have discussed here for a number of years are: 1) work is learning and learning is the work; and 2) leadership is an emergent property of networks. Helping people work on complex problems in networks is one of our management challenges for this decade. Learning has to be part of the workflow. In addition, leadership in networks does not come from above, as usually there is no top. This challenges the practice of management by hierarchical position. Leadership is an emergent property, not something bestowed from on high. Some companies understand this, but most do not. Google seems to get it. Gideon Rosenblatt highlights a conversation in the New York Times that Thomas Friedman had with Google’s VP of People Operations, Laszlo Bock.

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Personal Knowledge Mastery

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PKM for me was initially a way to keep my professional development costs as low as possible. I wanted to use the open web in the best way to stay current in my field. In 2004 this was by following early bloggers and also by blogging myself. I must say that my posts in the early years were not very good. These past few weeks I have been compiling, updating, and editing my best articles. The earliest post in that selection is from 2007. It took me three years to write a blog post that would stand the test of time.

The road to mastery needs practice and perhaps some guidance. My PKM workshop is a more structured approach to start your practice.

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some useful models

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Unless we test new work models now, we will not be ready for the demands of the future. Trying out new management structures while we have time is better than trying to make a quick shift during a crisis. Change management today means practicing change, not waiting for it to hit you on the side of the head. Smart companies don’t wait for change, they constantly experiment in anticipation of change. Whether it’s climate change or a new market demand, chance favours the prepared company.

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A roadmap for transition

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There is general consensus in this part of the world that the modern enterprise is a broken structure. Dissatisfaction with employment runs high, even at a time when it is difficult for many to find a full-time job. Just one, of many, examples is a 2013 Gallup Report that shows that 70 percent of workers are disengaged from their work.

The network era scares or confuses many people in positions of influence in large organizations. Having conversations about transparent processes and networked people actually working together to produce business value is like speaking a foreign language in most cases. Grant McCracken says that from the perspective of most corporations, the future looks like the enemy.

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A job is just a role that cannot change

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Social networks disrupt hierarchical structures. Web-based social networks accelerate the spread of new ideas and lay bare organizational flaws. Anyone in a position of power and authority is losing some of that due to the growing power of social networks – doctors, teachers, managers, politicians. Social networks speed access to knowledge and accelerate learning. They allow people to quickly make and change connections. Seb Paquet calls this “ridiculously easy group-forming”.

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