The management challenge for the coming decade or two is to improve performance of knowledge work. To do more with less!

During the 20th century the performance of manual work has improved plenty fold. Through management techniques and procedures the efficiency of manual work increased. Now, well into the era where knowledge is the central resource, the challenge is to repeat that success and improve the performance of knowledge work in a similar magnitude.

How to do that?
There is a fundamental difference between what should be the core management focus point:

Manual work
Manual work puts the work process in the centre. The subject of management focus is the work process itself which can be analysed in detail. The whole is the sum of the parts and by breaking the process into parts, the bits and pieces can be put together in the right order. Thus, it is possible to program human effort accordingly.

Knowledge work
Knowledge work puts the person in the centre. Knowledge is not impersonal. It does not reside in a database or in some papers. It is always embodied in a person, carried by, improved by, used (or misused) by a person.

What this means to management
The subject of management focus has to be changed dramatically. Because knowledge is linked to humans it is about perception, the process by which we create an understanding of our environment by organising and interpreting information. This process is not a passive one, rather it is influenced by memory, learning and expectation.

Thus, to increase the performance of knowledge work, management need to focus on how humans perceive information and subsequently how humans make decisions based on these perceptions. Contemporary digital data collecting techniques make the amount of data (information) abundant, but many former well working management techniques become obsolete and incapable of getting any useful knowledge out of the cloud of information.

Must more attention needs to be given to the emotional and irrational sides of human perception and decision making. Luckily, the past two decades have provided excellent evidence-based facts on these topics. A very good place to start is to have a look at Behavioral Economics. This is a discipline that can contribute with useful and workable solutions to management challenges.

See you out there in the real world.
Jan

Hi all – here is a thought to consider: is it just me or is there something wrong with too many of our contemporary organizations?

After having worked in, worked with and not least observed private and public organizations for more than two decades I came to a point where I got a bit frustrated about the state of the nation concerning the way we organize and manage ourselves.

What’s on the agenda today? We have moved ourselves from the industrial era and into a more knowledge based period with a very different set of premises for most of those folks, who work in larger organizations. Self-managing teams and self-managing individuals are expected to be extremely flexible, create their own job situation and in parallel comply with often rather ambiguous, but ever changing ideas of where the organisation are going and how to get there.

The result? More and more people are getting stressed or down-right burned out mentally. Managers are struggling with the task of managing their organizations and all too often revert to some Command-and-Control style in the absence of any other reliable ideas on what to do. A recent OECD report stated that mental burn-out is probably the largest threat to business in our pat of the world in the years to come – there is something to think about!
After a short period of being frustrated and even considering the options for an early retirement (not desirable), I decided to have a look at why we do the things we do. I decided to focus on a subject which I personally find extremely interesting and which for worse or for better makes a huge difference in our work lives; the practice of management. Essentially, I had the idea - considered too optimistic for the taste of some - that it should be possible to do much better for the benefit of all of us.

More than a year ago, I therefore embarked on an Odyssey to learn something about why we humans do the things we do in the context of management and hopefully come up with some answers to what to do instead.

Well back from my first “voyage”, I am very happy to report: IT IS POSSIBLE TO DO MUCH, MUCH BETTER!

To discuss the problems with contemporary management and to serve some of my considerations, I have decided to share my thoughts via this blog.

See you out there in the real world
Jan