Knowledge Work & the Future of Management

TRADITIONAL APPROACHES TO MANAGEMENT

Thomas H. Davenport focuses his essay on the changing role of workers and managers in a workplace that increasingly relies on the creation and use of knowledge as opposed to tangible objects. From this perspective, Davenport maintains that the traditional role of managers is changing just as the role of knowledge workers differs considerably from the role of manufacturing employees.

According to Davenport, the traditional approach to management has viewed the management function as separate from other types of work. Managers are also traditionally able to view the work that is performed by their subordinates, leading to quantitative methods for evaluating that work, such as number of widgets produced in a given time, or the number of errors per thousand widgets.

Work processes could be modified and improved, but management activities were not subject to such analysis, in the traditional approach to management. Even recent re-engineering projects rarely focused on managers, but instead tried to apply traditional management techniques to new types of workers.

Managers were also expected to be able to perform the jobs that their subordinates performed, and better than the subordinates. Managers also instructed subordinates on how to perform their jobs, but rarely actually performed such work themselves except in extreme circumstances. There was also the pervasive attitude that management

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l also perform the same tasks as their subordinates. Increasingly, managers will become coaches rather than supervisors, and the hierarchical structure of the workplace is likely to continue to become flatter, with less rigid relationships. Instead of managers building manual skills, they will build knowledge skills, and workers should be allowed--and even encouraged--to seek knowledge on company time. Thus reading a relevant business book at a workstation should be encouraged, not punished. Managers will also have to shift their focus from judging tangible output to evaluating invisible knowledge achievement. This means that traditional measurements--such as hours worked--will give way to nontraditional forms of measuring performance, an evolution that will require cultural change within the organization, as well. Along these same lines, managers will seek to shape the culture of the organization to foster a creative work environment that nurtures knowledge workers. JUST SAY YES! In his essay, Tom Peters takes a conversational tone about how great leaders are able to remain great over a long period of time. The essay is not academically rigorous, and includes a footnote about dogs possibly being as important as books
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Approximate Word count = 1450
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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