Entered
15/10/03
 KNOWLEDGE
WORKER PERFORMANCE FINDINGS
Davenport, T.H, Thomas, R.J.,
and Cantrell, S.(2002) The Mysterious Art and Science of Knowledge-Worker
Performance. MIT Sloan Management Review Fall p23-30
Manual labour productivity was the vision of the industrial age
movement exemplified by the likes of Frederick Taylor and Henry
Ford. How are we going now with the birth of a newer vision -knowledge
labour productivity ? Davenport and colleagues decided to find
out. They discovered five key issues that must be addressed if
newer business disciplines like KM are to have any chance in growing.
 Davenport
introduces the paper with the notion of knowledge work's intrinsic
powerful appeal....just like the irresistible vision of attempting
to harness atomic energy for the atomic bomb in the 1940s. It
will soon be on everyone's agenda/radar/hymn sheet/ToDo list.
But....
'Knowledge work thus far has had no Frederick
Taylor or Henry Ford at best.... (yet) the payoff would
be astronomical.'
Method
They
interviewed over 200 diverse white- collar professionals, 'high-end
knowledge workers', both inside and outside companies. Additionally,
they held a research conference and undertook an extensive global
literature review.
Results
FIVE
KEY ISSUES
Determining
Factors to Knowledge Worker Performance
Three factors
are clear from the research. You need to have the following three
factors...AND for them to align with each other.
A.
Management (style) and Organization (structure)
B.
IT Support
C.
Workplace Design
This study
'confirms research going back decades' regarding the above essential
factors. Although the first factor has been written about extensively
in the literature, the latter two have been studied less well.
Yet for IT support....
'... dozens
of studies confirm the idea that new technology helps workers
accomplish more complex tasks than they would have in the past.'
For workplace
design it appears less clear but still significant...
'Case studies
and surveys suggest that physical setting and workplace arrangements
have a measurable effect on the knowledge worker.'
But many have
studies have examined these factors in isolation. They have not
considered the effect good integration amongst the factors would
produce. Regarding the knowledge worker's usage of IT support,
for instance....
'Few (if
any) have figured out how to get knowledge workers to actually
use the tools (IT collaboration). Thus far, it all amounts to
expensive e-mail.'
Lack
of Segmentation
Few companies
have dared to declare different types of knowledge workers in
their organisation. But they need Identify and declare them openly
- to segement them. In doing so it will likely arouse sensitivity
particularly with egalitarian-minded employees. Accusations of
elitism will likely surface even in pay-for-performance cultures.
But the truth is clear....
'We found substantial differences among the types of people
who are called knowledge workers.'
The main determinant
to your level of knowledge work is found to be : Level of autonomy
and choice in your work role.
They will
also vary in other important ways: (i) work processes; (ii)status
and influence; (iii)differentiation of environment.
 Lack
of Ownership
No one is
taking direct responsibility 'for enabling a higher level of knowledge
worker performance.' Knowledge work is not being actively cultivated...
but it must be.
The line managers
are not doing it because they have the spoken or unspoken expectation
'to focus on current performance.' No time is allocated to them
for this. No resources are actively provided. And no incentive
is ever given to them to do this. So why should they ?
The support
functions like HR and IT normally are not fairing any better.
They are actually given all-too-little access to staff for line
manager fears that 'existing work processes will be disrupted.'
And secondly, from their perspective they would always have a
limited understanding of the real issues.The can (never) 'effectively
own the problem.'
A cross-functional
approach has also not achieved much for one major reason - the
performance measures differ for each function (!). The key performance
indicators of each function are invariably not aligned to the
cross-functional duties they are called to do. HR may just be
interested in compensation and benefits. IT may not at all be
interested in peer-to-peer networking software because of the
complexity of it all.
Next...
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HUMAN LEARNING -
NATURAL DRIFT TO LOOSE COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
