"First, in the example here, the question isn't so much how do you make these workers into knowledge workers. They already are. The question is why don't they view themselves as knowledge workers and does that matter?
I tried the following rules of thumb in a speech I gave last year. I figured you were a knowledge worker if:
- 80% of your job is doing things that 'aren't your job'
- 'It's not my job' is no longer an acceptable excuse
- Your mother doesn't understand what you do
- Your boss doesn't understand what you do
- You don't understand what you do
Flip, but there's some essential truth buried here as well. Robert Reich talks about knowledge workers as "symbolic analysts," which I find marginally helpful at best. At the moment, Peter Drucker has the most useful take on the problem I have found. I tried to capture some of his insight in a recent post I made on knowledge work and productivity....
We all do knowledge work. For some of us, it's virtually all we do. For others, it's a small component. Knowledge work is different mostly because the end products are defined in the doing, not in advance. That demands that we learn how to think about and be mindful of the work as we do it. That runs counter to what we are trained and socialized to do and that makes everyone uncomfortable. After years of getting credit for the answers, we need to learn how to craft better questions first." [McGee's Musings]
When it comes time to stand up in front of our staff and explain where we're heading, I think I've found my introduction to why I'm taking blogging to all levels of my organization. :-)
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