In the knowledge organization, knowledge workers are the stars of the team, scoring points by contributing to the company’s intellectual capital. From the knowledge worker’s perspective, management’s role is like that of a coach: to help establish common goals, to receive work, offer constructive criticism, and supply or orchestrate resources. Like a coach, management also focuses the knowledge worker’s attention on the work at hand, in part by handling logistics, resource allocation, and conducting other activities that could distract or even demoralize the knowledge workers.
Because management is involved in information and complexity hiding, the knowledge worker’s view of the project is necessarily limited to coworkers and direct reporting management. Because management acts as a knowledge gatekeeper, a knowledge worker may not know, for example, what components of the project are outsourced and which ones are provided in-house, and may have very little idea of senior management’s strategy. At issue is how a knowledge management (KM) initiative should change the role of managers as information gatekeepers. Although there are exceptions, it’s naïve to believe that knowledge workers can manage themselves, especially if they are involved in decisions that have ramifications outside of their areas of direct influence. For example, programmers shouldn’t spend an inordinate amount of time telling those in marketing how to do their jobs. However, they should provide marketing with assistance when it’s requested.
Furthermore, managing knowledge workers is challenging because of the competing goals of encouraging knowledge sharing thorough communities of practice while maintaining control over the general direction of the corporation through information hiding and filtering. For knowledge workers who represent a positive value multiplier, providing consistent supportive feedback through the corporation’s touch points, investing in knowledge worker education when economically feasible, and maintaining the processes associated with knowledge worker loyalty all maximize the value that the knowledge worker can bring to the corporation.
