Re knowledge worker and its challenges: a HBR article had a nice comic succinctly describing part of the challenge.
Imagine the boss walking down the hall with offices w/half glass doors both sides so you can see in.
In one office Bob is hard at it on the phone. In another office Carl is lost in thought looking at reports. In a third office chuck has got his feet up on the desk thinking.
The caption (of the boss' thoughts) read: I wonder what they're doing?
This contrasts with manufacturing. The brake guy is on the brake line doing brake stuff. Period.
Maybe bob, Carl, Chuck are doing the boss' ask, maybe not. Maybe they're trying to get it right inspite of the boss or not.
Going back to drucker's book he makes a strong point. He says it used to be to make money you come up with a product (oil, milk, wd40, dish soap, tin foil) and put you the smart people on design and manufacturing management. The rest are merely warm hands. Here's there is a concentration of talent in one place.
Not so in knowledge work. To get anything done you need teams to work cross functionally to combine spealists. It's a different ballgame.
Apple for example has good cross functional management lining up apps + hw + os + manufacturing supply chain. A apple guy interviewed by Charlie rose said that's apple's real secret sauce. Yes, industrial design form is sweet, but that's not the secret sauce, in fact.
Re knowledge worker and its challenges: a HBR article had a nice comic succinctly describing part of the challenge.
Imagine the boss walking down the hall with offices w/half glass doors both sides so you can see in.
In one office Bob is hard at it on the phone. In another office Carl is lost in thought looking at reports. In a third office chuck has got his feet up on the desk thinking.
The caption (of the boss' thoughts) read: I wonder what they're doing?
This contrasts with manufacturing. The brake guy is on the brake line doing brake stuff. Period.
Maybe bob, Carl, Chuck are doing the boss' ask, maybe not. Maybe they're trying to get it right inspite of the boss or not.
Going back to drucker's book he makes a strong point. He says it used to be to make money you come up with a product (oil, milk, wd40, dish soap, tin foil) and put you the smart people on design and manufacturing management. The rest are merely warm hands. Here's there is a concentration of talent in one place.
Not so in knowledge work. To get anything done you need teams to work cross functionally to combine spealists. It's a different ballgame.
Apple for example has good cross functional management lining up apps + hw + os + manufacturing supply chain. A apple guy interviewed by Charlie rose said that's apple's real secret sauce. Yes, industrial design form is sweet, but that's not the secret sauce, in fact.