Practicing New Approaches

You cannot lead knowledge workers by telling them what to do. You must treat them with respect and dignity, and provide opportunities that they would not be able to have on their own.

→ Leadership-Management Synergy

To lead knowledge workers effectively and unlock their true potential, you need to define:

• What knowledge work professionals do?

• How they do it best?

• What drives them to do it?

Balanced Manager

To manage knowledge workers effectively in the modern knowledge-driven enterprise, modern manager should balance management with leadership and coaching... More

Working the Peer Network

As a leader, you must work the peer network of your knowledge workers actively.

→ Leader 360

For example, if you have to manage a difficult employee, don't try to do it on your own. "Reframing the problem from a boss-employee situation to a workgroup issue can be surprisingly effective. Get their peers involved, since letting them down often has a much faster and stronger impact on the employee than letting the boss down".¹

→ 4 NLP Perceptual Positions

→ Problem Solving Strategies: 4 Levels

Evoking People's Passions

"The passion to go well beyond the extra mile is what drives people to create insanely great products and services." says Christopher Meyer.¹ You need to shift your people management practices – if you haven't done so yet – to accommodate or support knowledge work and help your people express passion of their own.

 Silicon Valley Firms

How do Silicon Valley firms attract people to opportunities, challenges, and growth?

Around the globe, leading organizations declare in their corporate value statements that people are their most important asset. In many cases, these statements are just words however. In the Silicon Valley, people really do come first. One of the main tasks of top management is to provide an environment where work is rewarding and fun. In turn, the legacy of managing knowledge workers keeps the focus on people, and illustrates why innovation in the Silicon Valley extends far beyond the technology itself.¹... More 

 Google: 10 Golden Rules

By: Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, and Hal Varian, Consultant with Google

Getting the most out of knowledge workers will be the key to business success for the next quarter century. Here's how we do it at Google.

At Google, we think business guru Peter Drucker well understood how to manage the new breed of "knowledge workers." After all, Drucker invented the term in 1959. He says knowledge workers believe they are paid to be effective, not to work 9 to 5, and that smart businesses will "strip away everything that gets in their knowledge workers' way." Those that succeed will attract the best performers, securing "the single biggest factor for competitive advantage in the next 25 years."

At Google, we seek that advantage. The ongoing debate about whether big corporations are mismanaging knowledge workers is one we take very seriously, because those who don't get it right will be gone. We've drawn on good ideas we've seen elsewhere and come up with a few of our own. What follows are ten key principles we use to make knowledge workers most effective. As in most technology companies, many of our employees are engineers, so we will focus on that particular group, but many of the policies apply to all sorts of knowledge workers... More

References:

1. Relentless Growth, Christopher Meyer

2. A Manager's Guide to the Millennium, Ken Matejka & Richard J. Dunsing

3. Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128, Annalee Saxenian

4. 20 Breakthrough Ideas, Harvard Business Review