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Virtualization and decentralization of knowledge work requires organizational communication, cultural transformation

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The virtualization and decentralization of knowledge work requires knowledge workers to learn new ways of working. Primarily, learning to work without communication in the same time and place as they did when they commuted daily to centralized commuter offices.

The learning curve they face became painfully apparent during the public health restrictions taken during the COVID-19 pandemic. Knowledge workers continued to work as if they were in person at a commute in office through video conferencing platforms. Soon “Zoom fatigue” set in with back-to-back meetings filling each day.

The meetings were necessary because of a dominant real time, spoken communication culture. Some organizations continue to maintain this culture and concluded that once the pandemic was no longer a threat, staff should once again commute to the office so they could continue meeting face to face and in real time.

Advances in information and communications technology has deemphasized the need for synchronous, co-located knowledge work in a centralized, commute in office space. Knowledge organizations are now adjusting and adopting new tools and practices. In order to do so, they are shifting from a spoken to written communications culture. A recent Washington Post story highlights social media platform Bluesky.

Employees write proposals that the team debates, looking for holes in ideas. They gather in person one week a quarter and in smaller groups throughout the year to foster collaboration. “When somebody tosses out an idea, I say, ‘Write a proposal!’” said Paul Frazee, Bluesky’s chief technology officer, who said the company’s way of working makes him confident in remote work indefinitely. “In some ways, this was the only way we could do this,” added Rose Wang, Bluesky’s chief operations officer.

Another company cited in the Post story is Atlassian, an Australian software company that specializes in collaboration tools designed primarily for software development and project management. Atlassian has a “culture of documentation,” based on “shared documents, messaging systems and video to help employees capture meetings and comments and collaborate even though they may workat different times,” the newspaper reports.

According to the story, Atlassian has reduced its officespace and reinvested the savings in bringing employees together. This is another critical component of the shift to a virtualized, decentralized style of knowledge work, recognizing the social nature of human beings. The human mind is very capable of competently performing thought work alone. But people also need to feel connected to others, something that has to be intentionally cultured and doesn’t necessarily exist even in organizations where staff works regularly in a cube farm.

Thought work doesn’t require a centralized commute-in office

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As knowledge or thought work as it’s called becomes virtual and is done outside of centralized commuter offices, some knowledge organizations nevertheless believe it must be performed co-located, factory style. According to Roger L. Martin, knowledge organizations are indeed factories – “decision factories” as he termed them in a 2013 Harvard Business Review article.

The process of reaching decisions involves a lot of thought work and analysis that by definition is not tied to a physical location in time and space. That’s because it occurs in the brains of thought workers. In teams and project work groups, they share information and exchange ideas and insights as they move toward decisions.

Sometimes that involves in person brainstorming sessions with Kanban and white boards in smart conference rooms. But in most organizations, that’s not a daily activity that requires knowledge workers to commute to an office daily and incur the personal expense of the commute. They can do their work from their homes or other nearby location without the need for them to climb into a vehicle and travel to an office, often distant from their homes.

Tipping point: Virtualization and decentralization of knowledge work disrupting traditional concept of employment

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Under the traditional concept of employment, an employer sets the conditions of employment: When, where and how the work is to be done by employees. That is colliding with the virtualization and decentralization of knowledge work. Advances in information and communications technology (ICT) over the past five decades have rendered time and place far less relevant. Knowledge work can now be done most anywhere and at any time.

This shift didn’t happen overnight but over the past five decades. Its sudden acceleration since the 2020 pandemic follows a pattern where meta change grows slowly and then reaches a tipping point. That tipping point is now at hand. Some knowledge organizations are navigating it without much trouble while others are struggling to adapt as the former centralized office-based model gives way.

Employment in knowledge work as it has been understood will likely be reformed. That understanding included an expectation that because knowledge work was confined to a particular time and place, knowledge workers must expend their own time and resources in order to physically occupy that designated space and time.

That expectation is naturally now being questioned. Knowledge workers owe a duty to perform their work to the best of their ability for the organizations that retain them. Nothing more can be reasonably expected of them. And that includes a school/classroom like attendance policy that does nothing to further their efforts or the missions of the organizations they serve.

Virtualization of knowledge work could portend major downsizing trend

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As knowledge work is virtualized and decentralized out of commute in offices with modern information and communication technologies, some organizations are questioning their space needs. And concurrently, apparently also their staffing levels. They are doing so by adopting mandatory office attendance policies as a condition of employment. Those who don’t show up face being asked to resign or be terminated.

A big question going forward is once those positions are vacated when their former occupants depart is whether they will be filled again or eliminated.

If the latter, the virtualization and decentralization of knowledge work also portends a new era where organizations no longer permanently employ large numbers of knowledge workers, concluding they can fulfill their missions with significantly reduced staffing levels. This is a critical issue since for most organizations, human resources and office space make up their biggest overhead expenses.

This has substantial implications. It could redefine knowledge work as primarily project versus employment based where knowledge work is delineated by a set job description and duties. That in turn could lead to increased use of consultants, contract staffing and professional service firms that many knowledge organizations are already utilizing.

The knowledge work diaspora

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Knowledge work — also referred to as thought work — aims to develop information into actionable plans and reach decisions about them. For private sector organizations, that includes product or service development, marketing strategy and planning logistics and access to resources. For governments, it’s how to implement public policy and develop programs and budgets to support them.

None of these functions necessarily require knowledge workers to gather regularly in dedicated office space though they might find it beneficial to gather on occasion, perhaps in a day or week-long intensive Kanban or brainstorming session as well as to strengthen social bonding among team members. With communication and collaboration possible from most anywhere to perform these functions, a physical space now must demonstrate that benefit since the traditional office it is no longer the default setting for knowledge work. Nor is it practical or cost effective for large numbers of knowledge workers to regularly commute to one.

This fundamental shift in knowledge work has produced a knowledge work diaspora out centralized commuter offices. It’s upending our concept of knowledge work. Some knowledge organizations that have traditionally viewed their workforces like factory parts inventories are physically inventorying them in office spaces. They have done so by ordering their staff members to report to offices – referred to as “return to office” for what is effectively a census of commitment. If they are not there, they’re not counted, discounted for promotions and even dismissed. They are reassessing the size of their staffs and future office space needs since both of these have been traditionally measured by staff office presence.

The rapid emergence of AI in knowledge work adds a new wrinkle. It requires sizable space for its servers, but unlike humans doesn’t need office space. It too will hasten the diaspora of knowledge work as it was known before ICT began to change it decades ago.

This is a time of great change among knowledge workers and organizations that will require rethinking and adjustment. Or what futurist Alvin Toffler described as developing a form of postmodern literacy when he said “The illiterate of the future are not those who can’t read or write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

Return to office tensions point to reassessment of employment for knowledge work

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“Increasing numbers of employees may leave traditional employment, choosing to start their own businesses as freelancers and contractors.“

So predicts management author Lynne Curry in a blog post today. The context of her post is tension in knowledge organizations. The source is conflict between managers’ beliefs that knowledge work – gathering and the analysis of information to reach a decision – can only be done optimally at centralized, commute in offices – and the practical experience of knowledge workers who have done their work outside of this setting with no commute necessary.

What’s noteworthy is Curry’s prediction that is the decentralization and virtualization of knowledge work is eroding the concept of employment as well. “Traditional employment” as Curry terms it means the employer determines when, where and how an employee performs their job duties. When knowledge work can be done outside of a set “workplace” or time frame, that definition doesn’t fit as well anymore. Employers operating from this framework might sense that not only are their beliefs about how knowledge work is best done are being challenged, but also their agency and authority.

In that sense, the tensions we are seeing expressed as the “return to office” debate are fundamentally questioning whether knowledge work necessarily involves employment. Or can it be done as Curry suggests on a contract basis with knowledge workers paid to complete defined projects? That would require a serious rethink by knowledge organizations of whether employment as traditionally defined continues to make sense or if another model of management would be more appropriate taking into account advances in information and communications technology over the past 30 years.

Knowledge work has been slowly decentralizing for decades. But since COVID pandemic, it seems like just the past few years.

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Many knowledge organizations have been blindsided by the rapid decentralization of knowledge work. It is disrupting the usual manner of knowledge work as it has been done for decades: commuting daily to a centralized office location. That commute is no longer necessary. Knowledge work no longer requires the physical transportation of knowledge workers to an office building. Thanks to information and communications technology advances of the past five decades, the centralized, commute in office has become obsolete.

Knowledge organizations are struggling to adapt to this change. It’s been building since it was first predicted in the mid-1960s by futurist Arthur C. Clarke and as high speed highways began to exceed design capacity the following decade. But from the perspective of many knowledge organizations, it arrived with suddenness and surprise amid public health measures to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. That has left many knowledge organizations unprepared and facing future shock from too much change at once. This has led to negative consequences including:

  • Staff surveillance and “coffee badging;”
  • Lowered morale and engagement;
  • Loss of top performers and future leaders;
  • Negative social and news media accounts;
  • Difficulty planning staffing and space requirements.

The good news is knowledge organizations don’t have to navigate the shift alone. They can adapt and do so in a manner consistent with their values and mission and thrive in today’s decentralized, virtualized world of knowledge work.

Help is available.

Steve Jobs’ “bicycle for our minds” spurred rethinking of how knowledge work is done. Now knowledge work itself on threshold of redefinition.

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There has been considerable discussion in both news and social media over tensions within knowledge organizations over presence in commute-in offices. The need for presence began eroding in the 1980s with microcomputers (called the “bicycle for our minds” by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs), their portability in the 1990s and the commercialization of the Internet the following decade along with personal communications devices. Unlike typewriters, word processors and photocopiers and telephone switchboards, these information and communication technology (ICT) innovations don’t require dedicated offices. As such, they also eliminate the need for knowledge workers’ presence in them.

This is the ICT driven revolution of knowledge work. However, there is potential for another that leverages ICT’s deemphasis of when and where it’s performed: how knowledge work itself is defined and organized. For much of the time since the term was coined in the 1950s by management expert Peter Drucker, it has been defined and organized based on an industrial age manufacturing model along with centralized, standardized inputs. One repeatable job function performed at set time (8-5, Monday through Friday) in a centralized location (the commute in office).

In a 2013 Harvard Business Review article, Roger L. Martin proposed reconceptualizing knowledge work away from inputs. Martin instead wrote that knowledge work is best defined by its products – decisions — with knowledge organizations functioning as “decision factories.” However, unlike manufacturing organizations and their tangible, manufactured goods, decisions don’t require a physical factory. The real work is done in the brains of knowledge workers wherever they can be activated and engaged. Those thoughts are developed and communicated to other knowledge workers and decision makers via ICT. While Steve Jobs’ computer may provide the “bicycle for our minds,” the brain turns the pedals. The pedaling can be done anywhere — and advanced telecommunications networks are the bicycle paths.

Martin raises implications for how employment has been traditionally defined, by job title or position. This is directly tied to the expectation of presence in an office since presence is seen as essential to the functions of those roles and positions. That expectation drives much of the tension in knowledge organizations as knowledge work itself is being rethought. Knowledge workers are understandably piqued by unnecessary commutes to distant offices and going through the motions of nominal presence such as “coffee badging.”

Instead of jobs titles and roles, Martin suggests knowledge work be organized as projects with the goal of reaching decisions. For private sector organizations, those could be decisions about what goods and services to sell and to what markets and at what price. For government agencies, how to use available public resources to support their functions. The thought work of these projects is independent of time and place.

Changing nature of knowledge work: it’s fundamentally not about the workplace.

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The controversy over return to office mandates and hybrid working is driven by a larger, less recognized underlying mega trend: the changing nature of knowledge work.

It began in the 1980s with the introduction of mass market micro “personal” computers that became what Apple Computers founder Steve Jobs called “bicycles for our mind.” Bicycles are personal vehicles. However, for knowledge work, there is no need to travel to a destination as one would with a bicycle or other vehicle. The personal computer expresses the knowledge generated by its user and is capable of transmitting it instantly most anywhere thanks to an equally revolutionary innovation that came the following decade: the commercial mass market internet. And a decade later, the smartphone.

These information and communications technology developments have removed the need for dedicated office space. Steve Jobs’s brain bicycle replaced the automobile and bus to physically move knowledge workers’ bodies along with their thoughts. The “high speed” Internet as it’s commonly called is replacing what were designed as high speed highways that became less so as they exceeded their 20th century carrying capacity.

Many knowledge organizations are struggling with this powerful force of change that rapidly accelerated with the social distancing disease control measures of the COVID 19 pandemic. The source of their struggle is largely misconceptual. Knowledge work has fundamentally changed. The location where it is done is no longer as relevant. But the issue has instead been framed as if location is the paramount “workplace” issue.

It’s far bigger than that. The challenge knowledge organizations face is adapting to the larger shift in how knowledge work is done and the best way to structure and manage it going forward. They must judiciously determine when co-located activities are needed and when they are not given that being co-located comes with substantial costs to both knowledge organizations and their staff members.

Decentralized Knowledge Work: Transforming Organizational Management, Culture

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The evolution of information and communication technology over the past four decades has decentralized knowledge work. Unlike during the latter decades of the 20th century, knowledge industry organizations no longer require dedicated workplaces.

It began in the 1980s with the personal computer followed by portable computers and communications devices such as smartphones that have all but replaced the office desk phone. This digital world of knowledge work is replacing the analog high speed highways (no longer high speed due to exceeding design capacity) that physically connected knowledge workers to centralized commuter offices (CCOs). A large amount of knowledge work now gets done with texts, emails, video conferences that are independent of a CCO.

This shift occurred relatively swiftly and is transforming society and organizations. Knowledge organizations now must undergo a management, structural and cultural transformation to adapt. Some are struggling to do so and requiring staff to report to CCOs and incur the personal time and economic costs of commuting.

It’s generating conflict, attrition and degrading morale in these organizations. It’s also a maladaptive response to the transformation of how knowledge work is done. It is underpinned by outdated Theory X management philosophy and related cognitive biases.

Theory X is a management theory developed by Douglas McGregor. It is based on the assumptions that people don’t really want to work, lack ambition, only work to collect a paycheck, and need constant supervision. This theory is reinforced with how employment is defined, wherein an employer determines when, where and how work is performed.

Related cognitive biases include anchoring (knowledge work is done at one time and one place—the CCO— or it can’t truly be work). Another is the sunk cost fallacy that organizational resources invested in offices require they be used lest the value of those investments isn’t fully realized/recovered. Theory X is reinforced by the Industrial age, hierarchal command and control management structures topped by a powerful CEO. That accentuates the cognitive biases since they are held by a single leader above question.

In contrast to Theory X, McGregor’s Theory Y management model assumes that people want to work, want to take responsibility, and do not need much supervision. This lends itself to evaluating work based on outputs and a project and process versus people management approach. This organizing principle of knowledge work is described in a 2013 Harvard Business Review article by Roger L. Martin.

In today’s decentralized paradigm of knowledge work, knowledge workers need Theory Y leaders, not Theory X bosses. That means identifying strong team leaders respected by their colleagues, supporting high functioning teams and the team formation process, and following best project management principles and practices an inculcating them into the organization.

Those teams decide where and how often they meet in the same location or if they meet in person at all. The meetings serve an end – working on the project or social bonding – and not meeting for the sake of meeting. There may or may not be a dedicated workplace.

To navigate this rapidly changing environment of knowledge work, organizations must adapt and transform. Assistance is available. To schedule an initial consultation, email [email protected] or call 707-414-8179.