knowledge work

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.

Aligning work, outcomes key challenge facing knowledge organizations — not office attendance

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The state of knowledge work has reached an accelerated transitional phase of virtualization and decentralization, beginning with the broad adoption of information and communications technologies (ICT) in the 1980s and 1990s. This megatrend has been sped up by the public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today’s knowledge work is largely digital, obsoleting analog highways and office buildings. It’s also less tied to what author Dave Rolston dubbed the four dead kings of work: one job duty, supervised by a single manager and performed at a set time and location. Knowledge organizations must now quickly plan how to navigate this paradigm shift relative to the mission and needs of their organizations. They can start by asking themselves these basic questions:

  • To what extent can the organization’s work be accomplished virtually and asynchronously? Who does the work and how is it organized?
  • What work requires co-located staff working in real time and how does this support the mission? How often, where and how and most importantly what are the expected benefits and outcomes?
  • Is the organizational culture like that of a think tank where staff regularly convenes in person to spitball ideas and white board or Kanban them? Or is most thought and planning work done individually?

For many, it might be a mix of this type of synchronous joint brainstorming and async, not bound to time and place, considering the best and most creative thought work often gets done and ideas and solutions to tough challenges bubble up when doing other activities such as exercising, walking the dog, housework and even sleeping.

Should they host two to four week seminars like that of a university where newer staff are tutored by more senior staff? What physical spaces would be most economical for these? Many organizations will find they don’t need dedicated spaces; smart ad hoc co-work locations will do.

It’s imperative organizations address these questions rather than adopting an arbitrary schedule wherein staff commute to an office location a certain number of days or on designated days of the week, referred to as “hybrid.” As coffee badging is showing, this approach isn’t sustainable. Staff morale will suffer if team members feel they are going through the motions without purpose other than to show up at a designated office site. It also fuels resentment, with staff feeling that their personal time is being wasted by unnecessary commuting.

Underlying these questions is a bigger question with major implications: Is the Industrial Age employment model outdated for today’s knowledge work along with its wage and hour requirements and state mandated workers compensation insurance? Does it really make sense with so many knowledge workers working in their own homes rather than a centralized commuter office?

The same question applies to employer medical benefit plans given reform of individual medical insurance in 2010 with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act designed to make it easier for individuals to purchase their own plans. Both it and state workers’ compensation laws could benefit from a thoughtful review and updating.

Workers’ compensation insurance mandates on employers could be narrowed to apply only to occupations that require on site duties that pose clear injury risk, saving knowledge organizations money spent on premiums. The Affordable Care Act mandate on large employers to offer group medical benefit plans conflicts with reforms aimed at boosting non-group plans. For now, getting around the mandate would require knowledge organizations to rethink whether their staffs should be classified as employees going forward given the change in the nature of knowledge work.

Some knowledge organizations — information technology companies in particular — tend to hire and fire en masse. Instead of employing, they should consider fully migrating to using contract staff and self-employed people and putting key personnel on retainer. They can be formed into teams to work on short term projects of a year or less as well as longer term initiatives. These outcome based models of knowledge work offer a great adaption to Rolston’s dying kings of work and offer knowledge organizations greater flexibility and significant overhead savings.

Roger Martin, former dean of the Rotman School of Management, suggested knowledge organizations – which he termed “decision factories” in a 2013 Harvard Business Review article – can avoid the cycle of mass hiring and firing by restructuring into flexible teams to work on defined projects rather than hired as permanent employees based on a written job description. That coincides nicely with both Rolston’s assessment of the changing nature of knowledge work as well as its accelerating virtualization.

At its core, return to office debate about redefining knowledge work

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Personal computing and communication devices and the Internet have decentralized knowledge work and made the daily trip to centralized commuter offices (CCOs) obsolete. Knowledge workers discovered its irrelevance and enjoyed recovering personal time spent commuting during the public health social distancing measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now as some organizations demand they return to the office (RTO) on a set number or designated days of the week, many are understandably rebelling.

But the real debate isn’t about showing up in person at the CCO on a prescribed number of specific weekdays. It’s about redefining knowledge work and specifically how it’s done and managed.

In his 2013 book 2013 eBook Four Dead Kings at Work: The Decentralization and Blending of Work in the 21st Century, author Dave Rolston predicted the imminent death of the four primary tenets or kings of knowledge work in the Industrial Age:

  1. Set job duties;
  2. Managed by a single manager;
  3. Performed at one place (the CCO);
  4. At the same time (8-5, Monday-Friday).

This definition worked well before 1990 when the tools for knowledge work were at the workplace and not portable like today’s personal devices, online databases, collaboration platforms and more recently, AI chatbots.

Now, organizations and knowledge workers must adjust to the post-Industrial Age environment. That entails determining when co-located work is beneficial and when it isn’t. It also requires assessing the communications culture.

When knowledge workers were regularly in the CCO, meetings — both scheduled and ad hoc — were frequent. Even too frequent for many knowledge workers. They express a real time, speaking-based communication culture.

To fully utilize today’s communication and collaboration tools, knowledge organizations must adopt a more written, asynchronous communication culture. They also must find the right balance between this and spoken communication and when knowledge workers must be assembled to discuss and sort through complex and difficult issues that benefit from synchronous, in person discussion. That is driven more by business needs to complete reports and projects and reach decisions rather than the daily calendar.

It’s also critical that knowledge organizations keep their missions clearly communicated to staff so they can see how their work makes a meaningful contribution as this article in today’s Wall Street Journal implies.

Hybrid work is not the future, says Meta’s former director of remote work | Fortune

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Hybrid, Dean told Fortune in an interview, isn’t actually an even split between remote and in-office work, despite bosses who insist it’s a huge step forward. Plus, she adds, the office is never going to be a solution to existing problems of productivity, innovation, or creativity. “Those are all how to work problems, not where to work problems,” she says. “The office won’t solve these problems. New ways of working will. This is a watershed moment of innovation of how work gets done, but we’re still talking about the f–king watercooler.”

Source: Hybrid work is not the future, says Meta’s former director of remote work | Fortune

That’s Annie Dean, VP of Team Anywhere at Atlassian, a distributed work policy at the software firm that encourages asynchronous, flexible work.

In 2011, author Dave Rolston announced the death of four “kings” of knowledge work and specifically how it’s performed: 1/ In a single, dedicated job role; 2/ Managed by a single manager; 3 /At one time (8-5, M-F). And finally, 4/ At a single location: the centralized, commute in office (CCO).

That fourth king is going through violent death throes as seen in the context of the hot debate over working from home vs. working in the CCO. It was about to climb onto its death bed prior to the public health restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s now laying upon it and drawing its last breaths.

While those in Rolston’s school of thought are proclaiming that king is dead, many organizations insist it isn’t, essentially shouting “Long live the king!” As noted in the Fortune article, those exclamations are driven in large part by the cognitive bias of sunk cost investment, with organizational leaders believing they must somehow recover the cost of CCO purchases and leases even if the CCO is no longer necessary to fulfilling the mission. We need that king to stay alive at least until that significant investment is recouped.

Dean is correct describing hybrid work in CCOs part of the work week as office-centric since the CCO remains as the primary workplace. (Similarly, the term “remote” work keeps the CCO at the relative center). Dean is also correct in framing the debate over hybrid working in the larger context, more than simply where knowledge work gets done as Rolston wrote more than a decade ago. As Dean notes, it’s how it’s done with modern day tools including microcomputers, the Internet and various communication and collaboration platforms. Those tools have disrupted, decentralized and transformed knowledge work as well as our traditional notions of it. It’s natural to want to return to the familiarity of co-located working rather than make a committed effort to adapt to something new.

Disruptive change is understandably uncomfortable for many knowledge organizations. Knowledge organizations themselves will be transformed. Like the traditional location of where knowledge work is done (the CCO), in the near-term knowledge organizations will no longer define themselves by their metro location, campus or high-rise headquarters.

Dean touches upon a major adaption knowledge organizations must surmount. It’s also one of Rolston’s four dead kings: doing knowledge work at the same time. With its decentralization out of CCOs comes working more asynchronously. This has been a big challenge for many knowledge organizations that have a spoken communication culture primarily dependent on real time discussions as the usual way of assessing information and making decisions. That has led to widespread complaints of back to back video meetings and “Zoom fatigue.” To work more asynchronously, knowledge organizations will have to shift their communications culture to rely more on written communication and reflection rather than frenetic jumping from one meeting to another. Knowledge work doesn’t have to be crazy and it’s not the emergency room as the authors of this book advise. Good knowledge work benefits from calm thought.

A great post pandemic sorting among knowledge workers and organizations at hand.

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More than a year into America’s great work-from-home experiment, many companies have hailed it largely as a success. So why do some bosses think remote workers aren’t as committed as office dwellers? Recent remarks of numerous chief executives suggest the culture of workplace face time remains alive and well. At The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit this month, JP Morgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon said remote work doesn’t work well “for those who want to hustle.” Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon has called it “an aberration that we are going to correct as soon as possible.”

Source: Bosses Still Aren’t Sure Remote Workers Have ‘Hustle’ – WSJ

These comments demonstrate that for some organizations, gathering daily at a centralized, commute-in office (CCO) is an integral part of their cultures that cannot be easily erased in a single year. But it should be borne in mind that while CEOs have a large degree of influence on their organizational culture, it’s not absolute. Cultures are defined by all their members.

Now that their staff members have been freed of the personal time burden of daily commuting, many are understandably reluctant to reassume it. Knowledge organizations are now having to redefine their cultures for the post pandemic world going forward. They’ll undergo a sorting process as some staff depart for more virtual organizations while others who prefer working in a CCO align with CCO-based organizations — most likely those who live close by.

Certainly working in a CCO has its advantages, such as the social contact and in person communication with colleagues. But as commutes grow longer as metro areas sprawl and housing costs rise, the daily trip to and from a distant CCO becomes impractical where it might not be in small towns and less congested areas where knowledge workers can commute to the office by foot and/or bicycle. These less populated locales have also proven popular as CCOs closed down over the past year and knowledge workers sought more affordable and less congested settings, some in other states and countries.

Some knowledge CCO-based organizations may become the office equivalent of teaching hospitals where senior staff and managers closely interact with and supervise more junior staff and inculcate them in the cultural ways of their organizations. Others such as boutique consulting shops won’t have CCOs and attract as they have in recent years experienced people who can work as location independent team members and don’t require close supervision.

Pandemic forced organizational change, shattered Industrial Age boundaries defining knowledge work

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Pandemic social distancing restrictions served as an organizational change intervention, forcing knowledge industry organizations to reassess their cultures and beliefs about how work gets done. Pandemic restrictions virtually overnight switched off the gravity that pulls knowledge workers into a centralized, commute-in office workspace. As those restrictions are lifted amid mass immunization campaigns, knowledge organizations continue to confront these fundamental questions.

For most knowledge organizations, their cultures are strongly rooted in the belief work is being definitively performed when people are present in the office, reinforced by social connections made there and functions such as group lunches and celebrations. The organizational hierarchy is visually represented and reinforced in the office layout, with managers assigned corner and window offices and the rank and file in cubicles on the inside of the floor. A knowledge worker’s manager is clearly identified on the organizational chart. Clocks on the wall define when work is expected to be done.

A decade before the pandemic, author Dave Rolston in his 2013 book Four Dead Kings at Work predicted the death of these anchors that traditionally defined the boundaries of knowledge work in the Industrial Age: 1) One centralized workplace; 2) A single manager; 3) Performing a single defined job and pay grade; 4) At the same time each week.

The pandemic hastened their death requiring organizations to flex or abandon them. The elimination of the centralized office workplace and the erosion of the 8-5, Monday through Friday work time diminished the first and last of the kings, bookended by the daily commute. After more than year of foregoing commuting, knowledge workers have realized the enormous personal time burden it imposes, taking time away family, community, and health promoting behaviors such as adequate sleep, exercise and home cooked versus takeout and restaurant meals. Not to mention clothing and transportation costs.

This realization within knowledge organization has major implications for where knowledge workers will live in the coming decades and for traditional urban planning predicted on centralized settlement and development patterns forming sprawling metro areas requiring ever longer commutes.

Going virtual requires rethinking how knowledge work gets done

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Transitioning to a truly remote workforce requires a top-to-bottom rethink of how business is conducted on an everyday basis, with an emphasis on asynchronous communications. This is the single most difficult thing companies face when making the transition from a “meetings-first culture to a writing culture,” Hansson said. “Most newbie remote companies thought remote just meant all the same meetings, but over Zoom,” he said. “That led to even more misery than meetings generally do. You have to make the transition to an asynchronous writing culture to do well as a remote company.”

Source: After embracing remote work in 2020, companies face conflicts making it permanent | VentureBeat

As knowledge workers and their organizations have de-emphasized the role of the centralized, commute in office (CCO) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the problem of too many online meetings has cropped up under the moniker of “Zoom fatigue.” Essentially, it’s creating an electronic office where working is defined by real time presence. As David Heinemeier Hansson of Basecamp (formerly 37Signals) explains, there is more to shifting from a CCO-based organization to a virtual one than where the work gets done and communication about it occurs.

The other factor in going virtual involves not just becoming more location agnostic. It’s also becoming more independent of when those activities are performed. Not everyone needs to be working and communicating at the same time, i.e. 8-5, Monday through Friday as established in the 20th century Industrial Age economy. As Hansson notes, that requires moving away from real time spoken communication in meetings to written communication.

And that’s a good thing. Writing forces people to more carefully think through their thoughts and ideas and what it is they want to communicate. It also provides a written record of challenges and progress on a given project. As more knowledge organizations become virtual, this is an important cultural step in the transition. And it has broader social and environmental benefit, according to Hannson:

Aside from operational efficiencies, remote working also benefits the environment, something that became abundantly clear early in the global lockdown. NASA satellite images revealed an initial decline in pollution in China, but as the country gradually resumed normal operations, pollution levels increased accordingly. Much of this change can be attributed to traffic, and Hansson feels remote work is one way to help the planet while improving people’s mental health.

“I’m less interested in how we might benefit [from a greater societal push to remote work] as a company, and more interested in how the world might benefit as a whole,” Hansson said. “More remote means less commuting. And for a large group of people, a better, less stressful life. That’s a massive step forward for the planet and its inhabitants.”