THE NEXT KNOWLEDGE WORK

MANAGING FOR NEW LEVELS OF VALUE CREATION AND INNOVATION

The twentieth century brought a massive shift in the developed world, from national economies centered on industrial manufacturing to a global economy dominated by knowledge-based organizations. It’s debatable that the practice of management ever caught up with the implications— yet now, a fresh wave of transformative change is upon us. Artificial intelligence tools are now automating many intellectually challenging tasks, remote work arrangements are distributing them, and new platforms support collaborative innovation.

These new tools produce challenging disruptions at every level, from the strategic shifts required of global companies and the coordination problems faced by leaders of distributed teams, to individuals’ expectations of what work should demand of and provide to them. How shall we find in them the opportunities to achieve benefits for all? We think Peter Drucker was right that “the most important contribution management needs to make in the 21st century is to increase the productivity of knowledge work and knowledge workers.” When more intellect can be applied to solving human problems at lower cost—to the customer, to the producer, to the worker—everyone gains. Now a quarter-century into the century, where do we see organizations achieving breakthrough performance, and how? What lessons are we learning from the pioneers of the next knowledge work?