I would like you to meet Sam. Sam has a great job at Multidyne where he is responsible for increasing network uptake receptor capacity. He loves his job, can’t wait to get to work every day where he gets to meet and talk with lots of interesting people about global challenges in fostering network plasticity.
Problem is that no one really knows what Sam does. But he’s such a good talker and seems so intelligent that he must know what he’s doing. Unfortunately, even Sam doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do or how he’s doing. It appears that there isn’t a way to measure network plasticity or changes in it. Frankly no one is even sure what network plasticity is.
But Sam is a highly engaged employee and by all measures, that’s what we want isn’t it, engaged employees? The question is, engaged in what? Without metrics there is no way to tell if Sam is a valuable contributor. In fact according to some recent research featured in today’s Globe, Your most engaged staff may be your worst workers.
I keep harping on the value of employee engagement and frankly I’ve been brought back to earth today by that article. The research goes to show how using only one metric to gauge success can be fraught with peril. So go forth today in your own jobs and make sure that you measure your own ability to increase network uptake receptor capacity.
As the week trundles to its inevitable close, I’m trying to summarize some differences between the old Industrial Economy and the new Knowledge Economy. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:
As you may realize from these blogs, I’m trying to develop a new model of leadership for the Knowledge Economy as the needs are so different from the Industrial Economy. I’m looking for more differences between the two economies so if you can think of any, please let me know.
In the Industrial Economy you can know at the end of each and every day if you’ve done good work. How do you know in the Knowledge Economy whether or not you’ve done good work? Only when someone tells you.
According to Dan Ariely, “Ignoring the performance of people is almost as bad as shredding their effort in front of their eyes. Adding motivation is easy.”
In the knowledge economy it all comes down to ambiguity.
In the industrial economy if you were a front line worker or even a manager, it was pretty easy to see if you were doing a good job. Production was production and it was counted and reported on by the minute. No questions how much was done and quality control could tell you your error rates.
Very simple to know whether or not you were doing your job properly or not.
But in the knowledge economy, how do you know?
Take for an example a book editor (I have a friend with this problem). How do you measure quality in editing? What is too little editing or too much? How much should the manager review the work and even how would you do it. Where is the defined output? How do you know how much time you should spend on each book?
Managing a book editor is highly emotionally charged, ambiguous and interrelationships are much more important.
How does the book editor know she has done her job properly at the end of the day?
This is one of the many challenge of leadership in the knowledge economy. If you think ambiguity is hard to work with, try managing it.
I keep using terms like the New Economy and the Knowledge Economy and contrasting them to the Industrial Economy and people keep asking me what I’m talking about. I’ve been asked this so many times I decided to sit down and actually figure out what I am talking about. Let me tell you, it isn’t easy. I can’t in fact find a definition that I actually like.
Instead of a definition, I think it is best to look at how money is made.
In agriculture, mining and oil and gas, you have an asset which is land and you turn it into revenue by producing raw materials that you then sell. This is the Resource Economy.
Companies take those resources and raw material and using plant and equipment, turn them into products. This is the Industrial Economy.
Other companies take those finished products and provide distribution, location, selection and service. This is the Service Economy.
Then there are a bunch of us that take knowledge and turn that into a service or a product. We don’t need land, machinery, stores, inventory or anything else that the other economies need. This is the Knowledge Economy. I make the mistake of calling it the New Economy but it isn’t entirely New so I should stop this.
Why is this important? Well, as a relatively new venture, there are all sorts of things that need to be figured out in order to run a knowledge economy business. How to turn knowledge into a product, how to monetize it, how to make a profitable business model, and how to manage and lead are all issues that need to be figured out in the knowledge economy.
While many people are trying to figure out the business side of the Knowledge Economy relatively few are trying to figure out how to lead in this economy and yet it is even more important than how to lead in the other economies.
When I was growing up (or at least making an attempt to do so) we had allegiances to institutions or groups. If your family was a liberal, you were probably liberal. If your family was Catholic, you were probably Catholic. You drove Fords and listened to the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. You worked for your whole life at IBM or belonged to a particular union.
Over time we lost our allegiance to institutions or to groups. We started to follow people instead of parties which is why Jack Layton did well. We dropped traditional religions in favour of evangelical pastors. We now switch car brands at the drop of a hat. We listen to Pink and don’t even know the name of her band. Unions have gone the way of the Dodo except in the public sector. And we switch between multiple employers over many years.
This has really been a fundamental change that hasn’t been translated into the area of leadership. Where we used to look to leadership from institutions and they earned our allegiance, we now look to individuals for leadership, in politics, religion, work, entertainment. This is a fundamental part of the new economy.
Meanwhile, these new leaders aren’t doing anything much different than they did 50 years ago. They haven’t realized that individual leadership is so much more important than it was 50 years ago. Our leaders for the most part have failed to learn new ways to lead for a new set of needs.
That’s why people are so disenchanted now at work, with their lives, with their leaders. Our leaders haven’t seen the new needs of followers that flow from a change of alliegance from the insitution to the individual. In the old days, the firm had your back. Who’s got your back now?
I would like you to meet Sam. Sam has a great job at Multidyne where he is responsible for increasing network uptake receptor capacity. He loves his job, can’t wait to get to work every day where he gets to meet and talk with lots of interesting people about global challenges in fostering network plasticity.
