Managing Knowledge Worker

By – Aniruddha Gachake
 What is knowledge
In normal conversation we use knowledge
to mean:
• Knowing that (facts and information)
• Knowing how (the ability to do something)
Knowledge is defined by the Oxford
English Dictionary as
• (i) expertise, and skills acquired by a person
through experience or education; the theoretical
or practical understanding of a subject, (ii) what
is known in a particular field or in total; facts and
information or (iii) awareness or familiarity
gained by experience of a fact or situation.
Philosophical debates in general start with
Plato's formulation of knowledge as "justified
true belief". There is however no single agreed
definition of knowledge presently, nor any
prospect of one, and there remain numerous
competing theories.
 What is knowledge
management?
knowledge management as a business activity
with two primary aspects:
• Treating the knowledge component of business
activities as an explicit concern of business
reflected in strategy, policy, and practice at all
levels of the organization.
• Making a direct connection between an
organization’s intellectual assets — both explicit
[recorded] and tacit [personal know-how] — and
positive business results.
Goals of Knowledge Management
• To Capture Knowledge
• To Improve Knowledge Access
• To Enhance the Knowledge
Environment
• To Manage Knowledge as an Asset
 Objectives of knowledge
management
• Create knowledge repository
• Improve knowledge assets
• Enhance the knowledge environment
• Manage knowledge as an asset
 Knowledge management activities
• Externalization
• Internalization
• Intermediation
• Cognition
 Knowledge Workers
• A knowledge worker in today's workforce is an individual that is
valued for their ability to interpret information within a specific
subject area. They will often advance the overall understanding of
that subject through focused analysis, design and/or development.
They use research skills to define problems and to identify
alternatives. Fueled by their expertise and insight, they work to
solve those problems, in an effort to influence company decisions,
priorities and strategies.
• Knowledge workers may be found across a variety of
information technology roles, but also among professionals like
teachers, lawyers, architects, physicians, nurses, engineers and
scientists. As businesses increase their dependence on
information technology, the number of fields in which knowledge
workers must operate has expanded dramatically.
 Role Of Knowledge Workers
• analyzing data to establish relationships
• assessing input in order to evaluate complex or conflicting
priorities
• identifying and understanding trends
• making connections
• understanding cause and effect
• ability to brainstorm, thinking broadly (divergent thinking)
• ability to drill down, creating more focus (
convergent thinking)
• producing a new capability
• creating or modifying a strategy
Importance Of Knowledge Workers
• Peter Drucker, who was the first person to
describe knowledge workers to any substantial
degree (in his 1959 book Landmarks of
Tomorrow), said as far back as 1968 that:
• To make knowledge work productive will be the
great management task of this century, just as to
make manual work productive was the great
management task of the last century.
 Characteristics of Knowledge
workers
• Work Based
• Working
• Visibility
• Linkage to results
• Knowledge
• Balance of power
• Nature of work
• Responses
• Sources of standards
• Focus of control
• Measure of performance
 Abilities of knowledge workers
• Technical ability
• Academic background
• General technical ability
• Cognitive abilities
• Emotional abilities
Challenges of managing knowledge
workers