Strengthening the Foundation of a Knowledge Economy
It’s never boring to repeat that we are in a knowledge economy — we all are knowlege workers — whether be a writer, manager, executive, farmer, entrepreneur, chef.
The knowledge revolution made a distinction between how our industrial complex worked. The world is no more hungry for just physical products (for instance, food, soap, TV) — we have become consumers of experiences (for instance, a smartphone, a herbal product, a school).
This has given us luxury that no other generation before our time had. But it also had brought us to juxtaposition on how we ‘produce’ that experience. That is the reason why I define every work today as a knowledge work, and everyone as a knowledge worker.
A Brief History of Work
Not more than 100 years ago, the job of a 99% of the population was pre-defined:
- You wake up
- Go to the farm/ industry
- Cultivate the land/ tend to the animals
- Come back home
- Spend time with family
The preplexing problem that a knowledge worker has is knowing that — “defining the work and executing the work are two different activities and it turns out to be very inefficient to mix them,” — as written by Francias of Facile Things.
Seldom do we realize that we are at this unique juncture.
Doing the work versus Defining the work
It is no more sufficient to increase the efficiency of the worker, but also helping him/ her define the work. This calls for designing not just our work, but our workflow.
Few understand this sharp shift in our working style than productivity guru, David Allen. The beauty that Getting Things Done, still conjures up 100 million search views in google search and still boosts so much followers (that had in fact become a cult) has its solid reasons.
My focus here is to not to do a full analysis of the GTD system, but to take one key concept here on recognizing the difference between doing the task (that obviously is relevant for both an industrial and knowledge economy), and also defining the task (which is fundamentally unique to the knowledge economy). In its tangible manifestations, this difference is tangible manifested as our business life has inundated with so many meetings, planning exercises and review sessions. All these are in some ways alien, in fact antithesis to the industrial economy, but a mandatory requirement in knowledge economy.
Meetings — a system unique for Knowledge Economy
The very reason starkingly comes out is that — these meetings and sessions are attempt of the knowledge economy to ‘define’ the task. Of course, you are not going to be productive in a meeting — because you are not ‘doing’ the task there, you are defining it for you and importantly aligning it with other tasks and tasks by your team and the entire organisation for that matter (purpose connection or mission connection). So, if you hear someone say meetings are such a waste, please advise them otherwise.
While meetings are structures a business has created to define its tasks for various roles within its organisational framework, we rarely talk or devised a system for an individual to take his/ her time to ‘define’ the tasks and in fact also ‘design’ the workflow. Unfortunately, we assume that this as given both at organisational and individual level.
Thinking time versus Execution time
This would mean that we are define our work in 2 different terms:
- Thinking
- Execution
There are 2 levels of organising that we have master to succeed in knowledge economy:
- Task management
- Information management
Here I would also like the bring in the purest definition of ‘management’ as definition, collection, storage, retrieval, processing, usage, engagement.
In a knowledge work, you don’t ‘DO’ a task, you ‘ENGAGE’ with it. What’s the difference?
Webster dictitionary defines the two words as:
- Do — perform (an action, the precise nature of which is often unspecified)
- Engage — occupy or attract (someone’s interest or attention)/ participate or become involved in.
The reason I like GTD is that it helps one to both define the task and ultimately engage — both essentials for strengthening the foundation of a knowledge economy.
Assets in Knowledge Economy
There are very few skills that make a killer in the knowledge economy and I am not talking about earning millions or becoming the CEO. I am talking about, in addition to that, making a powerful impact.
- Metathinking: As validated above, the recent decades had brought in more discussion on thinking about ‘work’ than the earlier generation due to the increase in the subtlety of the job we have. As a knowledge workforce, we are forced to think everyday, everyhour about defining and clarifying our work. This is classic metathinking in action, where we spend enormous amount of time ‘thinking about work’ rather ‘working’ itself.
- Metathinking 2.0: Not it also necessitates for us the do a more higher order metathinking — thinking about way you think. The best-sellers over the past 10 years have been on thinking skills — changing mindsets, building attitudes which are more soft features. Again we are forced to indulge ourselves in the same.
- Metalearning: Obviously, pace of change in terms of rapid technological growth, new ways of thinking, broader mindset has leading us to observe, grasp and understand those new changes and more so incorporate in our next daily actions. It could be use of smartphones or using ‘Medium.com’ to publish post and many others.
This is my rough attempt to defining work, workflow and the knowledge economy per se in the everchanging business landscape.
I would love to hear your feedback, comments and suggestions — to further the idea for the larger good.
