Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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61 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you have knowledge workers you need this book, September 22, 2005
Knowledge worker is a term that is used loosely among executives and consultants alike. Everyone wants to be a knowledge worker or already is one, but few understand who they are, what they mean to the company and how do you manage them. Davenports Thinking for a Living is the best discussion of these central issues.
Davenport was co-author of Working Knowledge and the first half of that book is the clearest statement of knowledge management I have yet to read. Building on that work, Davenport offers practical advice backed by research and an understanding of what it takes to work in a knowledge environment. Davenport gives managers and leaders a set of tools to understand the different types of knowledge work and the management techniques to manage each. That recognition makes this a must read for every company.
In terms of the chapters:
Chapter 1: What is a knowledge worker anyway? Sets the context and provides practical definitions for the subject. This chapter is a little academic, but it does set a firm foundation for the rest of the book.
Chapter 2: How knowledge workers differ and the difference it makes. This chapter goes beyond routine descriptions of knowledge work to talk about four models of knowledge work: Transaction, Integration, Expert and Collaboration. This model is used through the latter chapters to help the reader understand and take action.
Chapter 3: Interventions, measures and experiments in knowledge work. This chapter tackles the hardest issues of managing knowledge workers -- how you motivate and measure people who work with their mind and their experience. Here, rather than offer theory, Davenport offers some practical and actionable advice on a tough subject.
Chapter 4: Knowledge work processes. This chapter makes the point that knowledge work is not readily re-engineered and requires a more sophisticated approach. If you are a knowledge worker facing the threat of re-engineering this is a great chapter to explain to the re-engineers what they need to do and more importantly what they should not try to do.
Chapter 5: Organizational technology for knowledge workers discusses the issue of IT and knowledge work which is an area fraught with hype and misinformation. Davenport discusses the types of technology tools knowledge managers need and what they do with them.
Chapter 6: Developing individual knowledge worker capabilities is for the knowledge worker and what they need to hone their skills and develop their careers. The list of behaviors and attitudes associated with effective knowledge workers in this chapter is very helpful.
Chapter 7: Investing in Knowledge workers networks and learning is the company response to how to build better knowledge workers. It discusses the personal, professional and other networks that lead to knowledge application, creation and improvement.
Chapter 8: The physical work environment and knowledge worker performance provides pragmatic advice on how to set up and run a knowledge worker environment.
Chapter 9: Managing the knowledge worker ties the other points together with eight strong points on how to manage this important class of workers. These are points that all managers and leaders should consider such as:
Putting the organization in context
Brokering and learning from dissent
Redesigning and improving knowledge work
Harnessing good intent
Enabling boundary spanning
These phrases may sound a bit academic, but Davenport puts them into actionable context.
Are there some shortcommings to this book, yes a few. Some parts are very centered on consulting which provides good examples of knowledge work. Davenport also tries to make this book more conversational in tone and that sometimes gets in the way of the point he is trying to make.
However, I picked this book up at the airport and finished it over two three hour flights with lots of notes in the margins and highlights.
A definate read if you are a leader, manager or a knowledge worker.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thought-provoking ideas for improving the quality or quantity of work, December 17, 2005
I've been thinking for my living for 30 years so I found it useful to get the perspective of a leading management consultant and thinker. Davenport has lived through business reengineering, been part of a large consulting organization and seen inside many corporations, so he knows the subject. His book is written in a conversational style, so it's easy to read. Its content is useful and it contains some valuable insights. In particular, it builds on and fully acknowledges the work of Peter Drucker, who coined the term "knowledge worker," as well as other thought leaders, which is refreshing, since so many authors do not acknowledge that they "stand on the shoulders of giants" and thereby deprive their readers of valuable context and background to their work.
Davenport's book doesn't, in fact, contain as much actionable advice as Drucker's, but it does have some important new findings and new ideas, and brings Drucker's advice up to date. The main conclusion is the same: if we don't improve the effectiveness of our management of people and knowledge, we will find our jobs going to low-cost competitors overseas. However the focus is different. Davenport focuses on knowledge management and particularly personal information management. The substance of his work is based on his consulting experience and particularly on a number of surveys, including one evaluating how 400 people in four types of organization found information and learned to do their work -- and another looking at how 400 individuals managed their personal information. In both cases, a smaller number of highly effective individuals were interviewed to understand in detail how they achieved their results.
From these studies and Davenport's consulting experience come the following conclusions:
- Knowledge work is extremely diverse and it's necessary to classify the various types of knowledge work and manage them differently
- There is no universal measure of output, but any measure needs to include both the quantity and quality of work -- in other words, billable hours is not a sufficient measure in itself
- To improve work it is important to take more account of current practice ("as-is" model) than is generally done, in addition to focusing on designed process ("to-be" model)
- Individual information management is poised to take off, but technology to support it is unproven (other than email and spreadsheets)
- Highly effective workers get most of their valuable information from their social networks
- The work environment is important to productivity, and people should be given some choices, but there are no easy answers. For example, people prefer closed offices but communicate better in open offices
These conclusions should be considered by any manager or individual who wants to be effective and improve productivity, but they don't constitute actionable advice. In fact, all the pieces of advice in the book are more guiding principles than actionable programs. For example, here is Davenport's advice for improving work process:
- Involve the knowledge workers in the design of the new process.
- Watch them do their work...Devote as much attention to the "as is" as the "to be."
- Talk to knowledge workers about why they do the things they do.
- Enlist analysts who have actually done the work in question.
- Exercise some deference. Treat experienced workers as real experts.
- Use the Golden Rule of Process Management. Ask yourself, "Would I want to have my job analyzed and redesigned in the fashion that I'm doing it to others?"
As someone who has managed process reengineering efforts, I'm sure that these recommendations were hard-won and embody considerable thought as well as pain. Davenport's recommendations make as good a checklist as any, but the job of designing productivity improvement program is left squarely to the reader. This is as it should be, because surely knowledge work is too diverse for any universal improvement process or measure to be applicable.
Overall, Davenport does a good job of capturing his knowledge and passing it on. The book is thought-provoking and contains some useful ideas. It makes a good case for the need to get better performance at work and provides recommendations at the end of each chapter that are a useful summary of the content. However, the book is lacking in specific, actionable recommendations and ends inconclusively without tying all the information together. Its conversational style is easy to read, but it makes the book too long and repetitive and actually obscures some of the thinking. I'd recommend the book, but if you can only read one book, I suggest you first read Drucker's timeless work, "The Effective Executive," on the art of effective management, which I found just as relevant and more inspiring.
Graham Lawes
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24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fresh Perspectives on Productivity, January 4, 2006
In a sense, everyone must "think for a living" in response to questions, problems, opportunities, etc. Davenport focuses his attention on "how to get better performance and results from knowledge workers" and I presume to suggest that everyone involved in an organization's operations should be or helped to become productive "knowledge workers," whatever their specific duties and responsibilities may be. Those who have read any of Davenport's previous books -- notably Working Knowledge and Information Ecology co-authored with Laurence Prusak, The Attention Economy co-authored with John Beck, What's the Big Idea?, Mission Critical -- already know that Davenport is among the most perceptive and eloquent business thinkers on the subject of knowledge management. In my opinion, Thinking for a Living is his most valuable contribution to that subject thus far.
He carefully organizes his material within nine chapters. Throughout his lively and informative narrative, he responds to questions such as these:
* "What's a knowledge worker, anyway?"
* How do knowledge workers differ from others?
* So what?
* Which interventions, measures, and experiments in "knowledge work" are most effective?
* Which are the most important knowledge work processes?
* Which organizational technology is most appropriate to knowledge workers?
* How to develop their individual capabilities?
* What must be invested in knowledge workers' networks and learning?
* Which physical work environment will help to maximize knowledge worker performance?
* How best to manage knowledge workers?
Of special interest to me is the matrix of four knowledge work types (illustrated in figure 2-1 on page 27) which Davenport identified during a research project on knowledge management in which he was involved with Jeanne Harris and Leigh Donaghue. He offers a classification structure for knowledge-intensive processes which range from individual actors to collaborative groups: Integration Model (e.g. systematic, repeatable work), Collaboration Model (e.g. improvisational work), Expert Model (e.g. Judgment-oriented work), and Transaction Model (e.g. routine work). Of course, different kinds of knowledge work require different kinds of knowledge workers. Effective managers are those who get the most appropriate worker in alignment with each task.
As Davenport explains, "A job in which knowledge is created should be treated very differently from one in which it is applied." For example, "Those who find existing knowledge need to understand knowledge requirements, search for it among multiple sources, and pass it along to the requester or user." Other workers create new knowledge. Still others ("packagers") put together knowledge created by others. Knowledge workers can also be distinguished by the types of ideas with which they deal. "My view, however, is that the organizations that will be most successful in the future will be those in which it's everyone's job to be creating and using both big and small ideas."
With regard to high-performance knowledge workers, they tend to be more effective and efficient experiential learners, seeming "to get more learning out of a single experience and continually updated their skills, expertise, and social awareness as a natural part of their work." Also, many high-performers attributed problem-solving abilities to the acquisition of a broad base of knowledge. Moreover, the high-performers Davenport and his associates studied "often had unusual, and often somewhat illogical, career paths. However, they repeatedly told us in various ways that these different jobs provided them with unique perspectives and expertise in solving problems." They characterized themselves as "calculated" risk takers but "when they do make a decision to pursue a given area of expertise, the high performers invest heavily, and seem to have a `compass' for personal learning. They often described themselves as highly focused on the domains they decided to pursue." High performers retain knowledge in domains already mastered while "screening out" irrelevant information.
Obviously, high performers are the most valuable of all knowledge workers. Therefore, the highest priorities for knowledge managers is to hire and then develop those who are either high performers or seem most likely to become one. How? Recognize and accommodate their needs for (a) important personal relationships, (b) accomplishing worthwhile tasks in a timely manner, and (c) proactive reciprocity re information and opportunities. According to Davenport, "perhaps the most important point to consider is the interrelated nature of these practices of high performers." Davenport agrees with Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Warren Bennis that the most desirable, knowledge-oriented culture is characterized by "the Five Fs": fast, flexible, focused, friendly, and fun. To establish and then sustain what Davenport describes as "Good Managerial Hygiene in the Knowledge Age,"offers a list of eight traits that apply to all kinds of workers and organizations. (These are discussed on pages 204-206.) It is imperative that managers understand these and other performance-related factors and how they interact with each other in the real world.
This review is somewhat longer than others I have composed recently because I have found so much of great value in Davenport's book. Also, because I agree with him and Peter Drucker (among others) that the fate of advanced economies depends on making knowledge workers more productive. Davenport concludes, "There is no business or economic issue that is more important to our long-term competitiveness and standard of living."
Decades ago, Drucker said something to the effect "If you don't have customers, you don't have a business." I presume to paraphrase that, suggesting that "If you don't have productive knowledge workers, you don't have a chance."
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