>If it was literally true that you can't manage knowledge workers the
>prospects for our civilization would be grim indeed; knowledge
>organizations that are unmangeable, a knowledge society that is
>ungovernable.
Counter examples: Both the USA's democratic society and free market
economy are governed yet not managed. This is a case of a top-down control
viewpoint of management versus a bottom up self organized order.
A slightly bent metaphor: In the complex adaptive system model of
organization you can think of knowledge workers as equivalent to managers
- they are both autonomous agents in the grand scheme of things - freely
interacting with other such while constrained by the attractors of the
system they are part of. In the same vein - those who are "managed" here
are simply a part into the manager's constellation.
As a higher percentage of the participants in our organizations become
knowledge workers (and self-motivated learners), the more overtly the
organizational structure will resemble a self-organizing system.
"Visions of a Learning Society" proposes the inevitability of learners
everywhere and some of the profound effects that this will have on all
things based on human interaction. This 2-page essay can be found at:
http://www.parshift.com/publicat.htm
Rick Dove, http://www.parshift.com/
Chairman, Paradigm Shift International
Director, National Learning Foundation
Sr Fellow, Agility Forum
--Rick Dove <dove@parshift.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>