How to Increase Knowledge Worker Productivity: The Drucker Question

Tony Karrer has re-posed a question originally asked by Peter Drucker: how do you increase the productivity of knowledge (concept) workers?  Since more jobs depend on knowledge today, we might just as well ask, how do we support productivity in the 21st Century.  I suggest that significant organizational learning is the best measure of productivity in a knowledge intensive environment.  The following 4 things could be measured as evidence of significant learning:

  1. An increase in organizational capabilities, and
  2. In innovation.
  3. The development of a maturity framework with evidence-(standards)-based practices for improving the quality of repeatable or routine processes.
  4. An increase in soft skills relating to non-routine and networking processes, which could be measured by the extent and the strength of an organization’s internal and external networks.

I believe that organizational learning is facilitated by individuals, but I would not consider it synonymous with individual learning.  I’m not sure exactly how to measure individual learning, which might vary with different contexts.  I do believe that employers can focus mostly on the measurement of organizational learning and maybe on individual contributions to organizational learning.

There is certainly enough here to keep me thinking for some time.  Thanks for the question Tony!