Article: Improving the performance of knowledge workers (McKinsey & Company)
We have translated the article by Eric Matson and Laurence Prusak from the international consulting company McKinsey & Company on optimizing the work of knowledge workers.
We would like to share a vision of how the collaboration trend is developing in the world.
The main goal is to identify the obstacles faced by employees in their daily interaction and to manage them.
Are you doing what you can to increase the productivity of your knowledge workers?
Few executives can answer this simple question.
')
Their confusion is not due to the fact that they have not tried. Around the world, companies are struggling to uncover the secret to increasing the efficiency of managers, salespeople, researchers and others, whose work mainly consists of interaction (with other employees, customers and suppliers) and integrated decision-making based on knowledge and judgment. The stakes are high:
knowledge workers make up an increasing share of the labor force in developed economies, so an increase in their efficiency will mean new opportunities for companies, as well as the hope of maintaining GDP in the face of declining birth rates.
However, many managers have a very vague idea of ​​how to help knowledge workers increase their productivity. In part, this misunderstanding lies in the fact that mental work involves rather diverse and formless tasks - irregular management, in contrast to the work of production and office workers, where there are relatively clear, predictable tasks (regular management) that can be relatively easily automated and optimized. . In addition, it is difficult to assess the effectiveness of mental work, because of which the control of improvements requires additional efforts (which often lack intelligible guidance). Against this background, it is not surprising that many companies are engaged in unsystematic investment in training and IT systems.
Our research and experience show that since knowledge workers spend half of their time on interactions with each other, companies first need to study the reasons that impede these interactions. Armed with an understanding of these limitations, managers will be able to get benefits for their business, determining what efforts will lead to improved efficiency and effectiveness of interaction between employees.
In the companies that we surveyed, most of the interactions are hampered by one of five barriers: physical, technical, social or cultural, contextual and temporal. Our experience suggests that while individual companies will face more difficulties than others, ways of overcoming these difficulties will be widely used.
Physical and technical barriers
Physical problems (here you can directly include distances and time differences) often go hand in hand with technical ones, since the complexity of the distribution of human resources and the interaction between them becomes all the more relevant the greater the distance. While many companies have found ways to solve these problems, highly distributed organizations still continue to experience certain difficulties.
One of the tools used by some companies is to create “practical communities” that facilitate interaction between people who can give each other very useful advice — the World Bank did so to facilitate communication and discussion on the topic of slum transformation, in which more than a hundred employees participated working on the urban poverty problem. These communities offer a set of online tools to help employees of highly geographically distributed companies search for simple information (for example, about jobs and responsibilities), and they often use social networks as a means to transfer more focused information, for example, with whom they previously collaborated. Complementing the toolkit with video conferencing and rare face-to-face meetings, communities are able to overcome physical barriers and build relationships.
Social or cultural barriers
A rigid hierarchy and ineffective motivation can be attributed to social or cultural barriers, such problems prevent the inclusion of the right people in the process. To avoid such a situation, Petrobras, the largest Brazilian oil company, investigated cases of collision with such problems in its past, in order to clearly reflect the company's values, the processes occurring in it, and the norms of relations. New workers are gathered into small groups and hold discussions with them about such incidents, contributing to a better understanding of how the organization works and promoting ideas for sharing knowledge and solving problems together. In order to benefit from such practices, it is necessary to include the exchange of knowledge in performance reviews and make sure that the leaders of teams during the reporting to the rest of the time in which information should be transmitted in the form of a report. The practical communities that have been described above can also help with this: it is easier for employees to submit the necessary information in a timely manner.
Contextual barriers
Employees who are confronted with contextual barriers struggle to distribute and adapt the knowledge gained from colleagues working in various fields. Complex interactions often require contacts with people from different departments and divisions, which makes it difficult for employees to determine the expert level of their colleagues or to apply the advice received from them. Recall the problem of misunderstanding that often arises between the sales department and the development team about the customer card. This occurs because they speak different languages ​​and differently perceive the subject or topic of conversation (the sales staff pays attention to understanding the interests of the consumer, and the developers focus on the technical characteristics). To overcome the contextual barrier, companies can create a kind of employee circulation between teams and departments, during which specialists from different areas can begin to better understand colleagues from related departments and learn a little more about their work. For example, NASA holds a “Masters Forum” twice a year so that employees share their knowledge with each other. About 50 employees from different departments of the organization attend these meetings, where they learn about the various tools, methods and skills that are used to work on complex multilateral projects. Such forums are slightly moderated and very interactive.
Similarly, managers from Ekopetrol, a Colombian oil and gas company, have found that special forums not only break down natural barriers between professions, but also facilitate knowledge sharing across geographical boundaries. Moreover, thanks to such forums, trust arises, which contributes to a freer and more relaxed exchange of information.
Temporary barriers
The last barrier is time, or even a sense of its lack. If valuable interactions become victims of time constraints, managers can redeploy positions and responsibilities so that employees understand who they should work with and what intellectual workers should work on. In some cases, companies may have to clarify who exactly has the right to make decisions, as well as reassign roles in order to relieve the communication burden from one employee to another.
The Boston-based Millennium Pharmaceuticals, which develops a cancer drug, did just that. When they discovered that the researchers did not have time to share the results of their experiments, they created a small group of scientists who became “knowledge mediators”. Based on meetings with drug developers, as well as on the presentations they demonstrate, these employees summarize the information and enter it into the internal database. In addition, they act as intermediaries, sharing knowledge among different research groups. The company believes that this practice, coupled with others, has increased the success of the company's research and reduced the time required for making key decisions.
We would like to share a vision of how the collaboration trend is developing in the world.
The main goal is to identify the obstacles faced by employees in their daily interaction and to manage them.
Are you doing what you can to increase the productivity of your knowledge workers?
Few executives can answer this simple question.
')
Their confusion is not due to the fact that they have not tried. Around the world, companies are struggling to uncover the secret to increasing the efficiency of managers, salespeople, researchers and others, whose work mainly consists of interaction (with other employees, customers and suppliers) and integrated decision-making based on knowledge and judgment. The stakes are high:
knowledge workers make up an increasing share of the labor force in developed economies, so an increase in their efficiency will mean new opportunities for companies, as well as the hope of maintaining GDP in the face of declining birth rates.
However, many managers have a very vague idea of ​​how to help knowledge workers increase their productivity. In part, this misunderstanding lies in the fact that mental work involves rather diverse and formless tasks - irregular management, in contrast to the work of production and office workers, where there are relatively clear, predictable tasks (regular management) that can be relatively easily automated and optimized. . In addition, it is difficult to assess the effectiveness of mental work, because of which the control of improvements requires additional efforts (which often lack intelligible guidance). Against this background, it is not surprising that many companies are engaged in unsystematic investment in training and IT systems.
Our research and experience show that since knowledge workers spend half of their time on interactions with each other, companies first need to study the reasons that impede these interactions. Armed with an understanding of these limitations, managers will be able to get benefits for their business, determining what efforts will lead to improved efficiency and effectiveness of interaction between employees.
In the companies that we surveyed, most of the interactions are hampered by one of five barriers: physical, technical, social or cultural, contextual and temporal. Our experience suggests that while individual companies will face more difficulties than others, ways of overcoming these difficulties will be widely used.
Physical and technical barriers
Physical problems (here you can directly include distances and time differences) often go hand in hand with technical ones, since the complexity of the distribution of human resources and the interaction between them becomes all the more relevant the greater the distance. While many companies have found ways to solve these problems, highly distributed organizations still continue to experience certain difficulties.
One of the tools used by some companies is to create “practical communities” that facilitate interaction between people who can give each other very useful advice — the World Bank did so to facilitate communication and discussion on the topic of slum transformation, in which more than a hundred employees participated working on the urban poverty problem. These communities offer a set of online tools to help employees of highly geographically distributed companies search for simple information (for example, about jobs and responsibilities), and they often use social networks as a means to transfer more focused information, for example, with whom they previously collaborated. Complementing the toolkit with video conferencing and rare face-to-face meetings, communities are able to overcome physical barriers and build relationships.
Social or cultural barriers
A rigid hierarchy and ineffective motivation can be attributed to social or cultural barriers, such problems prevent the inclusion of the right people in the process. To avoid such a situation, Petrobras, the largest Brazilian oil company, investigated cases of collision with such problems in its past, in order to clearly reflect the company's values, the processes occurring in it, and the norms of relations. New workers are gathered into small groups and hold discussions with them about such incidents, contributing to a better understanding of how the organization works and promoting ideas for sharing knowledge and solving problems together. In order to benefit from such practices, it is necessary to include the exchange of knowledge in performance reviews and make sure that the leaders of teams during the reporting to the rest of the time in which information should be transmitted in the form of a report. The practical communities that have been described above can also help with this: it is easier for employees to submit the necessary information in a timely manner.
Contextual barriers
Employees who are confronted with contextual barriers struggle to distribute and adapt the knowledge gained from colleagues working in various fields. Complex interactions often require contacts with people from different departments and divisions, which makes it difficult for employees to determine the expert level of their colleagues or to apply the advice received from them. Recall the problem of misunderstanding that often arises between the sales department and the development team about the customer card. This occurs because they speak different languages ​​and differently perceive the subject or topic of conversation (the sales staff pays attention to understanding the interests of the consumer, and the developers focus on the technical characteristics). To overcome the contextual barrier, companies can create a kind of employee circulation between teams and departments, during which specialists from different areas can begin to better understand colleagues from related departments and learn a little more about their work. For example, NASA holds a “Masters Forum” twice a year so that employees share their knowledge with each other. About 50 employees from different departments of the organization attend these meetings, where they learn about the various tools, methods and skills that are used to work on complex multilateral projects. Such forums are slightly moderated and very interactive.
Similarly, managers from Ekopetrol, a Colombian oil and gas company, have found that special forums not only break down natural barriers between professions, but also facilitate knowledge sharing across geographical boundaries. Moreover, thanks to such forums, trust arises, which contributes to a freer and more relaxed exchange of information.
Temporary barriers
The last barrier is time, or even a sense of its lack. If valuable interactions become victims of time constraints, managers can redeploy positions and responsibilities so that employees understand who they should work with and what intellectual workers should work on. In some cases, companies may have to clarify who exactly has the right to make decisions, as well as reassign roles in order to relieve the communication burden from one employee to another.
The Boston-based Millennium Pharmaceuticals, which develops a cancer drug, did just that. When they discovered that the researchers did not have time to share the results of their experiments, they created a small group of scientists who became “knowledge mediators”. Based on meetings with drug developers, as well as on the presentations they demonstrate, these employees summarize the information and enter it into the internal database. In addition, they act as intermediaries, sharing knowledge among different research groups. The company believes that this practice, coupled with others, has increased the success of the company's research and reduced the time required for making key decisions.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/118596/
All Articles