Knowledge Workers: Asset Not Cost

Management’s duty is to preserve the assets of the institution in its care.

Knowledge workers own the means of production. It is the knowledge between their ears. And it is a totally portable and enormous capital asset. Because knowledge workers own their means of production, they are mobile. Manual workers need the job much more than the job needs them. It may still not be true for all knowledge workers that the organization needs them more than they need the organization. But for most of them it is a symbiotic relationship in which the two need each other in

equal measure.

Management’s duty is to preserve the assets of the institution in its care. What does this mean when the knowledge of the individual knowledge worker becomes an asset and, in more and more cases, the main asset of an institution? What does this mean for personnel policy? What is needed to attract and to hold the highest-producing knowledge workers? What is needed to increase their productivity and to convert their increased productivity into performance capacity for the organization?

Action point: Attract and hold the highest-producing knowledge workers by treating them and their knowledge as the organization’s most valuable assets.

Management Challenges for the 21st Century

Peter Drucker

preserve: reserve

enormous: huge