WORKING
Unmanaging knowledge
WORKING
How to tell the boss to back off
You’ve got a pretty good boss, yet
he or she still heeds the traditional
creed of command and control.
But it doesn’t work for you. You’re
engaged in knowledge work and
you’d like to tell the boss to back off.
What do you do? Explain it to the
boss first chance you get. Here’s a
good way to do it.
By Charles (Kalev) Ehin
Are you a fully engaged
knowledge worker? If the
answer is “No,” then the
boss needs to know why
knowledge workers can’t be
managed in the traditional
sense.
Here’s the message you
need to convey to your
employer.
The need for change to
modern management is firmly
grounded in our increasing
insights regarding the
power of “emergent” human
behavior.
Therefore, let’s briefly
explore the importance of
sharing “tacit knowledge” in
the innovation process and
make explicit certain key
organizational principles
that need to be adhered to,
especially when dealing with
knowledge workers.
Unmanaging knowledge
In the Industrial Age (and
still in many instances today),
people were primarily hired
for the use of their hands and
feet instead of their minds.
The thinking and
directing was mostly the job
of management. The workers
34 SMART PEOPLE
also needed various forms of
equipment and tools that these
organizations owned in order
to make a living. In other
words, they had to have access
to “means of production”
since, with rare exceptions,
they couldn’t afford to acquire
the necessary tools on their
own.
Knowledge professionals
of today, who constitute
almost half the US workforce,
are faced with a completely
different yet subtle situation.
What is subtle is that they own
their means of production
– the gray matter between
their ears.
Consequently, when they
decide to join or leave an
organization, they carry their
means of production with
them.
Knowledge workers
are an investment rather
than an expense. They not
only desire considerable
personal autonomy but
also the responsibility and
accountability for running
at least some part of an
organization. They need
to be treated as partners or
associates and not as typical
Industrial Age employees.
As partners, knowledge
workers are more likely to
share their tacit knowledge
(their smarts) with the people
around them.
Hence, we need to develop
organizations and networks
that continually nurture the
collaborative best from all
members and, in turn, reward
them equitably and not just
from a monetary standpoint.
The bottom line is that
tacit knowledge cannot be
“managed out” of people.
It must be allowed to
emerge within co-evolving
and mutually beneficial
relationships.
Essentially, tacit
knowledge encompasses
ideas and abstractions at
the individual level. More
specifically, it is implicit
knowledge that is:
N Grounded in personal
experience and innate
predispositions.
N Carried by people in their
minds, which is difficult to
access or share.
N Difficult to transfer to
others without extensive
personal contact and trust.
N Based on habits and
culture that we do not
recognize in ourselves.
N Stored in a different area
of the brain than explicit
knowledge.
N The wellspring of new
codified or explicit
knowledge.
Tacit or unrelated
knowledge comes to the fore
serendipitously and becomes
explicit as individuals or
small groups confront new or
unanticipated situations.
Tacit knowledge
is a dynamic resource
indispensable in the
innovation process.
Further, tacit knowledge
must be allowed to
“emerge” through voluntary
collaboration or self-
organization. People are

seldom aware of exactly what
unrelated knowledge they
possess until confronted with
a problem or an opportunity.
Therefore, in order for
tacit knowledge to properly
emerge, people must first be
surrounded by a supportive
environment.
Organizational sweet spot
In such an environment,
we will understand and
respond positively to formal
organizational goals and
initiatives.
Also, in the process the
organizational ‘We’ should
remember that the more
people are given a voice and
implicit control in managing
a venture, the more the
informal networks (present
in every entity) will begin to
function more in the open
and start making appropriate
connections with other
emergent groups.
The organizational sweet spot
is like the sweet spot on the
strings of a tennis racket. In a
general sense, the sweet spot
of the racquet is the area of the
string bed that produces the
best combination of feel and
power. In an organization,
the sweet spot is created by
the overlap of a formal and an
informal system.
Most importantly,
under the right conditions
the informal components
will begin to overlap more
and more with the formal
elements of an organization.
This overlap is a very
desirable state for any
enterprise. That spot, in
essence, represents the
area where the formal and
informal systems of an
organization have reached
WORKING
“a meeting of the minds” from my perspective, fall into
over the fundamental goals, the following two general
policies and processes of an categories:
organization. N Controlled-Access System:
What is particularly Where access to the
noteworthy about this resources of a group and
agreement is that it’s not its activities are controlled
reached through any sort of by one or a few select
formal negotiations. Rather, it individuals.
is emergent. N Shared-Access System:
It is a natural outgrowth Where resources of a
of day-to-day interactions, group and its activities
or self-organization by the are impartially dealt with
people representing both by all members of an
management and the informal organization.
networks of a given venture.
That’s where you can deliver
your message.
Clearly, the larger that
overlapping area is, the more
engaged and productive
people are within an
organization.
I have labeled this place
of common agreement as
the “shared-access domain.”
More fittingly, the overlapping
area is best referred to as the
“organizational sweet spot.”
Organizational context/
ecologies
So, how do we expand the
organizational sweet spot?
It’s not easy, especially when
people are accustomed to the
Industrial Age management
processes.
Fortunately, it’s definitely
worth the effort especially
since we are already in the
Knowledge Age. What we
must keep in mind is that the
sweet spot can’t be managed.
What can be managed or
adjusted is the organizational
context or ecology that
surrounds the sweet spot. In this classification
As I’ve suggested in scheme, a controlled-access
Unleashing Intellectual Capital system, whether tall or flat, is
and in Hidden Assets (www. an organizational framework
UnManagement.com), wherein one individual or a
organizational ecologies, NEXT PAGE
SMART PEOPLE 35
WORKING
CONTINUED
very limited number of people
exclusively control access to all
major resources.
All other members of the
organization must first get
approval from these executives
before any of the assets can be
used.
In a controlled-access
system position power is the
predominant force behind all
key decisions; hence, “open”
self-organizing arrangements
are not encouraged or valued,
limiting the development
of voluntary co-dependent
relationships and the sharing
of tacit and explicit knowledge.
Compliance instead of
commitment is prized in such
organizations. As one might
infer, such an organizational
ecology doesn’t do much
for the expansion of the
organizational sweet spot.
Conversely, in a
shared-access system, all
organizational members
have considerable autonomy
in decision-making and in
resource allocations. In a
shared-access system, expert
power instead of position
power dominates.
Major emphasis is placed
on situational leadership,
open book management, and
self-organization in solving
problems or in pursuing
opportunities. Such an
arrangement clearly benefits
from the continuous sharing of
tacit and explicit knowledge.
Here, personal
commitment rather than
compliance is the dominant
success factor. That, of course,
enhances the expansion of the
sweet spot.
Basically, a shared-access
system minimizes or avoids
many of the knowledge
36 SMART PEOPLE
sharing “killers” that are
prevalent in a traditional
organization.
For example, knowledge
workers in a controlled-access
setting are continuously faced
with some of the following or
similar problems:
N I would like to download
a free Web resource which
will help me perform
my job better, but the IT
Department will not allow
me to do that.
N I would like to work
cross-domain, in an
interdisciplinary way,
with colleagues in another
department, but my
manager refuses to give me
permission to do so.
N I would like to have access
to cost information that
pertains to the resources
that I am currently using
so that I can make more
judicious use of them. The
Accounting Department,
however, has informed
me that such information
is available on a need-
to-know basis only to
managers and I am not a
manager.
In a controlled-access
system the upshot, from a
human nature perspective,
is that people are more
concerned with their own
welfare instead of their co-
workers or the organization as
a whole.
Depends on smart people
Whether we like to
admit it or not, all activities
and interactions between
people are governed by
emergent relationships or self-
organization.
Therefore, we need to
place greater emphasis on
developing constructive
social contexts that support
the dynamics that allow
people to establish meaningful
relationships and in the
process share tacit and explicit
knowledge to the fullest extent
possible.
Complex adaptive systems’
thinking is vital today in order
to properly address never-
before anticipated problems or
new opportunities.
Thus, where conventional
approaches consistently fail to
bring success, more pragmatic
approaches need to be found
and applied.
Multiple perspectives
consistently lead to fresh and
more insightful solutions than
simply putting new faces on
old failed concepts.
In the end, it all comes
down to smart people
dealing realistically with
the unavoidable realm of
“social emergence” and
supporting the expansion of
“organizational sweet spots.”
Professor Charles (Kalev) Ehin is an
author and recognized management
and innovation dynamics authority.
He is emeritus professor of
management at Westminster College
in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S., where
he also served as the dean of the
Gore School of Business. He is the
author of Unleashing Intellectual
Capital (Butterworth-Heinemann,
2000), Hidden Assets: Harnessing
the Power of Informal Networks
(Springer, 2005), and his forthcoming
book The Organizational Sweet
Spot: Engaging the Innovative
Dynamics of Your Social
Networks (Springer, 2009). Contact:
kalev1@msn.com; Web site: www.
UnManagement.com.