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Book Summary/Review:
The Distributed Mind
This article is based on the following book:
The Distributed Mind
"Achieving High Performance Through the Collective Intelligence of Knowledge Work Teams"
by Kimball Fisher and Mareen Duncan Fisher
Printed with permission from: 
This is the age of knowledge work. It is the age of the
smart worker. The operations that tap into this knowledge will outperform those that do not. For the first time in human history,
our contribution in the workplace come more from our minds than from our muscles.
As individuals, knowledge workers are smart people. But their individual effectiveness is amplified
when they are also part of a smart organisation. Knowledge is the stock in trade of knowledge
workers – it is both the process and the product of their work. But the skills and knowledge required
in complex tasks of modern work life are seldom, if ever, present in any one individual. Knowledge
workers need to meld their expertise with the knowledge of other experts. The specialised
knowledge of each person is essential to the successful completion of a project, but each person has
to work effectively with other workers as well.
1. Knowledge work: Understanding mental labour
Knowledge work is hard to define in detail because knowledge is invisible, hidden away in the head
of the knowledge worker. According to McDermott, “Knowledge work involves analysing
information and applying specialised expertise to solve problems, generate ideas, teach others, or
create new products and services.
Fishers tell physical and knowledge work apart by comparing five job characteristics:
Considering these five key work characteristics, Fishers suggest the following definition of
knowledge work: Knowledge work is activity that frequently produces new knowledge. Its core task
is thinking, its outcome is information, it is typically non-linear in nature, and it requires mental
skills to perform successfully.
Knowledge workers perform both knowledge work and physical work and there are few physical
workers who do only physical work.
2. Brawn and brains: Knowledge Work in Factories
The workplace is partly evolving toward knowledge work and away from physical labour.
Technical knowledge work is becoming increasingly common in many production jobs. The nature
of work is changing from mostly linear to mostly non-linear and from requiring mainly physical
skills to requiring mainly mental activity. Knowledge workers will soon outnumber physical
labourers as the fundamental working class of modern societies.
There are a number of other changes affecting operations that traditionally have utilised physical
work:
Many empowered manufacturing teams on today’s sop floor make decisions that were previously
reserved for middle-level management. Workers in these team-based operations set their own
schedules, manage their own projects, rotate through multiple technical positions, hire their own
team members, and participate in goal setting, peer evaluation, and daily management meetings.
Even the most traditional factory work is rapidly shifting away from assembly-type linear work to
non-linear physical work, or in many cases to knowledge work:
3. Knowledge work teams: Organising for empowerment
The word team most commonly refers to a collection of individuals who share a common purpose.
This purpose differentiates a team from a group, which is any collection of people.
It is not uncommon to get very different answers from team members, when they are asked
individually to describe the primary purpose of their particular team. If a team has an disagreement
about its fundamental purpose, creating an underlying confusion, it is rather a group than a team.
A more detailed definition becoming common in organisation is “Teams are nonauthoritarian work
structures with shared responsibility for decision making, problem solving, and organisation
design.” They are work structures based on a commitment (rather than control) paradigm. Team
operations are constructed and facilitated to elicit the commitment rather than the compliance of the
work force. Control-based and commitment-based organisations differ in various ways:
Fishers use the generic label “team based organisation” to describe the various forms of
empowerment strategies (socio-technical systems, employee empowerment, high-performance work
teams, self-directed work teams, etc.) that have transformed workplaces during the recent years.
These operations hare a philosophy of sharing responsibility for results and decisions between
management and individual contributors. They rely on employee empowerment rather than
management direction. Team-based operations characteristics:
More democratic
• More flexible.
• Distributed management responsibilities.
• Fewer authoritarian processes.
• Improved labour relations.
• Principle-based contracts.
• Shared responsibilities for results.
• Shared decision making.
• Empowered rather than management-directed.
One of the most empowered form of organisation consist of self-directed work teams: “A group of
employees who have day-to-day responsibility for managing themselves and the work they do with
a minimum of direct supervision. Members of self-directed teams typically handle job assignments,
plan and schedule work, make operational decisions, and take action on problems.” Where
traditional work groups typically are organised into separate specialised jobs with rather narrow
responsibilities, members of SDTWs are usually jointly responsible for whole work processes, with
each individual performing multiple tasks.
It should be noted from problems many companies have had with the team concept that successful
self-directed work teams are not the goal but a means to an end. The organisation should use
measures that focus on key result areas, such as customer satisfaction or market share instead of
number of teams, frequency of team meetings, or numbers of hours of team training. Often the
reason for problems is a flawed implementation process in which the team concept somehow takes
precedence over business effectiveness.
Another misconception to straighten out is that SDTWs do not absence of management personnel.
In the most successful implementations SDTWs mean a change in the role of management, not its
elimination. Downsizing management staffs may strip the tams of essential coaching and training
resources. An ADTW does not have complete latitude to do whatever it wants, but the people take
direction from the work itself rather than from management.
Teams can be generally separated into different categories on the basis of their duration and scope:
• Natural work teams are ongoing teams that have responsibility of a single operation, for
example to provide some products and/or services.
• Cross-functional teams have an ongoing purpose that crosses multiple natural work teams, that
is, they have multiple operations.
• Small-project teams are temporary collections of people that work on a particular task until it is
completed.
• Special-purpose teams are another temporary organisation that disbands upon the completion of
the task. The scope of the task, however, is bigger and crosses multiple natural work groups.
4. Jack of all trades, master of one: Vertical multiskilling and other unique characteristics of knowledge teams.
Knowledge work teams differ from physical work teams in five significant ways:
1. The primary work has a larger component of mental labour than physical labour.
2. As a result of the complexity of their work, the teams are frequently composed of multiple
specialists rather than multiple skilled generalists.
3. Team representatives are often from several different organisations, sometimes even different
companies.
4. The composition of the team may change from time to time depending on the task at hand.
5. Many of these teams never deal with the same job twice, unlike physical work teams, which
may have ongoing responsibilities for repetitious processes.
Multiskilling has obvious advantages for the physical portion of manufacturing work. When people
can perform multiple jobs, the work team has increased flexibility and responsiveness. In addition,
multiskilling virtually eliminates the problems that can occur between jobs. People see fewer
problems that are caused by “the other shift,” or “the other function,” when they have rotated
through these assignments. Problem solving is facilitated when people have a better grasp of the big
picture. Co-ordination of multiple tasks improves as people understand how the jobs interface with
one another and how certain activities can unintentionally cause problems for someone down the
value chain.
Multiskilling can also be helpful for the knowledge portion of work. There are no “we/they”
distinctions or “that’s not my job” problems. But multiskilling can have diminishing returns in
many knowledge work situations. Traditional multiskilling can be tantamount to de-skilling for
certain knowledge workers who must stay actively engaged in their specialities just to keep up with
their rapidly evolving fields: “The half-life of a software engineer in this speciality is now about
eight months.” Instead of making everybody a generalist and no one a specialist, a certain level of
specialisation is required in spite of the fact that there are fewer functional distinctions and more
cross training than before.
Knowledge teams often do need a certain amount of traditional multiskilling. There are three
differences, though:
Multiskilling for each individual tends to be less important for knowledge teams than putting
together the right team of people who collectively have multiple skills. Traditionally multiskilling
has emphasised learning multiple jobs at the peer level, that is, horizontal multiskilling. Vertical
multiskilling involves learning leadership and business skills that have traditionally been reserved
for management or other staff professionals. It is becoming common practice in many knowledge
teams to involve team members in hiring, giving feedback on performance appraisals, project
staffing, interacting with customers and vendors, and other vertical tasks.
5. The learning Lattice: Evolving organisational forms for knowledge work
Poor transfer of knowledge between departments causes cost overrides, time slippage, and quality
problems. Many companies are leaving the traditional functional silo approach to organising
knowledge work in favor of more cross-functional teams. Some are changing the fundamental
structures of their organisations to minimise functional silos.
The few methods commonly employed to redesign knowledge work are more participative and
democratic than for example reengineering. They are not done to knowledge workers by senior
management or external consultants, but rather are methods for facilitating the knowledge workers’
own ideas for how the organisation should be designed:
• Socio-technical system approach consist of two stages.
• a three-part two step analytical process in which a design team first evaluates the business
environment, and then both the social situation and the technical strengths and weaknesses
for the current organisation
• then the team redesigns the organisation to solve the problems and better meet the deeds
identified. Special care is taken to jointly optimise the social and technical sides of the
operation.
• The Conference Method uses a series of two-to three-day conferences to complete the
redesign process: Visioning, Customer, Technical, Design and Implementation. 40-60 percent
of the entire operation being redesigned participates in the conferences.
• The Conference Design Team Method is a hybrid of the two. The Visioning, Customer,
Technical and Implementation conferences are participated by a large group of knowledge
workers, but the actual design is completed by a small cross-representational design team
selected by peers during the Technical conference:
• Visioning conference
• Customer conference
• Technical conference & Design team selection
• Design team work
• Design Review (selection from alternative solutions)
• Implementation conference.
As a result of a redesign process many organisations have created a so called learning lattice
organisation. Unlike the matrix-type organisation, the lattice organisation does not have the
knowledge worker reporting to multiple organisations. Instead, the learning lattice organisation has
knowledge workers reporting to only one organisation – normally a cross-functional team- for
consistency of work direction. But the learning lattice organisation provides a supplementary team
of similar professionals who work together to communicate best practices and develop technical
skills:
A lattice organisation is a working way to provide nonhierachical support for learning without
diminishing the integrated business focus many operations try to obtain by incorporating knowledge
workers into cross-functional teams.
6. Creating a sentient organisation: New metaphors for knowledge work
All organisations are living systems, composed of people, who must do the work of the operation.
But some organisations act more alive than others. These sentient organisations are simply better
suited for modern business.
The mechanistic practices were used widely and acclaimed for their ability to produce
organisational stability during the industrial age – an age with a more predictable environment than
today. What makes the operation stable and predictable can also lead to uncreative, programmed
behaviour.
The practices introduced by people like Frederick Taylor had a justification in their time. The
labourers had moved from the farms to the factories without experience or education. Organisation
controls like hierarchy and bureaucracy were necessary not only to ensure productivity of the new
workforce but to provide (minimally) for their welfare as well. Hierarchy, for example, was
important in the industrial age as a device for providing clarity of purpose and directing the
uneducated workforce. Information like customer requirements, near real-time cost analyses, etc.
were available only to managers, who had to dedicate a large part of their time to obtaining and
manipulating it. Now technology allows individual knowledge team members instant access to the
same information and more. Companies will no longer be able to afford to have people who are
paid for watching other people work.
After decades of innovation, the promise of the industrial revolution has been realised. In some
cases, industrial-age technology has now surpassed our need to use it to produce goods and services
better, faster, or cheaper. Competitive leverage from the more effective utilisation of physical
labour is minimal as organisations across the globe (at least in developed countries) have access to
the same labour-enhancing technologies. The old technologies, the old organisations, and the old
job structures are already becoming obsolete. The truth is: The industrial revolution is over. We are
in the early days of a post-industrial age that has been called the information age.
7. Virtual knowledge teams: Working on geographically dispersed teams
If knowledge work is mind work, and virtual knowledge team members are physically distributed
across all kinds of organisational boundaries, how do you create a distributed mind? For example
IBM spends about $8000 per sales rep to equip her or him with ThinkPads, software, two home
phone lines, a fax, a printer, a pager, and a cellular phone.
Virtual knowledge teams have three characteristics that distinguish them from other knowledge
teams:
• Their members are always distributed across multiple locations.
• They often are considerably more diverse.
• They typically do not have constant membership.
Ironically, these characteristics are the antithesis of what many effective teams require for success:
collocation, homogeneity, and consistent membership. How do you co-ordinate a group of
opinionated specialists? How do you have regular milestone meetings when team members span the
globe, with different languages, cultures, and time zones? How do you get people to work together
when they don’t report to the same boss or when they’re not even in the same company? How do
you co-ordinate with people who have different priorities because of their numerous commitments?
How do you deal with the part-timers who float on and off the team? How many virtual knowledge
teams can one knowledge worker be on without diffusing his or her effectiveness?
The primary difference between effective virtual knowledge teams and ineffective ones is the
ability to differentiate and integrate simultaneously. Differentiation is required to keep up with the
increasingly complex business environments. Differentiation strategies make it easier to clarify
roles and responsibilities.
The primary difference between effective virtual knowledge teams and ineffective ones is the
ability to differentiate and integrate simultaneously. Differentiation is required to keep up with the
increasingly complex business environments. Differentiation strategies make it easier to clarify
roles and responsibilities.
Integration strategies include organisational structures, common goals, communication systems, and
other processes that meld the differentiated specialists together to work toward a common cause and
keep them focused on objectives that can be accomplished only through co-operation and
collaboration. Actually, an effective VKT is an integration strategy in and of itself, but most
companies have found that it is not enough by itself. The key strategies for successful knowledge
team integration are:
• Structure, physical design of the team, its size, membership, reporting, etc. For example,
without identifying the key work processes, it is difficult to solve the problems with these
processes or to improve them.
• Leadership is the method by which the structure receives direction and coaching. Effective
Knowledge teams are most often highly empowered, whit a great deal of shared leadership. The
key is to link the minds together – not to superimpose the minds of the leaders on top of those of
the workers.
• Shared values provide a context for work and a sense of right and wrong that enable effective
and consistent decision making. Not all employees always agree but the values provide an
excuse for each team to have a clarifying discussion how the values will apply to the tam’s
work. It is important to spend enough time on this discussion to reach a true commitment
without compromising understanding or offending other tam members.
• Rewarded goals means that neither rewards alone nor goals seem to account for successful
integration of knowledge teams. Goals provide a clear focus for the day-to-day activities and a
practical arbitrator for the inevitable conflicts, and trade-offs. They are a substitute for
hierarchy, allowing the team to become a self-directed work team if that structure is appropriate
to its task.
Linking knowledge
workers together through networks and other communication devices as though they were located in
the same office is critical to effectiveness. Many teams have their virtual office location
established through technology, but even knowledge workers can’t stay physically disconnected for
long. Even if the work doesn’t require the interaction to pass along information or make team
decisions face to face, we need the periodic reminder that we belong to something, even if it is
temporary in duration – we need evidence that we belong to this community of other human beings
that we call a team.
This appears to be
especially important at the virtual knowledge team start-up. An effective face-to-face start-up
can accelerate the effectiveness of the team. The personalising touch facilitates communication
and motivation later on and minimises the kind of distractions and confusion that can accompany
depersonalised communication like e-mail.
8. The creative spark: Harnessing learning, creativity, and innovation
There are at least four key concepts that contribute to an organisation’s ability to build an
environment of creativity:
1. the act of creation is a social rather than an exclusively independent activity; the sharing of
stories and experience is critical to the process of innovation.
2. Creativity is a result of repeated experimentation.
3. Learning to share partially developed ideas with others – in other words, having willingness to
learn in public – is essentially to creativity.
4. Standardised work processes and methods allow creativity to flourish.
9. Knowledge transfer:
Sharing mind work and mastering information overload
Current knowledge is the
life blood of knowledge work, and the ability to transfer it is a key differentiating characteristic
between effective and ineffective knowledge work teams. But volume must not overcome quality. Or as one
manager commented: “All I have time to do now in this team-based environment is read and respond to e-mail.”
Knowledge is transferred as information from one party to another. Effective transfer occurs only
when information is: (1) sent properly and (2) received properly, with (3) minimum noise. Social
noise includes things like perceptions, assumptions, and emotions that can affect a message transfer.
And cross-cultural knowledge transfer adds a whole additional level of complexity to the process.
Until fairly recently, the primary information challenge was how to get enough information to
knowledge workers. But today it is becoming increasingly difficult to create shared knowledge
without information overload. What we have gained in our ability to transmit information, we have
often lost in our capacity to receive and act on it.
One of the most used and abused electronic methods for knowledge transfer is e-mail. When
knowledge workers have to ignore communication from other team members to save time, or even
to delete unread messages to provide more disk space for other messages that they probably will not
read, the knowledge transfer process isn’t working. The easiest solution is to get rid of unsolicited
junk mail. But the vast majority of the messages clogging e-mail systems come from legitimate
team members.
E-mail is most helpful for general, nonurgent material where it is useful to retain documentation,
interaction is not required, and security is not important.5 Effective knowledge teams establish
protocols about how to use knowledge transfer processes like e-mail6. For example, e-mail
shouldn’t be used as a substitute for conversation, nor should it be used for philosophical debates.
Teams avoid using unchecked distribution lists7, mass mailing and unnecessary group replies. It
should be noted that a knowledge team will hardly abide by any protocols that the team members
don’t develop together or that they don’t believe they need.
Of course it helps to find better ways to collate, store, and access information. Effective knowledge
transfer requires an answer to three important questions:
1. How do we transfer raw data into useful information?
2. How do we collect/collate/organise the information?
3. How do we effectively transmit information to others?
Most of the knowledge processes in use are push knowledge transfer processes, where an individual
or a team pushes out information to another individual or team. But there is an equally important
way to transfer knowledge, pull knowledge transfer, where the learner directs the learning transfer.
10. Distributed leadership: Leading others and leading self
One of the best ways to describe the role of the knowledge team leader is as a “boundary manager”
focusing on the environment that surrounds the team. The boundary is the make-believe line that
differentiates the team from the environment and a boundary manager manages the inputs and
outputs across this boundary while the team members supervise the day-to-day throughput
operations within the boundary. Traditional managers often see their role as supervising the
throughput.
While traditional managers usually work in the system, boundary managers work on the system
instead. Team leaders focus on improving the work system. Though boundary managers don’t often
do the design of the work system themselves (they usually involve others in the spirit of
empowerment), they do ensure that it gets done. And they ensure that it gets done in a way that
incorporates open systems thinking. The general tendency for organisations is to make
improvements based only on their needs and wants inside of the boundary. But boundary manager
knows that elements outside of the boundary must also be considered it organisation improvement
is to be effective. Where a traditional functional manager will focus on optimising his or her own
department or project, the boundary manager is much more interested in optimising the whole
operation, even if that means suboptimising his or her particular part of it.
The extent to which a team leader can act as a boundary manager depends on the maturity of the
teams. Some teams will still need help to learn to manage the throughput. They may not be
experienced in this type of work and organisation. Effective boundary managers typically provide
substitutes for hierarchy before abandoning throughput supervision.
Hierarchy and bureaucracy have performed an important co-ordination function in most
organisations, and this function must still be performed. Good information about the business, for
example, can substitute for a manager providing this information in person. Thus, a good company
intranet with cost and technical information is one substitution for hierarchy.
There are seven competency cluster of required skills for a successful knowledge team leader:
1. The leader – unleashes energy and enthusiasm by creating a vision that others find inspiring and
motivating. The vision should be concise enough to be focusing but broad enough to allow the
creative autonomy necessary to accomplish it.
2. The living example – serves as a role model for others by “walking the talk” and demonstrating
the desired behaviours of team members and leaders. Example is far more powerful than words.
3. The coach – teaches others and helps the develop to their potential, maintains an appropriate
authority balance, and ensures accountability in others. Coaches build team members’ skills
necessary to (1) produce good results (2) work together effectively (3) produce and maintain a
high level of results with little external influence (4) keep everyone well informed and (5) learn.
4. The business analyser – understands the big picture and is able to translate changes in the
business environment to opportunities for the organisation. It is not so important whether the
analysis is good or bad, it is whether or not that analysis is shared with the team effectively.
5. The barrier buster – opens doors and runs interference for the team, challenges the status quo,
and breaks down artificial barriers to the team’s performance.
6. The facilitator – brings together the necessary tools, information, and resources for the team to
get the job done, and facilitates group efforts. The knowledge team leader who, even
unknowingly, withholds information (or authority, autonomy, budget, training, or whatever
other resources are necessary to get the job done) lowers productivity.
7. The customer advocate – develops and maintains close customer ties, articulates customer
needs, and keeps priorities in focus with the desires and expectations of customers. For example
Tektronix reported improved designs and customer relations when engineering team members
visited end users. But too much emphasis on the demands of the internal customer can cause
problems for the external customer.
But assumes the role
of a knowledge work team leader. In some it is limited to the formal manager, but in other work teams
team leader / boundary management responsibility may be rotated from person to person. In other knowledge
teams, certain leadership tasks are shared by team members. Especially on dispersed virtual knowledge teams,
the primary role for leadership often rests more on each individual knowledge worker than on a single formally
assigned leader.
Knowledge, the primary asset required for knowledge work, is in the head of the knowledge
worker, and it is made available at the discretion of the mental labourer. No leader can force it out.
It has to be given willingly. Where there is distributed leadership, there is, in effect, collective selfleadership,
a situation that fosters discretionary mental effort.
It should be noted, though, that many of the responsibilities involved are not necessarily clear to the
team. Or as one team member said to his knowledge team leader: “We would like to take on some
other things, but we don’t know what you do.”
11. Self-healing systems: The wellness practices of smart teams
Getting off to a healthy start is one of the best preventive measures a knowledge team can take.
Rapid team formation, including quickly developing the ability to work together effectively, is
crucial for knowledge teams.
Successful teams have a shared sense of purpose. Those teams that fail to coalesce often attribute
their ills to an unclear purpose or ambiguous goals. One of the most critical preventive actions
teams can take to avoid this is to invest time and energy up front to create a team charter that
clarifies what the team is expected to do. The discussion associated with creating the charter is as
valuable as the charter itself. Team members have an opportunity to share perspectives on the
team’s overall purpose, key result areas or commitments required.
If expectations for team members’ behaviour and interactions between team members are not
clearly articulated and discussed, unhealthy norms can take root. But team members should
nevertheless view themselves as coaches to one another, not as police officers.
Effective knowledge team members should demonstrate seven competencies:
1. Customer advocate – having a strong awareness of the customer’s wants and needs coupled with
a strong desire to meet them.
2. Trainer – showing a willingness to train and develop others by sharing knowledge.
3. Resource – continually expanding personal knowledge and applying it to the workplace.
4. Skilled worker – demonstrating the technical skills necessary to perform the job effectively.
5. Team player – working and communicating well with other team members and business associates.
6. Decision maker – being able to assimilate and utilise information for making decisions that directly affect the team.
7. Problem solver – identifying and addressing problems that occur in the work area.
Training and skill development should include three primary areas: (1) technical skills, (2)
interpersonal skills, and (3= business knowledge and skills.
Team members are best coaches as they actually know more about the work of fellow team
members than the manager does. Team members know much better than anyone else how a given
mistake, problem, or issue will affect the teams ability to perform. Peer coaching fosters continuous
improvement by stimulating ideas on how to improve.
There are three things
to consider when preparing to provide feedback or coaching within a team:
1. Purpose: to correct a problem or behaviour, to develop something that is going well, or to
reinforce behaviour or performance.
2. Timing: The three questions to ask are: Will the person be receptive to my coaching? Do I have
all the information I need? Is there still time for the person to act on my coaching?
3. Place: If the purpose is to correct or to develop, then coaching should be done in private.
Coaching to reinforce is sometimes appropriately done in public.
The guiding principles of giving helpful feedback:
• Do not stockpile feedback but provide it immediately after the situation unless emotions are
high.
• When giving both positive and negative feedback, start with the positive and end on a positive
note.
• Take personal ownership for the feedback you give. Emphasise your feelings. Avoid
generalities and speculation regarding ho others feel.
• Confront by focusing on the behaviour or issue – not the person.
• Emphasise and reinforce positive behaviours.
• Be sure to listen to the other person’s point of view.
Feedback is a two-way process.
Just as individuals have a responsibility to provide feedback to one another, they need to be skilled in
receiving feedback from others.
Team decision making methods are autocratic, democratic, consensus, and unanimous. While
consensus is not appropriate for all situations, it can provide a good balance between team input and
time required. Consensus does not mean that all the team members agree they made the best
possible decision; it does mean that they can support the decision reached and do not feel they are
compromising their ethics, values, or interests. The steps for reaching consensus are:
1. Define the decision to be made as a team.
2. Gather information (may require postponing the decision)
3. Each team member prepares his or her own thoughts regarding the issue.
4. Each team member shares his or her thoughts with the team.
5. Listen to the views of each team member (all other team members should strive to understand
her perspective)
6. Make a decision as a team (a decision that everyone can support)
7. Implement and support the decision as a team (everyone on the team must take ownership of the
decision)
Although team conflict
usually involves a certain amount of struggle, that struggle can be a source of strength and creativity
for the team. Conflict forces us to examine our assumptions, ideas, and solutions. But left unresolved,
conflict can become destructive. Teams and team members can run into several kinds of conflict including:
• Internal conflict – team member’s personal life is in conflict with work life
• Conflict with one other team member
• Conflict with the entire team
• Team conflict with one team member
• Conflict among several team members
• Conflict between teams
• Conflict with one person outside the team.
A key to team wellness is having a clear way to measure performance. The steps to construct a set
of clear and measurable goals in a relatively short amount of time are:
1. Define key result areas, the general areas in which the team is expected to produce results. They
should be based on customer expectations. Focus on results rather than on activities.
2. Identify benchmarks to define meaningful standard for performance.
3. Measure current performance to identify the gap between where the team is currently
performing and the best benchmarks.
4. Set goals directly linked to the benchmarks.
5. Track and communicate results to let the team know how it is doing and to keep the team
focused on results.
Any time a new member is introduced into a team, the dynamics of the team change. An effective
orientation process lays the foundation for long-term success. Things like the purpose, priorities,
and parameters of the team should be shared and the new team member’s roles and responsibilities
clarified.
12. The cyberorganisation: Matching technology to knowledge teams
Technical tools to
perform the job are necessary but insufficient. A team also needs technical tools to facilitate
functioning of the team. A knowledge team that cannot utilise the knowledge of all team members is
ineffective. Probably the most fundamental and critical technologies supporting knowledge team work
are telecommunication devices. As organisations become less hierarchical, the need for real-time
communication increases. Technologies in use include for example teleconferences, voice mail,
networked software, Internet, intranets and videoconferencing in addition to e-mail discussed earlier.
It should be noted that technology alone is never the answer. Only the wise human use of
technology is beneficial. Any tool can be used in a way that either helps or hurts the team. There
are three common problems:
• Means-end inversion means that team members serve the technology instead of the technology
serving the team.
• Teams often expect more from a technology than it can reasonably deliver. For example,
computers cannot help get new products created more quickly, if the primary time lag is a
lengthy management authorisation process.
• Technology misuse means that technology is used for the wrong purposes, for example to write
e-mail messages to cubicle partners instead of having a face-to-face discussion.
The cyberorganisation is first and foremost an organic system. Effective knowledge teams know
how to keep the appropriate balance between the cyber and the borg.
13. Trends in knowledge work: The issues and opportunities of the future
Future trends in knowledge work:
• Automation of physical work. If all work becomes knowledge work, the new underclass of
society will probably be those who either do not have access to education or do not have access
to technologies.
• Elimination of traditional jobs and work structures like hierarchies and bureaucracies. Project
teams form and reform around the work to be done. Jobs will cease to be a relevant term.
• Empowered knowledge workers. Managers won’t authorise and direct, they will coach and
inform.
• Knowledge work teams predominant.
• Workplace flexibility. Technology allows work to be done from almost anywhere. But team
members may become upset with team members who aren’t available for face-to-face meetings.
There are also people who don’t want to work at home. A likely scenario is that more work will
be done at home or wherever else the work is, and that more teams will be composed of people
from multiple work sites.
• More virtual knowledge teams. Work won’t be done in a single office with the same team of
people. Our work security will come from our ability to market and transfer our personal
knowledge. Knowledge workers will work between full-time employment and complete selfemployment.
As a result organisational loyalty and commitment is now fading rapidly away.
The basic human needs for affiliation and community must be met elsewhere.
(c) Copyright Jyrki J.J. Kasvi
www.knowledge.hut.fi/projects/itss/itssref.html
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