Knowledge work: reports of its death are an exaggeration

At Mutterings of a consultant Grant Frear writes about the demise of the knowledge worker. He refers to a book written by Daniel Pink called A Whole New Mind arguing people in the world’s richer countries need to move from left-brain (linear, organised) thinking towards more right-brain (or creative) thinking.

To be fair to Frear, his first sentence says; “Well maybe not a complete demise but most certainly a geographic shift”. So it’s harsh to accuse him of an exaggerated report of the death of knowledge work, but the headline’s a handy excuse to quote Mark Twain.

Frear says work involving logical, repeatable left-brain tasks is often better done by computer — tasks which aren’t easily automated can be offloaded to Asia where workers are cheaper, hence “geographic shift”.

This makes sense. Work has moved from Australia and New Zealand to Asia for at least a decade, how often have you telephoned a bank and spoken to someone with an Indian accent?

To make up for this geographic shift, Frear (or more accurately Frear quoting Pink) says people in richer countries need to work on their right-brain activities which are largely creative, non-linear and conceptual.

The problem he rightly identifies is that most rich-world employers are geared to left-brain thinking and tend to reward people based on these values and not on their creativity. All of this is true.

One questionable part in all this is Frear’s (or maybe Pink’s) assumption than knowledge work is a left-brain activity. It often is, but not always. For example, writing is creative, but it’s also clearly a form of knowledge work.

Also, while there are people who appear 100 percent left-brain or right-brain, the reality is that most people show a healthy mix of both. So rather than requiring a disorienting binary switch from one type of thinking to a totally different one,  a smarter strategy might just be to steer one’s thinking towards creativity.

If Frear and Pink are right, the good news is the future there will see less boring knowledge worker jobs in the richer world and more stimulating work.

Demise of the knowledge worker « Mutterings of a consultant

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