Thinking for a Living
The term “knowledge worker” was coined by Peter Drucker in the 50’s, but didn’t come into its own until Thomas Davenport started talking about it in the early 00’s. The term refers to someone who uses their knowledge to be productive rather than their physical effort. Davenport’s book Thinking for a Living (Google books link) covers both the definition of the term and his thinking on how to deal with knowledge workers. Note that this is an immense change for managers and how management works, for one main reason…
It is immensely difficult to observe someone doing knowledge work and thus equally difficult to manage when and where they do it.
While much of the book is devoted to defining and describing knowledge work, Davenport also covers managerial topics and more. This discussion makes for an interesting read on a topic that any modern manager would likely need to understand.
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