In the Winter of 1999, Peter Drucker published an article on “Knowledge Worker Productivity: The Biggest Challenge.” In it he said,

“The most important contribution management needs to make in the 21st century is similarly to increase the productivity of knowledge work and knowledge workers.”

A fifty-times increase in knowledge worker productivity. Something that requires, fairly obviously, a complete paradigm-shift in the way that people are managed. Or rather, ‘lead’. In the article, Drucker identified six major factors determining knowledge-worker productivity:

1. Knowledge-worker productivity demands that we ask the question: “What is the task?”
2. It demands that we impose the responsibility for their productivity on the individual workers themselves. Knowledge Workers have to manage themselves. They have to have autonomy.
3. Continuing innovation has to be part of the work, the task and the responsibility of knowledge workers.
4. Knowledge work requires continuous learning on the part of the worker, but equally continuous teaching on the part of the knowledge worker.
5. Productivity of the knowledge worker is not — at least not primarily — a matter of the quantity of output. Quality is at least as important.
6. knowledge-worker productivity requires that the knowledge worker is both seen and treated as an “asset” rather than a ”cost.” It requires that knowledge workers want to work for the organization in preference to all other opportunities.

These six elements, of course, need to form a coherent system, one that satisfies the Law Of System Completeness. Here’s what the six elements look like relative to the six elements that make up the Law:

The article then went on to describe some of the characteristics that these knowledge workers have or need to have in order to be distinguished from others. They include:

“…the burden of further development and innovation will be put on them…”

“…knowledge work is less standardised and structured…”

“before certain ends result it may be difficult to know whether knowledge workers are working or not”

“knowledge workers basically own their key production mean – brains”

“knowledge workers need to be committed to and enjoy their jobs”

In so many words, what Drucker was talking about was the creation of Green World. The Twentieth Century transformation, in other words, was all about building Red World, and the business transformation of the Twenty-First is all about building a complementary transformation-delivering Green skills