The Daily Drucker: 366 Days of Insight and Motivation for Getting the Right Things Done

by Peter F. Drucker

Six major factors determine knowledge-worker productivity. Knowledge-worker productivity demands that we ask the question: “What is the task?” It demands that we impose the responsibility for their productivity on the individual knowledge workers themselves. Knowledge workers have to manage themselves. They have to have autonomy. Continuing innovation has to be part of the work, the task, and the responsibility of knowledge workers. Knowledge work requires continuous learning on the part of the knowledge worker, but equally continuous teaching on the part of the knowledge worker. Productivity of the knowledge worker is not—at least not primarily—a matter of the quantity of output. Quality is at least as important. Finally, knowledge-worker productivity requires that the knowledge worker be 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.