The Effective Executive

by Peter F. Drucker

The typical institution of today has an organization problem for which traditional concepts and theories are totally inadequate. Knowledge workers must be professionals in their attitude toward their own field of knowledge. They must consider themselves responsible for their own competence and for the standards of their work. In terms of formal organization, they will see themselves as “belonging” to a functional specialty—whether this is biochemistry or, as in the hospitals, nursing, for example. In terms of their personnel management—their training, their records, but also their appraisal and promotion—they will be governed by this knowledge-oriented function. But in their work they increasingly have to act as responsible members of a team with people from entirely different knowledge areas, organized around the specific task on hand. Focus on upward contribution will not, by itself, provide the organizational solution. It will, however, contribute understanding of the task and communications to make imperfect organization perform.