"The most important contribution of management in the 20th century was to increase manual worker productivity fifty-fold. The most important contribution of management in the 21st century will be to increase knowledge worker productivity—hopefully by the same percentage. So far it is abysmally low and in many areas (hospital nurses, for instance, or design engineers in the automobile industry) actually lower than it was 70 years ago. So far, almost no one has addressed it. Yet we know how to increase—and rapidly—the productivity of knowledge workers. The methods, however, are totally different from those that increased the productivity of manual workers."
A knowledge worker is a worker whose main capital is their knowledge and expertise. Examples of such professionals include ICT professionals, physicians, pharmacists, architects, engineers, mathematicians, scientists, designers, public accountants, lawyers, librarians, archivists, editors, and academics, whose job is to "think for a living".
"In recent years many scattered attempts have been made to apply physiology and psychology to economic processes. Business men by scientific observation and experiment have brought criticism to bear upon the traditional and empirical modes of organising and conducting ... more recently the detailed technology of manual and mental labour has been made material of physiological and psychological investigation."
"A related difficulty arises in the managerial training process because the educational system cannot at present entice those with the most creative abilities into such careers; Galbraith refers to this as the problem of "reproducing the technostructure." Similarly, Drucker maintains that the determination of the social status of the "knowledge worker" will present the developed societies with their most significant social question in the coming decades."
"To make the right decision the knowledge-worker must know what performance and results are needed... He cannot be supervised. He must direct, manage and motivate himself."
"What we will need from now on are, increasingly, "effectiveness centers", that is, organized efforts to make fully effective and productive the new workers, the knowledge worker, the employed middle-class professional."
"In the United States, the "knowledge worker" values his or her independence. This is translated into the desire to have personal databases, some influence in how work is performed, as well as control of environmental features such as lighting and s."
"ON THE EFFECTS PRODUCED ON THE BLOOD BY MENTAL LABOUR. BY THEOPHILUS THOMPSON, M.D., F.R.S."