Boosting the Productivity of Knowledge Workers

Boosting the productivity of knowledge workers

Eric Matson and Laurence Prusak

The key is identifying and addressing the barriers workers face in their daily interactions.

Are you doing all that you can production or clerical positions, to enhance the productivity of your where the relatively clear-cut, knowledge workers? It’s a simple predictable activities make jobs question, but one that few senior easier to automate or stream- executives can answer. line. Likewise, performance metrics are hard to come by in knowledge Their confusion isn’t for lack of trying. work, making it challenging to Organizations around the world manage improvement efforts (which struggle to crack the code for improv- often lack a clear owner in the ing the effectiveness of managers, first place). Against this backdrop, salespeople, scientists, and others it’s perhaps unsurprising that whose jobs consist primarily of many companies settle for scatter- interactions—with other employees, shot investments in training and customers, and suppliers—and IT systems. complex decision making based on knowledge and judgment.1 The Since knowledge workers spend stakes are high: raising the produc- half their time on interactions, our tivity of these workers, who con- research and experience suggest stitute a large and growing share of that companies should first explore the workforce in developed eco- the productivity barriers that nomies, represents a major opportun- impede these interactions. Armed ity for companies, as well as with a better understanding of for countries with low birthrates that the constraints, senior executives hope to maintain GDP growth. can get more bang for their buck by identifying targeted productivity- Nonetheless, many executives improvement efforts to increase have a hazy understanding of what both the efficiency and effective- it takes to bolster productivity ness of the interactions between for knowledge workers. This lack of workers. clarity is partly because knowledge work involves more diverse Among companies we’ve surveyed and amorphous tasks than do (see sidebar, “About the research”), Knowledge workers make up more than 40 percent of the US work force. 2 September 2010

fully half of all interactions are con- could benefit from one another’s strained by one of five barriers: advice—as the World Bank has done physical, technical, social or cultural, to help the 100 or so of its plan- contextual, and temporal. While ners who focus on urban poverty to individual companies will encounter facilitate discussions on projects some obstacles more than others, to upgrade slums. The communities our experience suggests that the feature online tools to help geo- approaches to overcoming them are graphically dispersed members widely applicable. search for basic information (say, member roles and the specific challenges they are addressing) and Physical and technical sometimes use the latest social- barriers networking tools to provide more Physical barriers (including geo- sophisticated information, including graphic distance and differences in whom the members have worked time zones) often go hand in hand or trained with. By supplementing with technical barriers because the electronic tools with videocon- lack of effective tools for locating ferences and occasional in-person the right people and collaborating meetings, communities can becomes even more pronounced bridge physical distances and build when they are far away. While these relationships. barriers are on the wane at many companies given the arsenal of soft- ware tools available, some large, Social or cultural barriers globally dispersed organizations Examples of social or cultural continue to suffer from them. barriers include rigid hierarchy or ineffective incentives that don’t One remedy implemented by some spur the right people to engage. To organizations is to create “com- avoid such problems, Petrobras, munities of practice” for people who the Brazil-based oil major, created a series of case studies focused on real events in the company’s past that illuminate its values, proces- About the research ses, and norms. The cases are dis- cussed with new hires in small This article summarizes the results of a research groups—promoting a better under- project under way since 2006. In the first phase, standing of how the organization more than 200 knowledge workers at four works and encouraging a culture of organizations—the research institute Battelle, knowledge sharing and collabo- Educational Testing Service (ETS), Novartis, and the rative problem solving. (To benefit US Defense Intelligence Agency—kept daily logs further from such approaches, of their knowledge interactions (more than 3,000 companies should include know- in total). Subsequently, we conducted field research ledge sharing in performance and interviews with about 35 people at the original reviews and ensure that team leaders four companies plus three new ones: Ecopetrol, clearly communicate acceptable NASA, and Petrobras. For more on the first phase of response times for information research, see Al Jacobson and Laurence Prusak, requests. The communities of prac- “The cost of knowledge,” Harvard Business Review, tice described above can help November 2006. too: employees are far more likely to give timely and useful responses to people in their network.) Boosting the productivity of knowledge workers 3

Ecopetrol’s technical forums break down the natural barriers between occupations and promote knowledge sharing across geographic boundaries. © Oscar Javier Guerra Perdomo

Contextual barriers staff devote attention to customer Employees who face contextual bar- insights while developers focus on riers struggle to share and translate product specifications). knowledge obtained from colleagues in different fields. Complex To overcome contextual barriers, interactions often require contact organizations can rotate employees with people in other departments or across teams and divisions or divisions, making it hard for workers create forums where specialists in to assess a colleague’s level of different areas can learn about expertise or apply the advice they one another’s work. The US National may receive. Think of the discon- Aeronautics and Space Adminis- nect that often occurs between a tration (NASA), for instance, holds a company’s sales department and biannual “Masters Forum” to share its product-development team over knowledge across disciplines. About customer data. The two groups 50 employees from different parts frequently struggle to communicate of the agency attend the meetings to because they think and talk so hear other NASA colleagues talk differently about the subject (sales about the tools, methods, and skills 4 September 2010

roles to reduce the interaction burden on some employees while increasing it on others.

Boston-based Millennium Pharma- ceuticals, which develops drugs for cancer treatment, did just that. When it found that researchers didn’t have time to share lessons from their experiments, it created a small group of scientists to act as NASA’s biannual “Masters Forums,” “knowledge intermediaries.” attended by about 50 employees from Based on meetings with company different parts of the agency, help scientists as well as presenta- transfer knowledge across disciplines. © Kerry Ellis/NASA tions, these employees summarize findings and submit them to they use in extremely complex an internal database. They also act projects. The sessions are lightly as brokers by sharing know- moderated and very interactive. ledge across groups. The company reckons that this practice, com- Similarly, managers at Ecopetrol, a bined with other initiatives, has Colombian gas and oil company, boosted success rates for the have found that technical forums not company’s research and reduced only break down the natural barriers the time needed to make key between occupations but also decisions. facilitate knowledge sharing across geographic boundaries. Moreover, Eric Matson is a consultant in the forums build trust, which McKinsey’s Boston office; encourages employees to share Laurence Prusak is a visiting information more freely. scholar at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business and a former The barrier of time senior adviser to McKinsey. The final barrier istime , or rather the Copyright © 2010 McKinsey & perceived lack of it. If valuable Company. All rights reserved. interactions are falling victim to time 1 constraints, executives can use For this article, we define knowledge interactions as those involving job roles and responsibilities to help only the knowledge in people’s heads, identify the employees that know- not data or basic information that ledge workers should be interacting can be downloaded through technology alone. with and on what topics. In some cases, companies may need to clarify decision rights and redefine

For more on knowledge worker productivity, see “The next revolution in interactions” and “Competitive advantage from better interactions,” on mckinseyquarterly.com.