"What the knowledge worker needs to be positively motivated is achievement ... a challenge. They also require that the demands be made on them by knowledge rather than by bosses, i.e. by objectives rather than by people. They require performance-oriented organization rather than an authority oriented."
We talked recently about what to look for in hiring people, and there was a strong emphasis upon self-starters; which means people motivated by objectives and projects rather than being controlled by managers.
At the same time, in this post I want to talk a little on the other side of it. First, concerning Drucker's comments above, I and most others have found what he said to be true. A knowledge worker is exactly like Drucker describes. To attempt to micromanage knowledge workers will discourage and drain a lot of the creativity out of them.
So we do look for those that we can entrust projects to and then release them to go at it. This doesn't mean their isn't leadership in a company, and chaos rules. It means that leaders or managers must be a people of communication, inclusion and vision.
Knowledge workers need to be included from the beginning of the project to give their voices to where things will go. That empowers them to buy-in to the end goal and vision. Then the project is theirs to run with. That doesn't mean we don't occasionally check in and measure the progres, it means we let the vision be the ruler of the worker, not the manager.
A manager or business leader is there to make sure the vision is always before the workers and to be available if someone gets stuck or isn't sure of something. Other than that, the project itself is the discipline for knowledge workers.
Knowledge workers still need a leader, just a certain type of leader. They don't need a person with authority in the sense of watching over them all the time. They need a person that gives them a compelling vision that will watch over them all the time. The vision is the manager, not the person in this case. The person in leadership simply makes sure the vision is always before them and encourages them to run with it.
Of course the bottom line in all of this is hiring the right people in the first place or it won't work. Check the recent series I posted on to get some great ideas in that area.
Other Peter Drucker Resources:
The Man Who Invented Management
Beyond the Information Revolution
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