Indeed, I feel the choice to operate a workforce as pro-knowledge worker or anti-knowledge worker is relevant to almost industries.

Process is not necessarily a bad thing. Done right, it essentially embodies the joint consensus of all workers on the best way to achieve a task.

Toyota, for example, makes it very clear that every employee is expected to continually find productivity improvements to the assembly-line process and to participate in the problem-solving process when things go wrong.

The culture message couldn’t be clearer — we’re all in this together. We value your input.

Compare this to the opposite management attitude where the majority of important decisions are made at the top and middle managers are just left to implement the detail. This is far more likely to be the “soul-deadening” experience talked about in white-collar jobs.

As a result of these pressures, people who are ostensibly hired as knowledge workers end up following process. Add to that the comfort factor that process-following brings to some people, and confusion inevitably arises about the real nature of knowledge work.

Another key aspect of Matthew’s work is that many processes actually conceal real knowledge work: that is where the ‘paying attention’ comes into play.

I’ve always defined a knowledge worker as someone who is hired predominantly for the knowledge they bring to the organisation.

So I fully agree with Matthew. It’s not about the kind of work you do but the approach that is required to do it.

By definition, if a manager insists their staff follow a predefined process, then the work is NOT knowledge work.