There has been a tectonic shift in the nature of work in the modern business regime that has given rise to a major problem. In order to define this problem it is important to understand the nature of this shift. This shift, which is limited to the modern industrialized world, has seen a massive acceleration in the number of people whose work involves a significant amount of thinking, talking, listening, bargaining and negotiating that depends upon a high level of self awareness in action.
The problem is that a great many people do not have the capacities required to do this type of work. There is a shortage of people who can think abstractly, who can talk, listen, bargain and negotiate skillfully, and who have high levels of self awareness, all qualities needed for knowledge work. The capacity to think, talk, listen, bargain and negotiate depends above all upon what we call self awareness in action
This is related to another issue noted by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey of Harvard University. This is the maddening insufficiency of being well informed . People need to be well informed about the technical demands of their work, but on it s own it s not enough.
Organisations are presented with a major problem because this shift is one of the most significant to have occurred in the whole history of human kind. For millennia after millennia human kind has relied upon kinesthetic physical abilities to provide the wherewithal of life. During most of this time command and control methods have been used to see that things got done. It is no longer the case that kinesthetic physical abilities are the dominant abilities required for human work. Moreover command and control modes of organisation do not work when applied to any form of knowledge work.
The causes of the Tectonic shift
The main cause for the major shift arises out of the blurring of the boundaries between those who directed the course of work and those who actually carried out the work. This occurred through the widespread use of information technology in reducing significantly the numbers of supervisors and middle management people involved in directing the course of work. This resulted in an expansion in the level of responsibility and decision making that ordinary workers were required to take on board.
Information technology also automated and eliminated many kinesthetic physical routine tasks that people carried out. As well as this many of the tasks involved in the manipulation of things were automated reducing the demand for people with kinesthetic physical abilities.
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The Problem and the Solution
The overall result is that we have a significant number of people doing knowledge work who are not performing well. This leads to poor customer service and a lack of solidarity and trust in the organisation that reinforces the low performance levels. Very often responses to low customer service and lack of solidarity and trust have involved instituting an instructional training programme to solve the problem. Because this type of training rarely succeeds beyond the first few weeks employers become disillusioned with training.
There are two types of response, organisations revert to command and control, or some seek a technological solution to what is a people issue that cannot be solved with technology. However, these types of response more often than not worsen the problem.
The solution requires two things, one involves refraining from command and control, the other is to engage in a capacity building programme that addresses the heart of the problem. For reasons we will outline this results in strong customer service and a climate of solidarity and trust that lifts performance levels and has a positive impact on profitability.
Traditional training does a very good job in equipping people to do the technical tasks of the right hand quadrants. However, training as it is traditionally carried out is incapable of equipping people to deal with the awareness and communication demands of complex work.
An entirely different type of learning is required to help people handle the level of awareness and communication capacities required for knowledge work. We call this type of learning capacity building. Its aim is to provide people with the tools to achieve mastery of the awareness and communication domains. This is achieved through enhancing self awareness which we define in quite broad terms. Capacity building involves helping people evolve and develop a new sense of awareness and understanding of themselves and their place in a rapidly changing workplace. Capacity building also provides the infrastructure for an integral mode of communication, the cornerstone for building trust and solidarity.
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Capacity building enables people to go beyond the given formulas and so called best practices so as to be able to develop and adapt to new and innovative ways of doing things. This is important in times of rapid change. It helps them see themselves and the world in new and different ways. They are able to see the big picture and recognise the connections that link their world. It also helps them develop versatility across multiple areas. Above all they are provided with a change technology that helps them overcome an immunity to change that frustrates many organisational attempts at bringing about change.
Training programmes provide information, and in many cases they provide this information in very skilled and imaginative ways, about how to be innovative, that people need to see the connections between events, and see the big picture. They are instructed to be versatile and receive instructions in how to communicate effectively and so on. However, these programmes fail to recognise and do not address the reason why the retention of the content of training programmes is low, why there is little if any behavioural change and growth and development are rare. Very often there are short term gains in productivity, but within a very short time people revert to their old ways.
This sort of training will never work as it fails to appreciate the development stages of awareness and capabilities that are required for people to become effective knowledge workers. Some people achieve these qualities quite naturally. The vast majority do not.
The result is dissatisfied employers frustrated with traditional training models, disillusioned workers and organisations that lack solidarity and trust. Management s response, as we have said is often to seek greater control through subtle forms of command and control, or to try a technological solution. Neither of these solutions will work, in fact they reinforce the very conditions they seek to avoid.
What is needed are programmes that are designed to bring about expanded awareness and communication capacities. Why is this important? It s important because expanded awareness is the critical capacity that governs the capacity to communicate which in its turn makes it possible for them to achieve high performance doing the technical part of complex knowledge work.
Self awareness means being open to treat everything that arises as an opportunity to learn and being open to diverse views and opinions, taking unconditional responsibility for choices made, achieving emotional mastery. This in turn leads to people being able to carry out crucial conversation, negotiate constructively to resolve disagreements, and to make and honour commitments through commitment conversations. All of these qualities open and broaden awareness and when coupled with the capacity to monitor actions in real time, as events unfold, people are able to experience their lives in a much more engaged way moment by moment. They then become capable of self organising and solving for themselves the very issues that management seeks to impose upon them.
How do we know that this capacity building approach is not just another instructional training programme that will not give rise to lasting change that we were critical of earlier?
Capacity building programmes as we understand the term is based on the fact that throughout life human being undergo transformational change. This recognises that throughout life people go through stages of development that govern and regulate the way they define their needs, the way they feel about things and the way in which they think. One of the major contributing factors accounting for lack of capacity in excelling at knowledge work is that many people have not reached a stage of development where they are capable of managing the complexity demanded in the modern workplace.
An integral part of the solution of the knowledge work dilemma is that the organisation must provide its people with the means to help their people make the developmental leap to deal with the complexity of the work that needs to be done.
Why capacity building and a culture of excellence?
Some organisations might respond when we raise the issue of our capacity building programmes with them that they know they could do better. They will acknowledge that building capacity would raise productivity, customer satisfaction and greater trust and solidarity. They then say that it would be just too much trouble to try and lift standards. They seem to believe that mediocrity is the way of the world and nothing can be done about it. These organisations are never going to be best in class .
There are two answers to this position which is quite a widespread point of view.
First, it is no more difficult to set about raising capacities using a well designed capacity building programme than it is to manage mediocre performance. In fact managing and leading a workforce undergoing a capacity building programme leads to a simpler, easier, more enjoyable work experience and greater productivity. Being content with less than optimum standards has its own inbuilt problems. Managing at this level means dealing with bitching, moaning, and whining (BMW). Trust and solidarity are absent and the friction within the organisation means managers and leaders are working much harder to keep the flow of activity moving.
Building capacity takes energy, but the energy that is generated by improved capacity adds more energy back into the system that creates positive reinforcing momentum.
Secondly, developing a culture of excellence through capacity building adds a new dimension of meaning to the workplace. People who develop the capacities just seem to find more meaning and purpose in their work. They care about what they are doing, and if people care about what they are doing, then it s impossible for them not to strive for excellence. Excellence is just a given.
You can learn more about our capacity building programs by visiting our site
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 50 points for someone willing to do this!!!!!!!!!!?
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Achieving High Performance and the Tectonic Shift to Knowledge Work