The New Management: Finding the right balance

As you probably know by now, we see the modern business as a knowledge factory. This means that all managers need to become expert in the management of a knowledge factory. There are three critical management concepts that you will need to add to your toolkit in order to get the best results possible from your knowledge factory: networks, orchestration, and innovation.

The rising importance of knowledge is changing the balance of power in today’s organizations. Because they are dependent on the knowledge of their employees and stakeholders, organizations have to learn to find ways to encourage knowledge to flow within their organization’s network–from the bottom to the top of the organization as well as from the outside in. This dynamic also changes the role of the manager. Leadership is no longer about giving commands (if it ever was). It is now much more a question about facilitating, “orchestrating” the work of broad network of employees, partners and stakeholders. But it is still about getting results. And future growth is dependent on getting results in new ways through innovation.

The truth is that all managers in the 20th century will live, work—and get hopefully get strong results—in two worlds, the tangible and the intangible. The intangible requires new tools and approaches. But the tangible side of business is not going away. One of the major management challenges of the 21st century will be to find the right balance between the tangible and intangible, the top down and the bottom up, and the inside out and outside in.

Adapted from Intangible Capital: Putting Knowledge to Work in the 21st Century Organization by Mary Adams and Michael Oleksak.