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February 9, 2007

High Performance

Much has been written about high performance and the impact to the organization. Many authors discuss the collaborative environment and new tools that allow the information worker to access corporate information anytime and anywhere. Other authors focus on the performance rules of accountability, metrics, and objectives. Both of these views of high performance are accurate and should be reviewed by the reader.

The average yearly increase in U.S. workers' productivity has doubled from 1.5 percent during the period 1987-1996 to 3 percent from 1997 to 2006, according to U.S. Labor Department figures. Information workers must define their own path to productivity and based on these metrics are doing a great job. The key ingredient is multi-tasking with technology. According to an Oregon State University study knowledge workers spend the majority of their working hours processing and manipulating information. The information they manipulate may be encoded in many different formats: documents, databases, software code, web pages, email messages, phone conversations. At the center of productivity is the concept that almost all knowledge workers organize their work into discrete and describable units, such as projects, tasks or to-do items. Information workers are required to define their own path to productivity and value-add for the organization. Years ago, the organization was expected to define what value and performance meant but not today. The old go to work from 9 to 5 is being replaced by a 24 hour a day information flow. For many information workers, the transformation from being told what value is to defining that value is unnerving.

Posted by Todd at February 9, 2007 10:52 AM