The “knowledge economy” requires that we do the right things and do them as efficiently as possible. The organizations that climb ahead in this competitive landscape will be the ones that can get maximum productivity out of all of its people. The difference today is to increase “productivity” from one who’s resources are knowledge and information compared to increasing one’s manual and physical work which was the primary work decades ago.

The industrial society consisted of people who were trained to do manual labor in order to build cities and mechanical technologies such as the railroads and oil refineries; today our knowledge society consists of people that use their ingenuity and minds in order to create capital. Utilizing a knowledge worker’s skills to be productive as possible is key to organizational success.

The first thing we must look at for increasing a knowledge worker’s productivity is to avoid the “myths” that have been engrained in our society. In the 1980’s, the rapid acceleration of the computer industry took executives and employees by storm. The thoughts were with the rapid inventions of computer, the majority of employees would be let go from their jobs and be replaced by computers. The computer can calculate fast, multi-task, not talk back, follow orders and retain more information: What benefit does the worker have over it?

Unfortunately, once the corporations began to invest their profits into computer technology and data-processing equipment, they realized they needed to hire more workers in order to service and maintain the equipment. Yes, some jobs were rendered obsolete by technology, but overall a business hired more knowledge workers on to take advantage of these new tools. It is important to realize that technology is a tool, and its effectiveness depends on the person running it. Did this make the knowledge worker in 1980 more productive? When you factor in training of a new piece of equipment and the training costs and hours, it did increase productivity, but it was heavily capital-intensive. The myth of spending on the best technology to surpass others ten-fold was proven wrong when put into actual practice.

The second task is to look at the distractions and how well a knowledge worker can concentrate in their environment. A dentist cannot be filling out forms as he works on a patient’s teeth. A salesperson can not engage a client while she picks up the phone and helps another client. Looking at what the professional is qualified for, and removing the mundane tasks that a professional helps the professional to focus on the priorities. Contrary to popular belief of many ineffective executives and managers everywhere: priorities cannot be “everything”. Focusing away from the Urgent and Not Important into a concentrated state of mind on what the knowledge worker does best will increase productivity, employee morale and increased profits and better service as the right things are getting done.

Finally, defining performance is critical in order for one to work smarter and be efficient. Constructing a building requires a manual worker to move bricks from Point A to Point B. The end result is whether the specified bricks have reached its location. When the building is complete, inspectors can physically go around it and inspect it for quality. A knowledge worker, on the other hand, does not have a primary job of physically moving items; a lot of the work is applying knowledge and vocalization or processing. What is quality in delivering the best customer service? What is quality when building the best Web 2.0 platform? What is quality when helping students in a university? Sometimes in these situations the basic question is “What works?” What result is important for organizational performance? How many steps can you eliminate and still deliver a consistent end result? These questions are dependent on the mission and values of the organization, but needs to be asked to define performance in a knowledge organization.

Avoiding the misconceptions of productivity (e.g. spending capital on the best and innovative technologies to replace individuals), reducing distractions and defining performances are the ground work of helping knowledge workers be more productive. Any organization that can nail these three categories can build an effective platform in order to continuously keep pace or jump ahead of their competition. Whether you are a university, non-profit, corporation, small business or yourself, build this platform and your efficient use of your knowledge will help you get the right things done and give you time to focus on other priorities and tasks.