Essentials of Knowledge Management

3.11. Management as Information Gatekeeper

In the knowledge organization, knowledge workers are the stars of the team, scoring points by contributing to the comapny's intellectual capital. From the knowledge worker's perspective, management's role is like that of a coach: to help establish common goals, to receive work, offer constructive criticism, and supply or orchestrate resources. Like a coach, management also focuses the knowledge worker's attention on the work at hand, in part by handling logistics, resource allocation, and conducting other activities that could distract or even demoralize the knowledge workers.

EXHIBIT 3.7. EXHIBIT 3.8

As illustrated in Exhibit 3.8, because management is involved in information and complexity hiding, the knowledge worker's view of the project is necessarily limited to coworkers and direct reporting management.

Because management acts as a knowledge gatekeeper, a knowledge worker may not know, for example, what components of the project are outsourced and which ones are provided in-house, and may have very little idea of senior management's strategy (see Exhibit 3.9).

At issue is how a KM initiative should change the role of managers as information gatekeepers. Although there are exceptions, it's naïve to believe that knowledge workers can manage themselves, especially if they are involved in decisions that have ramifications outside of ...