A week ago I attended the Women In Technology event ‘The Business Value of Social Media’ to see my friend Eileen Brown speak on exploiting social media. Women In Technology have a strong interest in both family-friendly work practices as well as knowledge economy trends. As a bonus, Euan Semple also spoke covering a range of business benefits to social media. The highlight of the evening for me was the quote on his slide by Peter Drucker…

“In the knowledge economy everyone is a volunteer, but we have trained our managers to manage conscripts.”

This insight gets at the heart of Dynamic Work and its productivity benefits. Many companies I speak recoil at the thought of more flexible work practices because they look at their workforce through the lens that everyone is a conscript. They think that as long as you keep and eye on everyone’s activity and crack the whip, the people should feel lucky to have a job and everything will go smoothly.

What that naive presumption misses is how much variation in work output and quality one can manifest in a knowledge worker role without a sign. In short, the unmotivated knowledge workers can hit your business where the marks won’t show. If you someone digging ditches or hammering rivets, then it is quite obvious when a slacker is not throwing dirt or cracking a girder. But it you are processing information, creating content, using systems, solving problems, writing code, then the most observant manager in the world can’t really tell the difference between a diligent worker beavering away from an indolent daydreamer staring blankly at their screen.

And for the more proactively unproductive, there are tools and technologies to help them be even more delinquent. My favourite is CBS Sport’s March Madness’ ‘Boss Button’.

The issue is sort of the converse of the ‘Quality Time’ which is about creating the Dynamic Work environment which does maximise the true productivity. ‘Boss Button’ is about the futility of trying to minimise the loss of productivity through conventional methods in the knowledge economy.

It’s not just the businesses that pay a price for commuting with their extended carbon footprint, lost hours and energy for staff, exposure to disruption from travel delays, etc. But, obviously, the workers pay a huge price. It’s not just the idle time spent time sitting on carbon monoxide filled tarmac. But the very financial costs of ‘Transportation’ is now both the fastest growing part of the household budget and the second biggest behind only ‘Housing’. The graph above comes from the Alltop post “Consumer spending changes over 100 years” (thanks again Hugh)

When I worked at Microsoft, some of the more cynical managers tutted some of the work-from-home practices as ‘shirk from home.’ Curiously, the sincere sentiment among the staff was that home was often the only place where quality work got done. Staff came into the office to show face and attend internal meetings which chopped up the day so only slices of time were left for the most basic transactional activity like batting back urgent emails. But everyone knew that come performance review time no one was going to get a high rating for great meeting attendance and email responding. At the heart of every job was a role that required serious thought, insight and creative output. And the consensus seemed to be that this often got done when one was able to clear a day of distractions, steer clear of the office chock full of distractions and sit down and concentrate.

This week, Dilbert author Scott Adams reflected on this creative dynamic…

“People often ask how I get into the writing frame of mind. To me, it feels like being the night watchman in a museum. My job is to make sure all the doors are locked, and the blinds are pulled, and the lights are out. As a writer, you need to shut out all of the distractions from your other senses. I make sure I'm not hungry, tired, uncomfortable, or listening to anything. Then, like the night watchman, I go room by room with my flashlight until something scares me, surprises me, or makes me laugh. I have to feel something. And when I do, that's the part I keep. Then I wrap up the inspiring words in ordinary words, to form sentences. That part is more craft than art. Writers tend to work early in the morning, or late at night, when brains are naturally able to focus deeply on one thought. In the middle of the day, distractions are unavoidable. I wonder if anything worthwhile has ever been written in the afternoon.”

I shared this reflection with friend and creativity guru Hugh MacLeod and he concurred with the sentiment completely. His comment on Adams’ insight was, “I know this one…. Explains why Hemingway always got sloshed in the afternoons…”

Dynamic Work is a way for staff to align the right work environment with the work at hand. For most roles in modern business, this work is quite diverse and a conventional one-size-fits-all office space simply can’t serve all needs best.