21st Century Organization - Knowledge Centric Organization

In the picture that Lowell L. Bryan and Claudia Joyce have painted of the 21st-century organization, in their article of the same title, they clearly are oriented big time towards collaborative work processes and knowledge creation and exchange. They talk about the need for bbig corporations to make sweeping organizational changes to get the best from their professionals and go on to say that there need to be four broad initiatives – (Verbatim)

1.      Streamlining and simplifying vertical and line-management structures by discarding failed matrix and ad hoc approaches and narrowing the scope of the line manager's role to the creation of current earnings

2.      Deploying off-line teams to discover new wealth-creating opportunities while using a dynamic management process to resolve short- and long-term trade-offs

3.      Developing knowledge marketplaces, talent marketplaces, and formal networks to stimulate the creation and exchange of intangibles

4.      Relying on measurements of performance rather than supervision to get the most from self-directed professionals

There is repeated emphasis (in the article) on creating an organization where it is easy for people to find knowledge, find other people in their capacity as sources of knowledge, make it easy to share and work together (collaborate) and network.

What ho! I have this strange feeling that my head is no more associated with its local roots….it has gone swimming and not just because of the state of my health right now. I guess KM has been emphasized enough by almost every top Business School Publication as well as Consulting Firms I know of. But is it all falling on deaf ears? The writing seems to be on the wall all right. But are people (CXOs and Business Managers) blind? How long will this school of thought continue to scream from roof-tops? Will there indeed be sweeping changes in organizations? Or will this whole thing die out very soon on the assumption that all the screaming results in sore throats and nothing much else? Or is it that this wave will take much longer than one would like it to? Is it an evolution that demands more time than expected? Well, to avoid painting too bleak a picture, I must say that it looks like Jeff Immelt is doing a lot to turn GE upside down and make it focus on creativity and collaboration rather than profits and operating costs. Will GE lead the way yet again but this time on a philosophy that goes against the bottom-line centric approach? Only time will tell. For now, I feel we now need more people inside organizations to pass on the knowledge-centric thought-leadership emerging from all these (Wharton, Harvard, McKinsey, Kellogs etc) think tanks.