Traditional downsizing doesn’t work anymore because the nature of work has changed. Knowledge work has replaced industrial work, and the two kinds of work are as different from each other as the work in the industrial economy was from work in the agricultural economy it
replaced 100 years ago. What’s valuable now is the information in people’s heads rather than the labor of their hands.
This dramatic change cuts across all levels of an organization and requires a new kind of management thinking, summarized in Table 1-1.
Industrial Work | Knowledge Work | |
Management Style | Command and control | Dialogue and empowerment |
Skills and Competencies | Physical | Intellectual |
Labor Market Conditions | Ample supply of | Scarce supplies of low-wage labor expensive labor |
Employee Investment | Low | High |