A world Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload

part 2, the benefits of Devesh’s workflow transformation are the rule,
not the exception. This makes sense once we take a closer look at my
use of the assembly line analogy. My goal in pointing to Henry Ford
is not to highlight the effectiveness of the specific manner in which
his workers built automobiles, as there are few useful connections
between, say, assembling a magneto and designing a marketing
strategy. It’s instead to point out the power of experimenting with
different ways of deploying capital—a process that differs greatly
between the industrial and knowledge sectors. As Peter Drucker
established, in knowledge work you must maintain skilled workers’
autonomy in how they actually apply their craft. The attention capital
principle asks you to experiment instead with the workflows that
structure how this work is assigned and reviewed. The goal of these
changes is to make it both easier and more sustainable for the
knowledge worker to actually accomplish important things, not to
coerce them into doing more things, faster—a strategy that’s unlikely
to succeed in the long term when dealing with cognitively demanding
work.
Henry Ford took radical steps to rethink how to get more out of
his factory equipment. Knowledge work leaders need to take radical
steps to get more out of the human brains they deploy. But this
analogy need go no further. In Ford’s world, the workers were
dispensable, while in the knowledge world, our brains are the source
of all value. If anything, the hyperactive hive mind already has us
trapped in a digital Modern Times, futilely trying to keep up with
email messages that arrive faster and faster. The attention capital
principle can help us move past this misery.

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When Implementing Changes, Seek Partners, Not