Let's start with a few suppositions.  First, many of us work in either the information economy or the service economy.  That means we deal with people or information, not machines.  Second, most of us are "knowledge workers" - that is, we add value through our knowledge rather than through our muscles.  So, a logical conclusion is that a knowledge worker should have the information to operate without a lot of oversight, since he or she knows the job, the effort required and has the information or knowledge to accomplish it.

 

So, what's a manager to do in this situation?  If we were in a Tayloristic era, we'd say that a manager issued orders to people that the manager ensured were carried out, according to some guidelines about the amount of time necessary to complete the work.  Taylor is the father of scientific management, but his methods seem a little heavy handed in a knowledge economy.  If people know their responsibilities, understand their roles and have the knowledge necessary to add value to the product or process, what value does a manager add?

 

I think in the modern economy, a manager can add at least three valuable attributes:  translation, clarity and resolution.  Let's drill down into each just briefly...

Read more here: http://workingsmarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/04/whats_a_manager.html