University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Minds at Work
Book

Minds at Work

Managing for Success in the Knowledge Economy

David Grebow and Stephen J. Gill
ATD, 2017
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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Well Structured
  • Concrete Examples
  • For Beginners

Recommendation

Speakers and coaches David Grebow and Stephen J. Gill provide a brief, solid overview of why organizations must adapt so they can offer learning in a faster, more disruptive business environment and how modern management practices can help them do so. Aside from inventing some new terms, the authors are informative, not original. Their solutions are mostly common knowledge today, but they excel when they describe the learning culture modern organizations must adopt: technology-enabled, self-directed, online, social, outcomes-oriented, and measurable through analytics. Executives not directly involved in learning or newcomers to organizational learning will gain the most from this concise, nonprescriptive overview of how to implement a learning culture.

Summary

Organizations should adapt to widespread change by updating their management beliefs and practices.

Work that emphasized physical labor over thought dominated the global economy for millennia. Thus, “managing hands” became a science – the science of management. In about 1980, the economy shifted. Workers used their minds more than their hands. The manufacturing economy became a service economy and then an information-based economy. Today, workers and organizations compete in a knowledge economy. Individual and collective mind power are any firm’s greatest assets and capabilities. Most organizations remain in 20th-century, command-and-control operating styles. They manage hands, not minds. Schools with MBA programs still focus on traditional management practices. Firms that focus on hands tend to fail in a fast-paced, ever-changing and interconnected world. The minority – those who manage minds – thrive all over the world. They place learning at the forefront of their strategy.   

Training should come as you need it, when you need it and in the flow...

About the Authors

Speakers and coaches David Grebow and Stephen Gill run separate organizations focused on modern workplace learning.

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