What exactly is a knowledge based worker? I asked myself the first time I read it.Definition:
If you earn your primary living by gathering and processing information into knowledge and applying this knowledge to the world around you, then you are a knowledge worker. Welcome to the overloaded world!
I realized that I am someone who receives and gathers large amounts of information, then processes it into knowledge, to be wisely applied in any number of circumstances. I pondered how much information I process, distill, apply:
- For every class I teach for our weekly Thursday morning Mom's Bible Study.
- For my own marriage and parenting skills I listen to CD's, read books, and attend a Wednesday morning Women's Bible study.
- For every book I write, I read dozens of other books, as well as process hours and hours of feedback from the students who take the training courses and the instructors who teach them.
- For every class I take in my PhD studies, I read thousands of pages of information, distilling it into knowledge to create new workshops, new editions to existing publications, and numerous teaching opportunities.
Yes. I am clearly a knowledge based worker.
And I have been feeling very overwhelmed by the growing piles of paper on my desk, in my Inbox, on my hard drive, and on my shelves (I can relate to that poor, overloaded burro!).
I needed help and God provided me with just what I needed through Baha and Margaret Habashy's book (2004) Overloaded? From overload to balanced living, taking control of work and information overload. (see link below to view book on amazon.com) (Baha is the brother of Safwat Habashi, our good friends from Memorial Park Church). As I worked through this book, it has been invaluable to be able to name what I do for a living, recognizing it as part of the Information Age we now live in. One extremely novel approach Habashy suggests in his book is to define your job not on what you do but by what we are expected to BE, since we are Human Beings, not Human Doings.
"As we are called 'human beings' our success on the stage is highly dependent on the ability to embody the character we are to be. Our success is directly related to our ability to communicate the attitudes and the values of the person we are expected to be. Our effectiveness is impacted more by the soft skils we are expected to demonstrate than by our knowledge or competencies."
(Habashy 2004, page 35).
This is very confrontational for a knowledge worker like me who may well pride myself on what I know....
Habashy guides you with templates to actually list the 5 or so most important roles you play both at work and home and then to describe who you should be in each role with 5 adjectives. By way of example, one of my roles is Missionary. Here is how I described who I should be in that role:
· Communicative through blogs, newsletters, monthly prayer requests
· Hard-working
· Honest in all I do and say that I do and in how I invest the donations I receive
· Bi-cultural in that I communicate with and serve both Latins and NOrth Americans as God gives me opportunity (CCI/Latin America, work teams, children's school, local church, etc. )
· Accountable to God, Alfredo, my boss, Robert, the rest of the staff, LAM and my supporting churches in Pittsburgh and supporters.
As I define my roles, this helps me gather, filter and process the wealth of information that is available in growing quantities in today's Information Age.
Tell me, what devices, means, tricks, or skills have you discovered to deal with the glut of information on-line, displayed all around us in ads, magazines, books, and on-screen?
