IT#4 Brain, glia cells and the difference between an industrial and knowledge worker
#KnowledgeEconomy #DiscoveryEconomy #ITManagement #Management #Neurophysiology
This article explains the difference between an industrial and knowledge worker, based on human anatomy and neurophysiology, and how it impacts knowledge organizations management.
In 60-x of the 20th Century the father of the American Corporate management Peter F. Drucker noticed that there are new workers, with whom the old methods of the industrial age management, don't' work. He called them “knowledge workers”1. Now we usually call them engineers.
Despite such an insight from management gurus, all the labor legislation comes from the 19th or early 20th century and represents the norms established for the Industrial Age. And many companies try to apply the Industrial Age practices when managing knowledge workers. Let's see why this is a big mistake that costs money, bad attrition and failing projects.
To begin with, what do you think is the biggest difference between the Industrial economy and the Knowledge economy? If you say “knowledge”, you'd be correct. But what does it mean?
In the industrial economy the knowledge how to produce a certain thing fits into a single human brain. Basically, the master a.k.a. manager knows what to do, and the workers are essentially muscles, who do whatever the master says to do.
In the knowledge economy, master or manager does not really know how to produce the thing. The knowledge is just too large to fit into a single human brain. And so it has to be distributed between the workers.
This is critical. Knowledge economy is not produced by socialists or Russia or Trump. Knowledge economy happened because the knowledge to produce a product, a service or a component does not fit into a single human brain. That's it. There is no conspiracy, there is no people who decided to make it happen. It did not happened as a legislative thing for which the Congress and the Senate have voted for. It happened as a physical law, because that's how the Universe works. The knowledge to make an iPhone or even a single chip in iPhone does not fit into a single human brain. And because of that we need to manage people differently and our social order has to adapt. Period.
But why is this the key and why is this so important? Because when the knowledge ownership comes from a master to employees, they have to start using their brains instead of the muscles.
When you have to run away from a lion…
Let's start from similarities. Both muscles and brain can work in a sort of overclocked mode, when they consume glucose and oxygen faster than the blood can bring to them. In both cases this is needed in emergencies. For example, when your ancestors in an African Savannah needed to run away from a lion. With both muscles and brain it's not an option to just drop dead, since then you'd be literally dead, as a lion's dinner.
Other than that muscles and brain are very different organs, so what worked with one often does not work with another. And one difference is principal:
Muscles can work in overclocked mode for about 2 minutes, just to get away from a lion. In sport this is called sprint. If you try to make muscles work in overclocked mode longer, they refuse to do so.
Brain can work in overclocked mode for about two hours. If you want your brain to work in overclocked mode longer, brain cells start to die.
As a result, most jobs in the industrial economy use muscles in the normal aerobic way. There is simply not much economic advantage in using a worker for two minutes when waiting for the recovery.
In the knowledge economy brains effectively almost always are used in an overclocked mode, since this is the nature of the tasks in the knowledge economy, They are just too hard to solve in the normal mode.
Just in case you want the details, here they are. Otherwise, skip.
How muscles work at work?
Muscles have two modes of work: aerobic and anaerobic. Normally muscles are used in aerobic mode, but if you need to get away from a predator, anaerobic mode is available. It happens if muscles consume more oxygen and glucose then the blood can carry to them in time. They switch to oxygen-less mode called anaerobic glycolysis. Anaerobic mode for muscles is available for a very short time up to 2 minutes only. Anaerobic mode is an ancient way to metabolize glucose. It's normally used by primitive bacteria and some fungus.
A classic example of it is brewing alcohol. Yeast is simply not capable of utilizing all the energy from glucose and converting it to water and CO2, like human body does. It just gets some energy and leaves the leftover molecules, which still has a lot of energy. In case of yeasts this leftover is an alcohol, C2H5(OH).
Looks like a perfect thing, you just run for a short distance, but very fast, and you are drunk like after a few shots of whiskey… Tough luck. In human body anaerobic mode produces lactate (lactic acid). This is one of the reasons why you can use it only for two minutes at a time and why you have sore muscles after a tough training. But, hey, if you need to run from a lion, it's better to be sore than sorry. Or eaten.
Anaerobic mode in muscles is also very fast but very inefficient way to get energy from glucose. It gets only 2 molecules of ATF per a glucose molecule instead of 38 in a normal way. And again, short term. After about 2 minutes your muscles will just stop working.
Can you do more? In professional training, sort of yes. By making breaks with the aerobic mode to replenish glucose and get rid of same lactate. That's what bodybuilders do, since after that muscle cells start to accumulate more glycogen, a highly branched polysaccharide made up of glucose molecules. Muscles cells bloated with glycogen is what we see looking at body builders. But normally, just 2 minutes.
Because of this, very short time muscles can work in anaerobic mode, and inability to make that time any longer, all industrial Age workers exist in an aerobic mode. And in this mode muscles can work for a very long time. For example, 8 hours straight.
How brains work?
The brains, including human brains, are designed to work in a slow mode. Well, not so slow, but sufficient for everyday life like playing with kids, reading a book, relaxing with friends. In an emergency they are also designed to work in a pulse mode, sort of like overclocked CPU does. But they don't have anaerobic mode. When there is not enough glucose or oxygen, brain cells die. Period.
Alas, human (and mammal) life is full of stress. So the brain also have an “overclock mode”, when it functions faster than normal and consumes oxygen and glucose faster than blood can bring to it.
How is it possible? Neurons don't get oxygen and glucose straight from the blood. Instead there are special glia cells called astrocytes that connect to capillaries and accumulate oxygen and glucose in advance. And these cells feed neurons from the reserves as needed. This is also called blood-brain barrier, since it also filters from poisons and also some useful drugs that your doctor wants to deliver into your brain.
By Ben Brahim Mohammed - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12263975
The problem is that those glia cells cannot accumulate too much. So, normally they have a reserve for about two hours of overclocked mode. That is the mode when neurons need more oxygen and glucose than blood can carry in. That's where that two hour limitations comes from. You push you brain longer, your brain cells start to die.
For those extremely interested, astrocytes themselves can live no more than 4 hours of glucose and oxygen deprivation1, despite their reserves, so naturally, they stop feeding neurons long before that.
So what?
Legally all developed countries has a mandatory 8 hour limited work days. But it came from the industrial age, when muscles were used. The knowledge society uses brains.
We are all still half monkeys from the African Savannah, and our reasonable brain load is to notice a jaguar in bushes, find a fruit on a tree, or get a partner to make more little monkeys. Unfortunately, we a not monkeys anymore. Science and technology development force us to solve the tasks which cannot be solved in a slow brain mode. So, in the knowledge economy our brains cannot work straight for 8 hours. Two hours is our max, then we need a break.
This is why every office has a water cooler and a coffee machine. This is why Google has nap rooms. This is why Netflix successfully employs a policy “Work as you like, just do your job!”
Can you imagine water cooler chats on a factory floor of a Ford sweatshop in the early 20th Century? Of course, no! Muscles can work for 8 hours straight, brains cannot.
And this is not something that comes from people's initiative. This is just a reality. It comes from physical laws, human physiology and the realities of our economy. And when reality forces something, even HR (sort of corporate KGB) has to yield
So, the 8 hours work day is a thing of the past. It's good that we have it in legislation, but it's time for more. What specifically? I don't know yet, but it's not enough. We already have massive cases of a burnout, which WHO is considered a legitimate disability. We already have alcoholism, drugs and tranquilizers in large IT companies (ever heard of EAP programs?). We really need to change the management in the Knowledge Economy, and if needed, laws regulating it, if the industry won't be able to self-regulate.
Of course, that's not all. More will come in future posts like “Predatory management” of "Why hierarchical management cannot handle a knowledge company”. But this will come later.
1 Landmarks of tomorrow Hardcover by Peter F. Drucker – January 1, 1959
Comments
Post a Comment