“The most important, and indeed the truly unique, contribution of management in the 20th Century was the fifty-fold increase in the productivity of the MANUAL WORKER in manufacturing. The most important contribution management needs to make in the 21st Century is similarly to increase the productivity of KNOWLEDGE WORK and the KNOWLEDGE WORKER.”

The ORCA Partnership is a group of business professionals who exhibit a high level of ability not only in their core area of expertise but also show adaptability and the skills necessary to analyze a multitude of situations. We are lifelong learners able to expertly navigate the waters of the business world. We in essence are knowledge workers in the truest sense of the word.

Peter Drucker (1999, p142) describes six major factors determining knowledge worker productivity.

1. “Knowledge worker productivity demands that we ask the question: “What is the task?”
2. It demands that we impose the responsibility for their productivity on the individual knowledge workers themselves. Knowledge workers have to manage themselves. They have to have autonomy.
3. Continuing innovation has to be part of the work, the task and the responsibility of knowledge workers.
4. Knowledge work requires continuous learning on the part of the knowledge worker, but equally continuous teaching on the part of the knowledge worker.
5. Productivity of the knowledge worker is not – at least not primarily – a matter of the quantity of output. Quality is at least as important.
6. Finally, knowledge worker productivity requires that the knowledge worker is both seen and treated as an ‘asset’ rather than a ‘cost’. It requires that knowledge workers want to work for the organization in preference to all other opportunities.”