Creating a Knowledge-Friendly Culture Managers have not often focused on building cultures, and when they have, their approach has often been to reinforce the existing corporate culture. But knowledge work managers need to build company cultures that are in accordance with what knowledge workers want, or they will leave. The knowledge-worker culture is also a communal one. Managers must work jointly with workers to create a communal sense of purpose and vision. Knowledge workers don't want to work toward a goal because someone else has set it, but rather because they believe that it's right.
Most knowledge workers have a justifiable antipathy for bureaucracy.
They would like to be able to do their work without excessive rules, policies, or formal processes. Many organizations, however, strive to control knowledge workers by implementing these very strictures. They kept high-achieving knowledge workers happy and productive by removing barriers and giving the bureaucracy what it needed with minimal bother. If a good knowledge worker is hard to find, a good knowledge -work manager is even harder. And knowledge workers know it.