The move to a new economy takes managers on a journey. It’s a voyage that begins with technology and leads inexorably to trust. If that pairing sounds paradoxical, it is because the new economy is founded on paradox.
The logic goes like this: the revolution in information and communications technologies makes knowledge the new competitive resource. But knowledge only flows through the technology; it actually resides in people—in knowledge workers and the organizations they inhabit. In the new economy, then, the manager’s job is to create an environment that allows knowledge workers to learn—from their own experience, from each other, and from customers, suppliers, and business partners.
The chief management tool that makes that learning happen is conversation. But the work of conversation introduces its own twist: it brings the character of the individual to the foreground of the work-place. If the job of the manager in the new economy is to eliminate fear, foster trust, and facilitate the working conversations that create new knowledge, then the authenticity, integrity, and identity of the individual turn out to be the most critical managerial assets.
Even as it sweeps away old assumptions about management and work, the new economy brings to center stage age-old human virtues and truths. The ultimate paradox of the new economy may be that it is not so new after all.
… In the end, the location of the new economy is not in the technology, be it the microchip or the global telecommunications network. It is in the human mind.