American
businesses have steadily off-shored and automated manufacturing activities to
reduce costs and increase flexibility. As a result, the face of the U.S. labor
force has changed. It has increasingly become a world of “transactions.” And,
within 10 years, nearly half of all employees in the United States will be
involved in transaction-intensive work. Meanwhile, Europe and Japan will
experience a similar change.
The
McKinsey Quarterly1refers to this type
of transactional work as “tacit interactions.” These interactions involve
exchanging information, and drawing on knowledge in exchanges with co-workers,
customers, and suppliers. The best workers in this context are those who can
collaborate effectively with others, and can create a web of relationships in
an atmosphere of trust and continuous learning.
The
problem facing most businesses these days is how to focus tacit interactions on
creating value and ensure that employees who engage in them have the right
information and context in which to operate. This involves changing the way
companies organize themselves, generate new strategies, and manage talent and
information technology.
The
traditional strategies for improving efficiency — such as standardizing the
steps in a process — won’t work with tacit transactions. Instead, leaders will
have to find ways to boost an individual worker’s effectiveness. That, in
turn, enables the firm to build unique pools of talent that competitors will
find impossible to imitate.
Tacit
interactions are nothing new. In the insurance industry, for example, they
make up 63 percent of the work. In securities, the proportion is 60 percent.
In healthcare it’s 70 percent, and in retailing, 40 percent. Other workers
engaged primarily in tacit interactions include:
- Software engineers at corporations such
as Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo.
- Managers of manufacturing at companies
like Cisco, who have to coordinate the interactions among the sales force, the
suppliers, and the manufacturers.
- The managers of funds at firms such as
Blackstone and Fidelity Investments.
- Doctors and nurses at...
