A manager knocks on the door of a glass walled meeting room. Inside, four people are sat around a table, while the rest seem uninterested by his prescence. conducting a meeting without him. One looks over their shoulder at the door

Sidelined: Organisational professionals who share too much knowledge risk being replaced

Professionals working in functions such as HR, quality, and finance play a vital role in the success of any organisation. Yet they do not always receive the recognition they deserve.

On the contrary, those who serve other professions within the organisation too efficiently may inadvertently jeopardise their position and their prospects of progression.

This was particularly true for ‘organisational professionals’ who are involved in developing new initiatives, only to be side-lined after sharing their expertise.

Together with Graeme Currie, from Warwick Business School, and Saku Mantere, at McGill University, I explored the role of quality managers in 12 Italian hospitals as they supported the implementation of integrated care pathways.

We found that those who were too willing to share their knowledge risked becoming replaceable once they had taught clinicians how to perform key tasks themselves.

Replacing these managers could also have negative consequences for the organisation, as clinicians became overburdened with new responsibilities and services became less effective and efficient.

However, our research also identified five steps that ‘organisational professionals’ can take to avoid this fate and cement their position as a vital part of the organisation’s structure.

1 Be aware of the risks

A good starting point is for professionals to understand the potential for elements of their job to be consumed by their internal clients.

Our study found that quality managers who tried too hard to impress and help clinicians were temporarily successful in triggering change.

However, after a while they were treated as subservient and at risk of being replaced.

Recognising the risks means professionals can adapt accordingly. For instance, we found that quality managers would avoid sitting on the same table as executives and clinicians simultaneously, because that could lead to them sharing information with both parties and weakening their own position.

2 Develop a strategy

Armed with this knowledge, organisational professionals can consider their response.

We identified two possible strategies to avoid blithely handing over knowledge to colleagues until they become replaceable. Professionals must pick one or the other if they are to be successful.

The first was a ‘selfless strategy’, where quality managers built their knowledge through conversations with executives and clinicians, combined that with their own operational expertise, and shared the resulting insights with others.

These ‘selfless’ professionals deliberately co-produced integrated care initiatives with clinicians and executives to impress them, as well as to train them to eventually take over some responsibilities.

But, in return, they expected to be rewarded with opportunities in different parts of the organisation.

In some cases, they would outline this in email templates that served as pseudo-contracts. These clarified what clinicians could expect from them in terms of contribution, time, and outcomes.

They also outlined the professionals’ expectations for further access and recognition elsewhere in return. One template read: “If you don’t agree, we don’t start.”

The alternative is what we called the ‘selfish strategy’. Here, quality managers acted more as internal consultants, helping to deliver an innovative service without handing over valuable knowledge to executives and clinicians.

These ‘selfish’ managers avoided co-producing initiatives, working in the privacy of their offices and only showing the results of the labour. Some reported that they wanted to maintain a degree of ‘mystery’ regarding their work so nobody could imitate or ‘steal’ elements of their ‘craft’.

In this model, they remained in charge, rather than delegating responsibility to clinicians.

They also protected themselves against being marginalised by approaching executives to develop new opportunities alongside existing projects, rather than waiting for clinicians to vouch for them.

3 Carve out a unique position

Organisational professionals need to increase their interactions with others, else there is a risk of becoming invisible in the organisation or being reduced to clerical or technical workers, called in for occasional and menial tasks.

In our study, we noted how several quality managers unintentionally isolated themselves from decision makers by locking themselves in their office to perform their demanding tasks, such as preparing for clinical accreditation, processing measurement data or reviewing quality standards. As a result, they were easy to overlook.

The more successful quality managers instead exploited their unique middle management position to interact with executives and clinicians on a daily basis. They worked to become involved in observations, meetings, and events where they could do ‘something’ for the executives and the clinicians, even if that involved going beyond their job description.

In doing so, they exploited the opportunity to interact with the executives more frequently and closely than clinicians could afford.

At the same time, they were able to interact with clinical departments on a level the executives could not.

In other words, they could ‘see’ the organisation from a unique standpoint, bringing insights to executives that clinicians could not provide, and vice versa.

The ‘selfish’ managers instead used this unique position to act as buffer between executives and clinicians, presenting themselves as the solution to each other’s problems, rather than facilitating a direct conversation. They then expected to be rewarded for their ability to integrate executives and clinicians.

However, to achieve this, they must consciously promote the value they generate for the organisation, to ensure colleagues are aware of this.

4 Build new organisational knowledge

The survival of professional workers depends on their possession of a unique knowledge base that others cannot replace. Cardiologists for instance could not be replaced by other professionals as they have a monopoly on the expert knowledge required to diagnose and treat heart failures.

We noted that quality managers could not simply use the expert knowledge in their specialist domain as leverage. Rather, they had to build a new organisational knowledge, which blended this pre-existing expertise of quality management with contextual knowledge acquired from their interactions with executives and clinicians.

This blend of knowledge helped them to develop innovative solutions; and to speak the language of different stakeholders. It also helped them to display an ability to quickly and effectively acquire contextual knowledge from parts of the organisation that executives and clinicians would struggle to access by themselves.

In our study, quality managers invested time completing extra work for both executives and clinicians, even if that meant low-level activities such as organising meetings or taking notes. 

This exposes them to the inner workings of the organisation and, if replicated across different departments, can help them develop a unique understanding of how things work and why.

5 Maintain an alternative identity

In hospitals, a lack of clinical knowledge has traditionally been seen as a drawback for organisational professionals. Operations and quality managers, in particular, could be perceived as intruders who try to influence change in ways that are compatible with managerial norms of efficiency and compliance, but incompatible with clinical norms of effectiveness.

We found that quality managers often tried to assimilate the identity, language and values of clinicians, in order to appear safer and more friendly. Yet, we found that this was not an effective strategy.

On the contrary, those quality managers that promoted their identity as operations managers were more effective in conversations with clinicians. They appeared more assertive in promoting their unique value in projects of integrated care, while not posing any competitive challenge to clinicians.

Avoid being replaced by AI

Our study highlights that successful organisational professionals did not try to compete with executives and clinicians; nor did they try to completely align with them. Instead, they created a unique position and knowledge base which others found appealing and were unable to replicate.

These insights don’t just help organisational professionals safeguard their roles from being delegated to others; it can also provide some protection from AI encroaching upon their jobs.

On the face of it, AI has the potential to take over a range of activities that are currently performed by organisational professionals, which could lead to some roles being made redundant.

But those professionals who can develop more organisational knowledge, build relationships internally, and forge connections that help the organisation to function are much less likely to find themselves replaced by new technology.

AI could even help these organisational professionals, by taking over some of their more mundane roles and freeing up time to help them focus on more relational activities.

They should not be afraid of AI, but should look to embrace it.  It might just help them keep their job and enhance their stature within their organisation.

Further reading:

Who will benefit from AI in the workplace and who will lose out?

How to build and manage a better hybrid team

Why don't more women reach the boardroom?

Can joy improve our performance at work?

 

Giovanni Radaelli is Associate Professor (Reader) of Operations Management. He teaches Operations Management on the Global Online MBA and Global Online MBA (London). He also teaches Business Operations Consulting on the MSc International Business, MSc Business with Operations Management, MSc Business with Consulting, and the MSc Business with Marketing.

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