The closing case discusses the role of technology in today's workplace. "Watson," a cognitive computing system that can handle complex problems in which there is ambiguity and uncertainty and draw inferences from data in a way that mimics the human brain, is used as an example to show how technology is being used to augment the skills of knowledge workers. Watson is helping doctors treat leukemia at the University of Texas's M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Watson is being used for its capacity to make sense of so-called big datamountains of information that is too large for a traditional database and query system to deal withand its ability to process information in one second what would take people years to process. However, as the case details, in many instances, rather than being used to augment the skills of workers, the advancement of technology is causing a shift in job displacement in that many workerseven those in high-level positions, such as lawyersare being replaced altogether.

• Consider the definition of knowledge workers in the text: "workers whose contributions to an organization are based on what they know." In what sense might just about any employee qualify as a "knowledge worker"? For example, what qualifies as "knowledge" in an organization's operational activities (i.e., in the work of creating its products and services)? What's the advantage to an organization regarding all employees as knowledge workers?

Think of a few jobs in which the application of human-relationship skills" is importanteven absolutely necessary. Explain why these jobs require more than just decision-making skills. How about you? Does the job that you want require good human-relationship skills? Does your human-relationship skills need some improvement? What sort of things can you do to improve them?

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