I read – and highly recommend – Garry Kasparov’s book How Life Imitates Chess a couple of years ago, and am thinking I should pick it back up again. If not to read in its entirety, then at least to skim through my dog-ears and margin notes. There are a lot of good insights into the nature of work today, especially what we call knowledge-work.
For example, Jack Vinson’s (@jackvinson) recent post Some qualities of a knowledge worker reminded me of the following excerpt:
Knowing a solution is at hand is a huge advantage; it’s like not having a “none of the above” option. Anyone with reasonable competence and adequate resources can solve a puzzle when it is presented as something to be solved. We can skip the subtle evaluations and move directly to plugging in possible solutions until we hit upon a promising one. Uncertainty is far more challenging. Instead of immediately looking for solutions to the crisis, we have to maintain a constant state of asking, “Is there a crisis* forming?”
Solving a puzzle that you know has a solution may require knowledge, but it is knowledge that already exists. Figuring out if there is a solution to a problem, or even if there is a problem at all, requires the manipulation of existing knowledge, the gathering of new knowledge / information, and the creation of something new.
This is when knowledge work becomes art.
no straight lines 
“This is when knowledge work becomes art.”
…or science.
The approach you mention applies to both art and science.
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Bill,
There is a definite science to knowledge work, and I actually debated whether to refer to the science of knowledge work along with – or instead of – the art. In my mind was a quote I’ve seen attributed to da Vinci: Study the science of art and the art of science.
I can’t really tell you why I went with the art, except that “work as art” is a theme I’ve been exploring on this blog.
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