Time to Revisit Human Systems

As we transition into Industry 4.0, the focus of organisations is skewed heavily towards technological systems. Then again, it has been skewed as such since the First Industrial Revolution. And the most important ingredients in organisations, the constituents, the humans, have by far too often been overlooked, ignored or neglected.

Approach Towards Human Systems So Far

Organisations, even when and where, if, devoid of all things technological or technical or mechanical, are systems in and of themselves, coming about as the sum of the constituent human beings that form those organisations and their dynamic interactions. This has been recognized so far in developments of two fields, largely, of interest to theorists and academics yet; Human Systems Engineering and Human Systems Intervention.

No matter the technological resource at its disposal, an organisation is only as good and effective, as the collection of its people. How technological systems have been evolving in organisations is rather blatantly clear to us today.How the Human Systems have been evolving is a topic that perhaps has not even been talked about enough. And where it has been talked about, it has only, to too far an extent, only been talked about mostly.

Learning Organisations

In The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge pushed the idea of Learning Organisations. Beyond theory, concept or hypothesis, the Learning Organisation model, reflects the necessary norm by which organisations need to operate, to optimally be beneficial to all stakeholders. When Senge's book was released, the "Learning Organisation" became "THE FAD" in conversations around the world, be it in board rooms, industry conferences, training workshops or university halls. 10 years on, today, how many organisations can you actually think of, that in true actuality, reflect or emulate "Learning Organisations" as conceptually tabled with detailed characteristics listed in Senge's book (if you have read the book)? It becomes a challenge isn't it? We have talked about it, but how much has been done?

Holacracy

While the credit for the coining of the term and description in practice, along with genuine efforts to bring Holacracy into practice goes to Ternary Software and its Founder Brian Robertson, its details actually reflect, probably, the best case for what raw objective democracy should look like, at its very best. In short, someone should have thought of it far earlier, for shaping of or for governing organisations.

While the term and the hype around Holacracy are rather new, just try to think of any organisation you can name today, that is likely to embrace it, for what it is.

The Hard Truth

The problem is with human evolution. Since we learnt to survive as hunters-gatherers, we have been about competition, without and within our systems, constantly struggling, fighting, scheming, politicking and conspiring to either raise our own individual positions or to maintain them. This has pre-dated the system of monarchy, probably. It has transcended the system of monarchy, if you consider the caste system. We have seen it in the feudal system. And now, in the present age, even where we live in democracies, in all honesty, we are still there, where the hunters-gatherers were.

Technologically, we are worlds away from where we were thousands of years ago. We have accumulated seemingly endless written content on paper and in cyberspace. We have developed systems of educational degrees. Since we learnt to survive as hunters and gatherers, till the present day, as human beings, we have not evolved, actually. And that stops Human Systems from evolving. Or rather, the desire, not to allow human evolution, whether conscious, subconscious or unconscious, prevents us, from allowing the evolution of Human Systems to happen. That is because if Human Systems evolve, we as individuals may be driven to evolve too.

We have burnt forests, to build concrete jungles. We are still living by the law of the jungle; the survival of the fittest. If not physically, then mentally. Consider the evidence. We tell each other, that we have overcome racism, sexism, ageism and all sorts of other discrimination, but really, if you scour the daily worldwide news on Google each morning, you will find that all these things persist. Even if there is some improvement, or even significant improvement, where certain types of bias or prejudice are concerned, society has just seen both just take new forms with time. Bias and prejudice are convenient tools for divisions, segregation, discrimination, dis-empowerment, glass ceilings, politics and acrimony. Consciously, subconsciously or unconsciously, we are working very hard, to in reality, maintain biases and prejudices, so that we can fight or destroy.

Long ago, universally, the human society was designed to create and maintain benefits for a select few. We still see this manifesting in organisations of all sorts all over the world. And within organisations, people compete, to be the select few. This might change, if Human Systems evolve. That evolution may take place, if we start to calibrate our focus on Human Systems, by revisiting them, reviewing them and tweaking them. One of two things must occur; either the human changes first, to change the system, or, the system changes first, to change the human. At threat, is the status quo of how the wider human society beyond organisations has functioned, for thousands of years, even if that status quo, is supplanted with something better, for more human beings, than a few.

The Necessary Action

Beyond theory and talk, organisations need to consider what their constituents, collectively want, or need, as well as individually. Then they will need to find the middle ground, for everyone, to work together on. Then they will have to empower everyone. To ensure that everyone uses the empowerment responsibly, they will have to develop systems that will drive both empowerment and responsibility at the same time. This will either drive or require Human Transformation, a process the organisation will have to take ownership of. For any such Human Transformation to work, organisations will have to create a culture, that counters, the wider human culture of acrimony.

The Incentive

Consider Industry 4.0 as a place. It is a place where what you can think of, technology can do. This changes the rules of competition and transaction. It is a place of higher thinking, cooperation, collaboration and co-creation. This requires openness, transparency, honesty and trust. All elements missing in the prevailing culture of acrimony.

Now, Industry 4.0 has different rules for survival. Like the world reality we've known thus far, it also, is a race, though different. The organisation that overcomes acrimony and achieves human transformation sooner, wins its rewards. For that, the organisation needs to look at its current human system and ask; what's wrong? That will be the start.

Harish Shah is Singapore's first local born Professional Futurist and a Management Strategy Consultant. He runs Stratserv Consultancy. His areas of consulting and Keynote Topics include EmTech, Industry 4.0, HR, Digital Transformation, Marketing, Strategic Foresight, Systems Thinking and Organisational Future Proofing.