Digitalization as Chance to become Human at Work
I remember reading Jeremy Rifkin’s The End of Work at the end of the nineties and feeling excited. Rifkin proclaimed that the arrival of a long-dreamed for utopia was near: that people would not need to work anymore*. But so far, we have successfully resisted coming anywhere close to this dream. Perhaps, because we lack a shared vision to do so. But mostly, I think, because of fear. The mechanisms that Rifkin claimed would free us from work are upon us and we are terrified.
Instead of embracing the possibilities, we are trying to figure out how to solve this great big problem for ourselves and our organizations. It doesn’t help that we are surrounded by messages of how inadequate we are and how we are doing it wrong (I’m sorry to be guilty of sending such messages myself); and diverse experts are all saying different things (or so it seems) and that only they can solve our problems.
When we look only at problems, we see only pieces. When we fix pieces, other pieces will break. When we are trying to solve problems, we are trying to get rid of something, but what we need is to create something new.
Let’s be honest, we love problems. We are great at seeing things that are not right. We love the negativity of problems while hating the problems themselves and wishing them to be gone. We do feel great when we have managed to get rid of one. And we are always surprised that new ones pop up immediately. They keep us busy and get us through the day (and sometimes keep us awake at night), and we have a vague feeling that that can’t be all there is to it.
In the past two centuries, we have been trained that organizations need to become efficient. We had no choice but use people to do this. Now we can leave this to the machines and to the software that controls them. Their job is to be efficient in what we have already defined as the best process for the time-being. Of course, this is not new. We have been finding ways to be more efficient at our work since we first started making tools. But now it looks as if it will be possible for computers to take over most of what humans have been needed for in the past.
And a new fear pops up: Humans won’t be needed anymore! Frightening despite the dream that people would someday be able to spend all their time in leisure while machines take care of our needs? No, we are not ready for that. Humans will still be needed for work. Since the world is changing (which always has been the case, but it seems to be faster now), we need the creativity, curiosity and connection of humans to find ever new ways of generating the value we desire for our world — and that’s great, because what we long to be as humans is connected, curious and creative. We’re not being replaced by machines, the machines are taking over what was not really human — now we can become human!
Oh, but this is also a source of fear! We were taught to operate like machines in the workplace. We learned to perform and not make mistakes, we learned that feelings have no place at work, we learned to protect and defend ourselves. We don’t know how to show up as whole humans. We don’t know how to deal with feelings.** We have to relearn that and to unlearn a bunch of garbage we have learned at the same time.
What can truly help? The answer is already there in your organization, in yourself— but just as for individuals, organizations also need help seeing it. You are already the expert, you just don’t know it yet. You don’t need someone to come and tell you how to do it, and you certainly don’t need someone explaining to you all the things you are doing wrong. It would be helpful to have someone come and ask you questions that help you see your systems, your limited view, your hidden beliefs, and possibilities that you haven’t been able to see. You could use an organizational coach.
It will be work with teams. It will be work on the structure of the organization. In each and every case it will be work with humans. Not on them, but with them — helping them learn and learning from them. Each perspective is needed, each truth and each mental model — the feelings and creativity of every single one.
Instead of thinking, my organization needs to change in order to survive, we could think: This is a great chance for each and all members (of the organization, of society) to bring their whole being into the workplace. It is a chance for work really to be life, for both thoughts and feelings to have their place, their usefulness — to truly create and ultimately to be truly human.
I want this for myself, I want this for my organization, I want it for you and your organization. I want this for humanity.
(*This was the optimistic option that Rifkin posed, and the one that has stayed with me from that time. The other option is the demise of civilization.
**The way to deal with feelings is to feel them. This is something I am just learning at age 50 and feel I am extremely inadequate at, but I am working on it. It is all there, I just need help seeing it.)
