Human Nature

Beyond that surging sea, large stones silently sit. Pool painted with pink lichen. Covering and spotting the rounded edges of quiet greywacke. Light dappled on the stone strewn bottom. Shining on the few white shells. Rippling beneath the forbiding crags of black rock. 

Reminding me of the effortlessness of Nature. And, I recall the effortlessness of yesterday’s meeting. Twelve of us, filling the bland meeting room. Sitting on grey steel and fabric chairs, in a rough circle. Our guest chief executive ready to talk about the Spill. We listen, then talk. Each contributing a perspective, a thought, a question.  The conversation flows, sometimes laughing, sometimes sombre. Lively talk of mistakes, then doing the right thing. Noticing the unnaturalness of doing the most natural of things, saying sorry. Putting it right, undoing, if he could, the damage done. Despoiled environment and relationships, that he sought to restore. How unprepared others seemed for these simple natural acts of being human. Seeking redemption by being decent and taking a wider responsibility.

It seems a challenge to be natural in our increasingly unnatural digital world. As we look towards the quickening waves of technology and their artificial intelligences. Washing away human work. Etching new channels for careers. Drawing a line under what has gone before. Data and algorithm now controlling the future. Standardising and commoditising, measuring and metering the work. Controlling and mastering the future. Blurring the boundary between what is real and what is fake. 

‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 

mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.’

WB Yeats 

Yet, we all stand on the shoulders of all our technologists. And look with awe at what we have achieved through their work. 

We’ve talked with three chief executives this year. Conversations without pressure or script. Unplugged. Reminding us of the power of simply getting together. Never once mentioning that digital world. Instead, speaking of their organisations growing responsibilty for the outside world. We’d talked of unintended damage. Unconsciously fraying the social fabric of work. Losing for many a sense of meaning and an engagement with their work. The possibilities for framing work with a bigger purpose. A more vivid ‘why’. We’d talked of communities beyond the balance sheet. Beyond stark strategies and business plans. Their organisations becoming more pervious, it seemed, to that outside world. More genuinely concerned about society and the natural world. Realising that their own pools were merely a part of a much larger sea, a much larger whole. They didn’t say it, but it felt like we’d all been reading Kate Raworth(1). Navigating through the ‘Doughnut’ between our social foundations and our ecological ceiling. A very mature conversation and a consciousness expanding experience. 

These few conversations with these leaders offered a glimpse of a different kind of future. And perhaps not only for these leaders and their organisations. Maybe there’s something more widespread in the wind, in the water. A stirring of the breeze. A movement beneath, that gently ripples at the surface. Something of the beginning of deeper change, beyond mere digital possibility.  An arc of our human evolution, as Otto Scharmer says, ‘from the ego-system to the eco-system. A response to murmurs from human heart and soul. Yearning for a future where work nourishes our human spirit with meaning and purpose. Expanding and enriching our own potential. Enlivening those relationships that give life to our days.  

Yet, we worry. Can we keep up with this dizzying digital pace? How will the world of work shape our future? How will we compete? Will there be work? How should we respond to our emerging future. What is the work now, that prepares us for any future, I wonder. 

It seems radical to suggest that we might look into ourselves, as we create our future. Away from all those dancing zero’s and one’s expanding exponentially to Moore’s law. The waves of technology crashing into our lives. To turn back to reclaim a more human-centred future. Less digital, more social. Remembering those things that make us the most social and adaptable creatures ever. Developing those strengths that will never be digital. Working to amplify our human and social strengths. Those qualities which distinguish and differentiate us from those machines that we use and increasing populate our lives. 

To be still, slow and deeply see.

To be open and adaptable.

To make sense and imagine.

To act and then reflect.

To connect and hold with empathy.

To discern and wonder.

As we hurried out, running late, from that yesterday meeting, we left with a simple encouragement. To be human! Remembering the distinction, of course, that we are never really only human ‘being’, we are also always in a process of ‘becoming’. 

This work never ends. We never arrive, but are always arriving. It requires a disciplined practice, that is better not done alone, rather best done with a community of trusted companions. Each responsible for holding a safe space for each to look into ourselves, our world and our own emerging future. And be vulnerable and learn.

‘Individuals and social organisms,

endowed with the gift of consciousness,

have the possibility of becoming aware of their own processes,

and thus become responsible for their own evolution.’

Allan Kaplan

Kim and Bernie