Making work, human: an explanation

At Inquisition, we continuously reflect on the value we provide for our clients and refine our services accordingly. Before June this year, however, we hadn’t clearly defined our company’s (new) purpose although we strategically knew where we were going.

In an offsite weekend away in nature, having run through our own Purpose workshop, it emerged that the impact we wanted to have on the world was to make work human — a phrase that felt most natural and true to our cause. A little Googling when back at the office revealed that we weren’t the only people driven by this idea — good!

Now that our website on its umpteenth iteration publicly states our Purpose, I feel the need to clarify as to the meaning of what working human means for us.

We identify as an Organisational Design consultancy that can “get its hands dirty”, meaning that we don’t spark change without seeing the results through where possible. That would be no fun and we wouldn’t enrich our learning from having practiced as much as we would want.

Through our engagements with client teams, we are typically faced with situations that have driven us to improve conditions, including disengaged staff; concern of an increasingly digitised world; team members and departments working in silos, resulting in ineffectual, fragmented implementation (which more than often affects the customer experience); a culture of blame, fear and lack of accountability; and general frustration of not being able to contribute or be heard.

A lot of these issues result from a lack of understanding of human nature and systems nor engaging with others in ways that would seem perfectly normal outside of the workplace context — as networked, social creatures.

Our way to address this has been to introduce new ways of working through learning programmes and coaching of what we think of as organisational communities. We recognise that when organised as communities, the interconnectedness and strong purpose of work teams can help create a healthy environment where people are fully engaged and in which they can thrive. Working in this way makes everyone more than just a walking paycheque that hates Mondays but rather supports the human characteristics that collectively drive us to give ourselves to challenges and be fulfilled by doing work.

Below are very brief takeaways of how we see humanity at work.

Humans work well as communities
We have since the dawn of our species arranged ourselves in communities, dividing labour, supporting each other, socialising and working collaboratively to survive and build civilisations. The modern workplace can benefit from the lessons we’ve learnt through the ages.

Humans are complex
Instead of treating spirituality, mindfulness and emotions as landmines to avoid at all costs, explore ways to allow personal expression that does not infringe on others’ rights to work. Simple acknowledgment of each others’ state of being briefly at the beginning of meetings (checking in), for example, goes a long way to creating empathy and building trust between people.

Humans are driven by higher cause
As widely documented and proven in recent times, clarity in purpose in an organisation creates the meaning we crave to make our work fulfilling and tackle tough challenges.

Humans are wired to learn
From the day we’re born, we’re each geared to learn constantly and thus, can deal with changes in our environments. Learning as teams or whole organisations provides the same value which is needed now more than ever in business. These learning opportunities don’t tend to happen by themselves so companies like ours get brought in to help design learning into everyday working.

Humans are flawed
Failure even with tight planning is inevitable and should be allowed as well as the subsequent recovery. The beating stick approach will only perpetuate a culture of fear that prevents great ideas and work from happening.

Humans seek happiness
We spend over a third of every weekday at work — a huge chunk of anyone’s life. Workplaces thus have a huge responsibility to ensure that they are not part of making a third of people’s lives a dreary or outright depressing affair. There is a better way.