How human are our organisations?

Last year, we launched our report The Human Organisation. It identified nine principles and practices that together would move the dial to help organisations become more fully human, and you can download it here.

Let’s look at just a few of the elements of a human organisation, and their benefits:

• Our senses: By tapping into all of the human senses in the design of the employee or customer experience, we deepen engagement, enrich relationships, and strengthen bonds.
• Diverse thinking: Success comes from embracing a diversity of opinion. E.g., 43% of Fortune 500 companies were founded or co-founded by immigrants or children of immigrants.
• Conversation: We need to do more to create and maintain mutually beneficial workplace interactions, because only around 2% of conversations end when both parties want.
• Humour: Laughing releases beneficial brain chemicals that boost mood and performance, but are we too serious at work? Did you know that four-year-olds laugh up to 300 times a day, but as adults, that rate falls off a cliff?
• The human reward system: We need to better understand how rewards trigger positive brain chemistry. If we did, we’d know that small, unexpected rewards are greater motivators than large, expected rewards.

The journey to becoming more human organisations will take time and commitment, but initiatives like the upcoming Anthropy summit (see below) and recent findings on human-centric transformation from EY (Ernst & Young Global) and the University of Oxford, will help build momentum. The study identified that two thirds of senior leaders experienced at least one underperforming transformation in the last five years. Using predictive analytics, the study shows that human-centred change can more than double the likelihood of transformational success.

Reaching the summit

Anthropy – taking place in early November at the Eden Project – explores the themes that loom large in all of our lives: from the humanity of our organisations, to the future of the economy, the places we live, leadership, equity, land, sea and water. The summit will explore new ideas and trigger new initiatives. In all, Anthropy will span 12 stages, 130+ sessions, and over 300 speakers from business, charity and government.

Anthropy will be attended by thought leaders from across the political spectrum, including Rory Stewart MP, Sir Ed Davey MP, Rachel Reeves MP and Sadiq Khan. Business leaders will also be in attendance, including those from EY, John Lewis, EY and salesforce. And charities will be present too, including DEC and the RSA.

Corporate Culture is helping to organise the Anthropy summit, and I will be delivering a keynote on how human our organisations are, as well as chairing a session on responses to the climate emergency.

In many ways, Anthropy is the perfectly targeted response to the pent-up demand to create a positive shared future. To find out more about the summit and to book your place, visit https://anthropy.live/home. And to discuss anything related to how best to make your organisation more human, just drop me a line at John.Drummond@CorporateCulture.co.uk

Thanks, and I hope to see you at Anthropy!

John Drummond
Chair, Corporate Culture Group