TALKING HEADS
T
Change the workplace to change the world
S
Alan Watkins
The emergence of a
brighter tomorrow is
largely in the hands
of business leaders.
omething is happening out
there. The corporate world
is teetering on the brink of a
breakthrough. But it could
equally break down. We could
ex p e r i e n c e a n e t h n o c e nt r i c ,
protectionist regression the like of which
we haven’t seen for 50 years.
Whether we will experience an
emergency, or the emergence of a
brighter tomorrow, is largely in the
hands of business leaders. The decisions
business leaders take over the next
decade or two will dictate whether we
suffer an extinction or emergence from
the current chaos. And HR professionals
must stop reacting and start leading.
For many, the penny first dropped
after the global financial crisis of 2008.
It became obvious that something was
profoundly wrong with capitalism. It had
become excessively Darwinian. Cash
was king and nothing else mattered. But
2008 was our wake-up call.
Po s t-f i n a n c i a l c ra s h , eve n
well-established capitalists started to
talk of “triple bottom lines”, “conscious
capitalism” and “conscious business”.
We saw a rash of books exploring
“post-capitalism”, “ full-spectrum
economics”, “sacred economics”,
“c a r i n g e c o n o m i c s ” a n d t h e
“circular economy”.
Some authors went further to
describe what happens “when the
money runs out” and how this may
exacerbate the current drift towards
greater ethnocentricity in “every nation
for itself”. The basic realisation was that
there are significant problems with
the idea that business exists solely to
generate profit and shareholder value.
To avoid a breakdown, we must
“change the workplace to change
the world”. At the heart of this change
is people — and how organisations
“We must
understand the
‘seven great waves’
of change that have
emerged since
the first industrial
revolution”
approach people development .
HR practice must evolve once again to a
higher level of thinking, being and doing.
We must understand the ‘seven great
waves’ of change that have emerged
since the first industrial revolution. We are
currently in wave five with two more yet
to come. A handful of thinkers have gone
beyond wave five, but the leading edge
is not the reality for most workers. Most
organisations are stuck in earlier waves
from the past. Unless they ‘wake up and
grow up’ we are doomed.
But if we understand the opportunity,
we go further, faster and we embrace
the future with all its disruptive
technology, artificial intelligence and
machine learning. We can build a society
that works for everyone, not just a few.
D r A l a n Wa t k i n s i s fo u n d e r of
Complete and a former physician and
neuroscientist. See p100 for a review
of his new book The HR (R)Evolution:
Change the Workplace, Change the World.
February – May 2020 // 55