Now that you mentioned it Maarten, it does becomes obvious that people change when they enter their workplaces. Maybe it is because we are entering what Charles Handy calls "knowledge factories of the new economy and who can be prisons for the human souls".

I have always believed that there is a need to adapt a new view of people, one who looks at them as a bundle of talent regardless of the role that they play in the organization. One who has a contribution to make, one who thinks of how they could better their organization if only they could get out of the rigidities of the roles we are thrust into.

In my view HR and people practitioners should start to become the change it and they want the organisation to be, and I reckon the key area would be around the systems thinking as espoused and demonstrated both academically and eminently practically by Deming, John Seddon in Vanguard, Senge, Ackoff, Scholtes, and countless others.

All change beings at the thinking level and not the doing level, yet the result of the change in thinking then delivers change at the doing level. Great intentions, motivation and competencies underpinned by the wrong thinking changes little.

Managers need to recognise the organisation as a system, it’s their job to remove the obstacles within the organisation. They also need to understand human motivation (Dan Pink, Alfie Kohn, etc.). Design of the work from the outside in, and focus on what is the real purpose what matters to the customer. Then, analyse the demand, design measures for what matters, then when you understand the systems thinking that determines the current way of doing things, you simply get the people who do the work to re-design the work in order to achieve purpose and what really matters, and what happens is almost magical! Service improves, costs reduce, morale increases, and the culture change happens for free. At no time do we do anything to the people, we simply get the people to work on the work. That's the systems thinking at the practical and yet quite profound level that I believe HR could help to make organisations more adaptable and adept.
If you want to work more on the Systems Thinking hack, please join the team on page 2!

Hi Maarten, you are absolutely right--by compartmentalizing people into narrow and fixed roles, organizations end up using only a fraction of people's potential, and create a fairly rigid structure. Would love to get your thoughts on how we could fix this problem--is it about having formal roles that are broader or more loosely defined? Being able to define one's job description? Being able to take on tasks that go beyond one's role?

Look forward to your thoughts on this very promising idea...

Michele