Synopsis

 

“Thank God it's Friday!” marks the end of the work week, a moment of relief that work is behind us, at least for a couple of days until the cycle repeats. Given the chance, most people would do something other than work with their time. Since we must work to survive, our highest aspiration is to have a different experience of work—one in which our broader needs for balance, feeling valued, doing interesting work, mastering a skill, getting along with colleagues, being ourselves, and making a meaningful impact are met, all while being successful and compensated well. We want to thrive, and not just on the weekends. Unfortunately, work isn’t just a way to meet our survival needs; work itself is something to survive. Humanity At Work seeks to change that.

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As a former physicist turned management consultant and now executive coach, I've been on a journey to cultivate humanity at work. Over two decades ago, I left physics (a largely impersonal profession involving people who struggled to connect) in search of a way to improve our ability to relate to each other at work. Along the way, I discovered Frederick Taylor, a 19th-century engineer who applied his mechanical engineering education to business management, becoming one of the first management consultants and the originator of Scientific Management Theory. Taylor enabled the pioneers of the Industrial Revolution to drive unprecedented efficiency and growth, but he and others did so while marginalizing half of the equation: us. In their attempt to optimize work, how well we relate to each other became secondary to productivity, and the human experience of work was all but forgotten.

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Today, businesses continue to hire consultants to investigate low levels of employee engagement, resistance to returning to the office, and practices like quiet quitting, treating workers as something to be corralled and calibrated rather than people to connect with. The solution is simple but not easy: if you want people to be engaged, engage them differently.  Unfortunately, today's workplace remains much like Frederick Taylor left it nearly two centuries ago. It's common to work ourselves and others like machines, to be more transactional than relational, and to accept workplaces that are relationally impoverished. Overwork, dysfunctional relationships, layoffs, and toxicity dominate corporate cultures, leaving work as little more than a paycheck for employees striving to survive but wishing to thrive. Our typical response to the question, “What would you do if you won the lottery?” tells us all we need to know: “I’d quit my job and…” 

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What if we could make work a place where we could thrive rather than something to survive? The path to what we want to experience at work is closer than we think. Instead of viewing people like machines or humans like resources as pioneers of the industrial age endorsed, our path forward involves reclaiming our humanity in the workplace.

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Many business books address the symptoms of workplace dysfunction. In Humanity At Work, I attempt to address the causes of the dysfunction and get to the source of workplace survival, examining the ways we perceive ourselves at work, how we have normalized exploitation, and what we can do differently. Ultimately, my objective is to help us reclaim who we are as human beings at work and, by changing how we treat ourselves and each other, change our experience of working altogether.

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Throughout this book (while maintaining client confidentiality), I draw upon insights and themes gathered from my work with leaders and organizations spanning over two decades and from coaching more than 500 business professionals. The ideas are organized to take readers on a journey from where we’ve been to where we are to where we could be.  We'll explore how we got here and see why, what, and how we must change. We’ll see how the impersonal approach to work has resulted in dehumanizing work practices, overworking, health risks, and the experience of work as something to endure and survive. We’ll see how surviving work is no longer enough, that we want to thrive, and explore the path to get there.

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We no longer need to be like machines for corporations to survive—after all, AI is here to stay, and better machines keep coming. Instead, we need a new, much more human way of working. When we prioritize being familiar rather than formal, compassionate rather than clinical, and sympathetic rather than soulless, we demonstrate genuine care for the people around us. We create the possibility for better balance, greater purpose, and more fulfilling work. When our experience of our jobs becomes a priority, we begin to change the nature of work itself. We bring humanity back to work.

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This book is for anyone who has climbed (or is climbing) the corporate ladder and still finds themselves exhausted, unfulfilled, and dissatisfied. It is for those who have found that more money does not bring lasting happiness, whose retirement cannot come soon enough, and whose work-life balance remains an elusive dream. This book is for those who believe that work can be more than just a means to a financial end, and for those who aren’t satisfied with just winning, chasing “the dream,” or even living it—and instead, want to change “the dream” to make work better for us all.

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Going on this journey with me will require readers to face their ideas about what work is and what it should be. This book calls for each of us to be human, and in many ways, that requires us to be brave.  Together, a better future is possible. We can make the days of simply surviving our jobs a thing of the past. Together, we can thrive.