Developing human potential at work

Futures 33 (2001) 461–467www.elsevier.com/locate/futures

Introduction

Developing human potential at work

The theme of this special issue ofFuturesis the development of human potential.Its focus is how human potential is developed at, and through, work. This, webelieve, is a topic of major significance. Its implications resonate through ideas ofeconomic progress within a capitalist environment, social cohesion, and human pro-gress and survival. Work is the major context in which people develop, make acontribution, and spend the majority of their time throughout (currently) their adultlives. We create much of our futures, both economic and social, individual and col-lective, at work.

Neither our approach to post-education learning nor the nature of work is wellplaced to best develop human potential. Our approach to developing human potential,once formal education has ended, is piecemeal, often left to chance and restrictedby an instrumental approach. In their characterisation of economic life as a theatre,Arthur, Inkson and Pringle [1] describe the unfulfilled potential of working lives inthis way: “As we built our careers, we actors lived out our lives in security, forthere usually seemed to be plenty of parts available. But our potential was unfulfilled,since the scripts were often colourless, and the endless repetition of even high-qualityperformance was undemanding. We tended to become type cast at a younger agethan was good for us. Ironically, the more successful the production, the less wedeveloped, for there was nothing new to learn.” Now, we employees are faced withlittle, if any, security and, at the same time, employers’ demands for flexibility andinnovation have increased.

The majority of us in the industrialised world work in organisations. This raisesthe question of whose responsibility it is to develop human potential. A great dealof the literature [2] and policy action points to the responsibility of individuals. Yet,how we as individuals learn, develop and make our contribution is governed to alarge degree by the organisations in which we work.

Work as an institution has never been primarily about developing people. How-ever, the economic purpose of work needs to be balanced with a recognition of theneed for work to act as a means for human development. It is not enough for workto be seen solely as an economic institution. The social responsibility of work organ-isations requires the development of people in the workforce, not merely becausemore investment in development may result in better performance, but becauseorganisations are entwined with, and have responsibility for, a larger world. Theargument for developing people as a means to contributing to better economic suc-

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462A. Jenkins, R. Garvey / Futures 33 (2001) 461–467

cess and organisational viability is relevant, and useful, but resides in short-termistand individualistic thinking.

Policy makers in industrialised countries have recognised the value in promotingand facilitating adult and post-education learning via Lifelong Learning initiatives—thereby reflecting Ackoff’s prediction in the 1970s that “the distinction between workand learning will become less and less important. Learning will be part of work andwork a part of learning” [3]. Guile’s paper notes that “learning has become theleitmotif of social democratic governments around the world.” Learning at work isa major part of these initiatives. However, these initiatives have been conceivedpredominantly as a means to address failings of current formal school and highereducation (see Bryans’ paper, for example, and [4]) and to provide vocational skills,These initiatives are very much in the mould of the existing learning paradigm; onewhich is instrumental and skills oriented. They do not address more fundamentaldevelopment issues such as learning from the whole range of human experience, theprocesses of learning, or the complexity of the work environment. Thus, the newpolicy initiatives are deficient and serve to maintain an instrumental approach tolearning, where people (in the economic context) are treated as a means to an end.Guile describes this as a credentialist agenda and others [5] describe thesedeficiencies as technicism.

The interdependence and co-creation of careers and the economy in which theyare embedded is an important issue for learners at work. This complex relationshiptakes us beyond individual careers and individual experiences. As illustrated byArthur et al. [1]: “A corporate world develops and is developed by corporate careers.What kind of careers does the new deregulated, globalised, information-age economydevelop? And equally important what kind of economy do the new careers develop?”If we were to follow this perspective a little further it may well provide us with abasis for changing the dominant economic paradigm; by facilitating change inpeople’s careers and development we are provided with the means to change theexisting paradigm at the micro level of individuals.

This special issue argues that we can use learning at work to develop a morehuman, and humane economic imperative and a more appropriate (and ultimatelymore productive) approach to learning. We advocate a move away from an instru-mental, economically driven view of learning to one which acknowledges anddevelops the whole person.

The notion of a ‘knowledge economy’ is a major backdrop to this special issue.Guile’s describes this as where “people, rather than such traditional factors of pro-duction as capital, will become the main source of value and economic growth inthis new type of capitalism, and that in future, more and more productive activitieswill make use of employees’ intellect and creative capabilities.” The papers in thisissue begin rethinking learning in an environment where knowledge becomes a cen-tral element in economic life.

As organisations begin to focus on their staff as a source of competitive advantage,there has been a consequent increased interest in learning and development. Thisprovides us with a real chance to combine both the futures and human imperativeswith the organisational viability imperative to provoke a change in the learning


opportunities open to people at work. By focusing attention here it may be possibleto influence the quality of life people experience at work, their productivity, and mostimportantly their understanding and interest in their individual and collective futures.

As well as being important to our futures, promoting learning and developmentis a moral issue. Williamson, quoting Sennett, notes that much in the organisationof modern capitalism devalues people at work. Although lip service has long beenpaid to the maxim that business is about people, as Lewin and Regine note, it “israrely addressed with any human depth”. The pressures for downsizing have left“more than 70% of US firms struggling with low morale and lack of trust” andsimilar pictures are painted of firms in Europe [6]. The consequence is that theseemployees do not give of their best, thus forcing the human issue back onto thecorporate agenda. However, as Lewin and Regine point out, “it doesn’t have to bea dichotomy between money and people. In fact it can’t be as our world is toocomplex” [6].

So, what does learning at work have to do with how people are treated at work?We assert that true learning (at a personal level) is a positive experience (whetheror not there is less pleasant aspect to it as well), and that it addresses, and enables,the realisation ofself. Thus facilitating learning at work (beyond the economic,instrumental approach) is a fundamental recognition of people as people. Empoweredand developed people will be more ready to take on change, and are likely to bemore positive about themselves and their experiences. All this is likely to contributeto a more positive and active outlook on their futures. Our argument is that the betterthe learning that takes place at work, the more ‘fully-functioning humans’ there willbe to engage in futures thinking. As Inayatullah [7] states, the quality of people’sexperience and the understanding they have of their past undoubtedly affect howthey perceive their current context and their futures.

The papers come from a range of sources and from a variety of countries, includingthe UK, The Netherlands and Finland. The authors are specialists in their own fields,and while they are not necessarily mainstream futurists, their contributions raiseimportant questions for futurists. Some of these are made explicit by the authors andothers remain implicit within the discussions and perspectives offered.

Individually these papers do not paint whole pictures of possible futures, but intrue systems fashion the whole issue draws together elements of the changes takingplace in the practice and understanding of developing people at work, in order topresent the distributed threads of an important futures issue.

The papers document the (fragmented) emerging challenges to the dominant econ-omic paradigm, describing actual changes taking place and potential innovations.The special issue documents new ways of learning, new attributes to value—the newmeans of, and skills of, creating futures. The issue points to the way in which workis changing, and asks how we can develop human potential in this context.

All papers locate the discussion within an organisational setting. This setting hasthreefold relevance: first, organisational viability is a part of people’s economic andsocial futures, and it is increasingly linked with learning; second, changes in theorganisational context have resulted in changing the nature of learning at work, and


third, organisations wield significant influence—to use Williamson’s words: “ourcollective futures are unfolding from within dynamics of global organisations”.

The link between learning and organisational viability is far from straightforward.Promoting learning and capturing learning throughout the organisation are both dif-ficult. Gold and Watson note that the business of “extracting wealth from brainpower” is difficult to operationalise. Kessels describes this as being knowledge pro-ductive—“The ability to gather information, generate new knowledge, disseminate,and apply this knowledge to achieve improvement and innovation is an organisation’sknowledge productivity”, and offers a framework for enabling organisations tobecome “rich landscapes of learning”. Koski offers many insights into behavioursof managers promoting knowledge productivity.

The changes in the work environment have effected changes in the nature of learn-ing required at work. To paraphrase Williamson’s words, modern economic lifeguarantees a future of uncertainty, rapid change and complexity. These place a pre-mium on inventiveness and creativity. Accordingly, there has been an increase inindividual responsibility for learning; learning in a knowledge economy is moredemanding (see for example Koski, Garvey and Alred); and new skills need to belearned to succeed in the complex, knowledge-based environment (see Bright et al.and Koski).

The implications of these changes on the nature of work are described by Arthuret al. [1]. They describe their expected future path of company employment thus:“since companies are finding it more necessary to provide flexibility they are disman-tling rigid, clear structures of job and careers, and as individuals are seeking toenhance career choice by escaping from rigid structures, future companies will moreand more become arenas in which individuals are invited to find and make career-enhancing choice within the broad spectrum of the company’s commercial activity.”

The demands of an increasingly competitive and complex knowledge economy—the pressure to innovate and to become more cost-competitive, whilst dealing withthe uncertainty of markets and technologies, the increasing complexity of strategiesused and increasing amounts of potentially relevant information—are placing indi-viduals under greater stress. There can be little doubt that in a knowledge economyorganisations have higher expectations of and make greater demands on staff.

Individuals are required to learn more, quickly, and in more difficult circum-stances. Williamson states: “With the constant, downward pressure on costs, every-one is extremely busy and there is little ‘headroom’ to pause, to reflect, to plan, totake stock and engage in that critical reflection and creative dialogue with otherswhich is central to an sustained organisational development and innovation.” JussiKoski explores this dilemma and recommends the development of an ability to toler-ate ambiguity and uncertainty. Garvey and Alred tend to the individual’s learningprocesses in this situation and promote the use of mentoring to tolerate complexity.

Guile’s examination of the theories underpinning the widespread interpretation ofthe learning society reveals an impoverished conceptualisation of learning. Hepresents a sociological and educational basis for rethinking the purpose of learning.Learning here is conceived as holistic development: cognitive, emotional and psycho-logical. The new learning paradigm advocated by the work in all these papers calls


for many modes and many contexts of learning. They advocate the combination offormal and informal learning; various modes of learning; action and experientiallybased learning and contextual or situated [8] learning.

All the papers, in different ways, promote and contribute to a whole-personapproach to learning. One of the manifestations of the whole-person theme is theuse of dialogue. This is evident in a number of papers including Garvey and Alred’sexploration of mentoring and Gold and Watson’s exploration of valuational dis-course. At the heart of dialogue is an evolutionary, developmental approach to learn-ing that reflects a deep respect for the people.

Gold and Watson’s use of narrative recognises the importance of creating a sharedhistory, and shared understandings among members of a community of practice. Thishuman context they suggest is vital in enacting change and to maximise the benefitsfrom work-based learning situations.

Overlapping both the use of dialogue and the importance of people’s shared historyis the emphasis on the importance of the social setting. This is a key theme in severalpapers in this issue. The social context people operate within determines the natureand amount of learning that takes place (see Williamson, for example). Gold andWatson use the notion of communities of practice to explore the social aspects oflearning. Williamson makes the point that creativity is in part determined by theorganisational culture. Koski emphasises that trust is crucial in the externalisationof tacit knowledge and, quoting Kuronen, reminds us that “people do not generateand deliver new knowledge under force and when they are anxious, new knowledgeis created through inspiration and joy of invention.”

Bryans takes a whole-person approach by addressing the different life-roles thatemployees have in her exploration of family learning at work. She suggests that thenotion of workplace learning offers opportunities for organisations to gain economicbenefits, and communities, families and individuals real opportunities to achieve apersonal sense of accomplishment and social cohesion. Thus, the idea of a widercommunity of economic and social activity may be linked through learning andeducational experiences.

With what Duhl [9] describes as an “increased sense of fragmentation throughoutour cities”, the workplace is becoming more important as a source and focus ofcommunity. Bryans’ approach is one example of how to “evolve (the) new socialmechanisms and build coalitions across the board” that Duhl calls for.

Traditional approaches to promoting learning at work have ignored the messyissues associated with learning from experience, informal learning, and the develop-ment of emotional awareness. These issues are introduced and explored by variouscontributors. Guile’s assertion that people will need to use ideas that originate fromone context to resolve the dilemmas experienced in another context (what he callspolycontextual skills) reinforces the notion of capturing learning from all humanexperiences. Kessels corporate curriculum framework combines both formal andinformal learning—in his words—“If the learning from a formal curricula does notreceive support from the powerful informal learning inherent in the course of dailyoperations, its effect will be minimal.” The corporate curriculum also requires atten-tion to developing the skills of learning, that is reflective skills and meta-cognitions,


as well as awareness of the emotional self. Kessel’s corporate curriculum recognisesboth the scientific and the humanistic approaches debated by other contributors. Guileargues that future employability will depend on the development of knowledgeabilityrelating to: the ability to relate theoretical and practical modes of learning; using ICTas a means for communicating with others in distributed communities of practice; anddeveloping atransformativerather than aninformativerelationship with the world.This last point is of particular interest to futurists. Among the discussion of learning,there are implicit assertions that some skills and aptitudes are becoming more valu-able in managing the demands of work—those include managing information (seeKoski), creativity (Williamson) and negotiation (Bright et al.), mentoring (Garveyand Alred), the ability to facilitate change, and create futures.

Kessels raises the rather disturbing issue of ‘the new elite’ or ‘gold collar workers’.Within the notion of a knowledge economy there is the potential for a shift in powerwithin organisations. This is a shift away from those who have the position, title,status or financial weight towards those who possess knowledge and the ability toapply that knowledge. The implications for organisations are considerable here asthe very concept of ‘management’ as we know it is challenged. As Kessels says,“the desire to manage and control learning processes is like trying to force somebodyto learn”. Guile’s assertion that knowledge is not simply a commodity that can beowned but is actually embedded in ‘communities of practice’ provides an argumentthat counters the fears of knowledge becoming the preserve of certain key individualsin a firm. This is perhaps one way in which communities will be developed andsustain in this fragmented, knowledge-based economy.

Knowledge-productive people, working in complex environments, need, as out-lined in this editorial, certain conditions to perform. They need to be developed,trusted, supported, encouraged, retained, rewarded and empowered. They need towork in both a stable and an unstable environment where people engage in open andhonest dialogue and resist the temptation to play political power games. Traditionaleconomic and managerial paradigms have difficulties here. Time and time againthose who observe organisations find a basic conflict between the management rhet-oric and the actual behaviour. To achieve real change the rhetoric has to be madelive through behaviour (see, for example, Bruner [10]). It is not possible to predictwhere knowledge productivity will come from within an organisation. This offers afurther challenge to organisations for, if knowledge, created through social discourseand learning, is the main force for economic survival and progress, then the waywe organise for work has to change to promote learning in a social setting. It mayresult in complex and self-organising forms of organisational structure.

Knowledge-productive organisations are already becoming a reality. Examplesmay be found in IT-based companies, software houses, medical research, scientific-and engineering-based companies and pharmaceuticals. Knowledge-productiveorganisations know that both the physical and social environments within their organ-isations need to reflect the new paradigm of innovation and creativity. British Air-ways, for example, has invested £200m in a new building which attempts to createa different type of physical environment aimed at facilitating good communication,networking and flow of ideas. Permanent position and status are challenged in this


new order. The ‘new elite’ may find their position rapidly challenged as others gener-ate productive knowledge to add value to goods and services.

While, as this special issue shows, the workplace offers strong situated learningopportunities, learning is boundary-less and offers the potential to enrich all of ourlives. Ideas such as the ‘learning society’, ‘lifelong learning’ and ‘continuous pro-fessional development’ are examples of this. We recognise that the ideas discussedin this special issue are not without risk but we argue that developed people maketheir own futures, for ‘chance favours the prepared mind’.

We have focused exclusively on the prospects for developing those people in work,situated in organisations in the industrialised world. Although developing adults inthe industrialised nations may not address the lack of development opportunitiesfacing the poorer nations, it may result in fewer problems being imposed on the‘third’ world. Without developing human potential in the powerful countries, so thatcomplexity and diversity are tolerated, all our futures are restricted.

Anne JenkinsSchool of Built Environment, Leeds Metropolitan University, Brunswick Building,

Leeds LS1 3HE, UKE-mail address:[email protected]

Robert GarveySheffield Hallam Business School, Stoddart Building, City Campus, Howard Street,

Sheffield S1 1WB, UKE-mail address:[email protected]

References

[1] Arthur MB, Inkson K, Pringle JK. The new careers: individual action and economic change. London:Sage, 1999.

[2] Coffield F. Breaking the consensus, lifelong learning and social control. Br Educ J Res1999;25(4):479–501.

[3] Ackoff RL. Redesigning the future. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1974.[4] Bentley T. Learning beyond the classroom. London: Routledge, 1998.[5] Smith R. Practical judgement. In: The proceedings of the seminar on knowledge productivity:

concepts and issues, Leiden University, November 20–22, 1997.[6] Lewin R, Regine B. The soul at work: unleashing the power of complexity science for business

success. London: Orion Business Books, 2000.[7] Inayatullah S. A depth approach to the futures of the self. Futures 1999;31(8):813–8.[8] Lave J, Wenger E. Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University

Press, 1991.[9] Duhl L. Towards the common good. Futures 1999;31(5):405–17.

[10] Bruner J. Acts of meaning. USA: Harvard University Press, 1990.

Developing human potential at work

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