In this interesting TED talk ‘The way we think about work is broken‘, Barry Schwartz describes how society and institutions shapes the way we think and we are – our human nature.
He elaborates how the Industrial production system (Adam Smith) aimed at making us cogs in a system with limited initiative, and how this shaped human nature in the past decades. “It is only human nature to have a human nature that is very much the product of the society in which people live. That human nature, that is to say our human nature, is much more created than it is discovered. We design human nature by designing the institutions within which people live and work.” Barry Schwartz then calls for decision-makers to shape their organizations and institutions in a manner that would create a new type of human nature in the Collaborative Age.
What I find interesting in the concept is to consider how institutions do influence human nature. It is quite true in a way, as we tend to act and respond according to some learned patterns from institutions and organizations we served; probably with some limits I think. But then as institutions evolve or are replaced, human nature needs to fit in a new way of being in society. That is possibly the most challenging side of the Fourth Revolution – former human nature will become obsolete as new institutions will shape another new one. And which sides of human nature do we want to develop?
