The New Human Movement

1. THE NEW
HUMAN
MOVEMENT
Building Organizations
as Capable as the
People Inside Them

2. Daring,
Resilient,
Passionate
THE NEW HUMAN MOVEMENT 1
Management—the structures,
methods and tools we use to organize
collective effort—is one of human-
kind’s most important social
technologies. It is management, as
much as science, that sets the outer
boundaries on what we can
accomplish as a species.
As human beings, we face a daunting
array of challenges—including a
global pandemic, climate change,
income inequality, political
polarization, racial injustice, declining
productivity growth, environmental
degradation, and the job-destroying
effects of automation.
To address these challenges we need
organizations that are daring, resilient
and passion-filled. Unfortunately, when
confronted by new challenges, (like
Covid), our organizations often prove
to be timid, inertial and unimaginative.

3. These disabilities are the product of
bureaucracy, with its authoritarian
power structures, rule-choked process,
and endless politicking. As a 19th-cen-
tury technology, bureaucracy is poorly
suited to the challenges of the 21st
century, yet it remains the standard
operating model for virtually every
large-scale institution on the planet.
Bureaucracy infantilizes employees,
saps initiative, and blunts creativity. It
enforces dull conformity, discourages
entrepreneurship, and treats human
beings as mere factors of production.
Consider the evidence:
Per Gallup, just 15% of employees
around the world are emotionally and
intellectually engaged in their work.
Only 1 in 5 employees believe
their opinions matter at work.
Fewer than 1 in 10 have the
freedom to experiment with new
methods and solutions.
According to the US Bureau of
Labor Statistics, 70% of all jobs
require little or no originality.
We can, and must do better.
THE NEW HUMAN MOVEMENT 2
Bound by
Bureaucracy

4. THE NEW HUMAN MOVEMENT 3
That’s why we’re launching the “NEW
HUMAN MOVEMENT”—a global effort
aimed at vanquishing bureaucracy and
building organizations that are as intrepid,
inventive and inspiring as the people
inside them.
In doing so, we take inspiration from a
small band of progressive organizations
that have been pioneering new,
human-centric management models.
Among the trailblazers are Haier, the
Chinese appliance maker, Nucor, America’s
biggest steelmaker, and Buurtzorg, the
Dutch home-health provider.Their extraor-
dinary performance is the product of
breakthrough management innova-
tion—of boldly unconventional structures
and systems designed to maximize contri-
bution rather than compliance.
The experience of the management
vanguard, as well as growing body of
academic research, make a powerful case
for ridding our organizations of “bureaus-
clerosis”and getting management onto a
new S-curve.The economic, social and
competitive benefits would include:
Reducing the costs of bureaucratic
drag—estimated to be more than $10
trillion per year across the OECD.
Increasing economic dynamism by
unleashing the spirit of entrepreneur-
ship within every organization, both
public and private.
Imbuing organizations with an evolu-
tionary advantage that allows them to
out-run change.
Turning millions of dead-end jobs into get
ahead jobs by giving every employee the
chance to learn, create and grow.
The New
Human
Movement
1
For a summary of the evidence supporting the need for a radical management innovation, see Humanocracy, Harvard Business Review Press, 2020.

5. The first step in launching the NEW
HUMAN MOVEMENT is to identify a
nucleus of pro-change individuals with the
vision, passion and expertise to play a cata-
lytic role in reinventing management for a
new age.
To that end, the Management Lab plans to
conduct 50-100 interviews with CEOs,
thought leaders, business school deans,
activist investors, policy makers and other
influencers.The interviews will focus on
four questions:
What are the primary challenges in
uninstalling bureaucracy and building
more capable and human-centric
organizations?
How could these challenges be
surmounted?
Where, exactly, would you start?
What commitments would you be
willing to make to help drive progress?
THE NEW HUMAN MOVEMENT 4
Getting
Started

6. THE NEW HUMAN MOVEMENT 5
Getting
Started
(continued)
Through these interviews, the goal is to
generate a portfolio of high-impact strate-
gies for accelerating the pace of manage-
ment innovation across the globe. Such
strategies might include:
Developing new management
accounting methods to quantify the
cost of inertia, incrementalism, and
disengagement in organizations.
Encouraging corporate disclosure on
key“post-bureaucratic”indicators—such
as the degree employee autonomy,
profit sharing, number of management
layers, size of central functions, etc.
Creating tax and other incentives for
organizations to invest in upgrading the
business literacy and problem-solving
skills of frontline employees.
Designing a“big science”initiative that
brings hundreds of management
researchers together around the
problem of reinventing management
(through research, field experiments,
and the diffusion of new practices).
Building a management“Git Hub”where
innovators could share their manage-
ment“hacks”—radical yet practical
experiments for changing traditional
organizational practices and systems
Creating a consortium of progressive
companies that are willing to partner
with researchers and serve as laborato-
ries for management innovation.
Launching a series of global“hack-
athons”aimed at reinventing key
elements of the management model,
such as planning, resource allocation
and performance management.
Developing and testing a suite of
generic change tools that can help
traditional organizations make the jump
to post-bureaucratic management
practices.