10 Things You Need to Create a People-First Culture Through Human Work

<This article was originally published on the www. duenablomstrom.com website here>

Explaining the need for the Human Work has changed over the last year. I’d like to believe that there has been a marked difference in the way people are receiving it and that it is a good sign judging by what we see in the market these days and of course, we'd like to believe we contributed to this sudden normalising of the human topics.

Unsurprisingly, I’m big on retros. I’m big on any time for self-improvement, reflection and learning, but retros in particular. I think looking back is often more valuable than looking forward if approached with curiosity and interest and in a blameless way. It has been a year since we first said we will redouble our efforts to democratise the need for human work. As we said over and again, the first point of call is to normalise the presence and utility of emotions at work in lieu of continuing the corporate tradition of pretending humans are devoid of feelings when in “professional mode”.

…is a big ask, we never said otherwise. It will need changes in both process, resources and mentality to facilitate it. In a sense, this is not new debt, but the part of the debt that connects to any change in mentality or ways of work over the past 60 years that have never really landed in people’s minds. Lean, Agile, DevOps, experimentation, lack of blame, none of them genuinely installed in everyone’s heart but abided to “by numbers”.

The new work reality requires thinkers, not executioners, learners not mindless drones, opinionated humans who care not silent, checked-out witnesses. In my upcoming book Tech-Led Culture, I talk about this new work and what it will require of us but in the meantime, there is much to do already.