The HumanDebt™ Payment Plan

I have been wondering lately how come the concept of HumanDebt™ (as the people equivalent to the Technical Debt) resonates so deeply with so many people.

The best I can come up with is that, aside from the clarity and familiarity of the technical term, it just rings true when we simply apply that to all the people topics we know in our hearts of hearts we have been neglecting. All those started and abandoned conversations on engagement, diversity, wellbeing. The lip-service about impact and purpose, the scoffed-at-notion of happiness at work. The infinite sterile discourse on leadership. The lack of permission to address behaviours and avoid toxicity or even explore human emotions.

We immediately all recognise it and relate. We both owe and are owed “human moments” at work. We all know this. When we play the “professional game” - we know it’s unnatural and disingenuous. When we accept the convention that being too personal or too emotional in a work environment is undesirable, -or worse, a weakness-, we know deep down that can’t be right. When we are bombarded with messaging that advocates we work on our personal relationships but no one talks about improving our work ones -or really even admits those are relationships- we may not say it, but we know it’s a glaring omission.

It doesn’t take being a psychologist to know we have been leaving things on the table on these topics. We were too busy with “operational priorities”. Too consumed by to-dos. Too menaced by deadlines and too fearful for our positions. That we have started conversations and abandoned them halfway through. That we have been in or around projects that were superficial or focused on a sterile exploration of fluffy corporate-approved language on human topics and yet never talking about emotions or feelings to the point that most of us hide behind being “just a techie” and aren’t even able to name them. That there’s a lot we haven’t done for our team members and a lot that hasn’t been done for us.

I like to believe that when history looks back at this period of work in a few (tens of?) years, where humans were seen as resources and expected to act like robots, it will be appalled and consider it abusive. I would also like to believe that the pandemic would feature as having been the turning point in reducing the HumanDebt. That it was right about now that the discussion on “human topics” stopped being banished to a Friday afternoon and took its rightful place in the daily work.