Our firm proudly sponsored a Work & Flourishing summit for chief executives hosted by the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard. As a sponsoring partner, they made the bold choice to hand me the microphone — always a risky move since mics in my hands are famous for losing a sense of time.
The Big Question: What Does It Mean to Flourish?
I started my talk with a big question: “Is there a single question that could help cultivate human flourishing in our companies and communities?”
The question I had in mind is one with deep ties to the Harvard campus, quite literally carved in stone. Just across from the summit convention, on the Department of Philosophy building, lies the inscription: “What is man that you are mindful of him?” (Psalm 8).
What I love about this question is that we can ask it today, ask it again tomorrow, and the discourse goes on and on. Only, what is that thing we call “human”? Why am I the way I am? It’s tattooed in our human consciousness that we are valuable, worthy beings, more than a mere seven octillion atoms (that’s 7×1027) constantly moving, colliding, and sometimes falling apart. These atoms are more than oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen. They form a being who wants to live from a place of belonging and worthiness. Isn’t it mind-blowing that a jumble of atoms can pause, reflect, and ask the ultimate existential question: “Who in the world am I?”
How the Enlightenment Changed the Game
Returning to my talk, I shared how, for centuries, we’ve pondered life’s big identity question by looking at the sky and marveling at the beauty of creation. We also exegeted what it means to be human by admiring each other’s beauty. But then along came the Enlightenment, which, much like our modern boardrooms, had everyone questioning everything. Suddenly, it wasn’t enough to simply marvel; we had to analyze, debate, and, of course, form a committee about it.
Please don’t misread what I’m saying here. I read Kant for breakfast and when I grow up, I want to be like Adam Smith. Truly, the Enlightenment is my favorite time in history. It’s not just the age of reason and the scientific method. It’s the era when, as a human race, we developed common sense, sympathy, and sensibility toward each other, improving our living standards, bringing individual liberties, and laying the groundwork for humanitarianism. Without the Enlightenment, life would be ... well, let’s just say “different” at best. Imagine a world where we still thought bloodletting cured everything, from a cold to a headache. Democracy? Forget it. We’d still be deciding leaders by which monarch was born first. Instead of using science to understand the universe, we’d be blaming thunderstorms on angry gods, and don’t even get me started on our lifespan — most of us would be considered elderly by 35. Basically, we’d be dead or stumbling around in the dark, both literally and figuratively, probably still worshipping the sun for showing up every morning.
The Consequence: Losing the Art of Wonder
But as much as the Enlightenment propelled us forward, it also introduced some unintended consequences. While we gained science, 330 years of science later we started to lose something important: the art of wonder. Our industrialized pursuit of measurable results shifted our priorities from people to processes, programs, and performance. Somewhere along the way, we traded gazing at each other’s human beauty to measuring each other’s worth by the return on investment numbers on spreadsheets—because, apparently, now the real wonder is reserved for those with the most impressive metrics.
Are We Reducing People to Data?
What is a human? Someone we can add as a number in Microsoft Excel? Can we reduce a person to a row on a spreadsheet, a sum in a column, or a percentage in a pie chart? Sure, we might quantify performance and track progress in neat little cells. But what if, in our relentless pursuit to measure people, we begin to lose something fundamental—? What if the numbers, for all their benefits, slowly erode the essence of who we are, reducing the rich complexities of human existence into cold data points? Is it enough to trust that these metrics can capture our individuality, our depth? Or is there something deeper slipping away as we look at a human face as something to be quantified and categorized? Should we not stop, pause, and question? The warning signs are there—recent research tells us the dangers, the way this datafication steals our humanity – a loss of individuality, a diminished sense of self-worth, alienation from community, and exploitation for profit, driven by economic forces indifferent to moral considerations (Demoulin, 2024; Golossenko et al., 2023; Pérezts et al., 2021). But humans aren’t formulas waiting for an input. We’re more than just data points—we’re the stories behind the numbers, the infinite unpredictability that no algorithm can capture.
Please understand— I love numbers and believe that mathematics lifts human progress to unimaginable heights. As a matter of fact, I am a man of metrics, who develops performance assessments for leaders and their organizations. But I am also a man of wisdom, and there is a love to wisdom that transcends mere calculation. We must never forget that numbers should serve people, not the other way around. They must enhance, not diminish, our humanity. And while numbers can make us more productive, it is the wisdom of love, the understanding of their place and purpose, that ensures they serve people, not enslave them.
Rekindling the Art & Science of Human Flourishing
And so, I ended my talk with a call to carry the ancient question forward into our modern workplaces. To reflect on how we might cultivate spaces that invite not just productivity, but purpose, not just individual output, but connection. How might we cultivate a community that marvels at what it means to be human, that fosters care, that sees what truly matters? And in doing so, pass along to the next generation the wisdom that humanity is not something to simply measure but someone to treasure, to celebrate, and to continually rediscover in our shared endeavors toward flourishing.
References:
Pérezts, M., Andersson, L., & Lindebaum, D. (2021). Numbers and organization studies: Book review symposium editorial. Organization Studies, 42(8), 1351-1356.
Golossenko, A., Palumbo, H., & Mathai, M. (2023). Am I being dehumanized? Development and validation of the experience of dehumanization measurement. British Journal of Social Psychology, 62(3), 1285-1329.
Demoulin, S. (2024). Backfire effects of performance quantification on stress and disidentification: the role of metadehumanization in organizations, sport, and social networks. British Journal of Social Psychology, 63(3), 1156-1183.