Dog Eared

𝘈𝘥𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦. (𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘯 𝘰𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘱𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘳) 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘯 𝘰𝘳 𝘣𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘶𝘴𝘦.

Rarely have I made a book dog-eared as quickly as I managed with James Healy's excellent “BS at work”.

OK, i admit i spilled a bottle of water on it, which helped pucker the pages. But I think it lends added character & patina of use. As ever the back pages are also filled with my scribbled notes and page references.

As James notes, there is so much wrong with modern work, it’s almost like it wasn’t designed for humans.

I encourage you to read his very accessible book, and then gift copies to the C-suite, and those who run Compliance, Risk, HR, Audit (in fact all departments).

If we don’t recognize the reality of how people think, behave and act; as social, emotional, tribal and storytelling creatures, then we should not be surprised by the perverse outcomes that result, as we bash the square pegs of people into the round holes of organizational logic.

James cleverly brings together thinking from anthropology, behavioural science, neuroscience, psychology and other disciplines to ask the critical question – How can we make work “work” for humans as we really are?

In many banks and regulators (and doubtless other industries) there is still a reluctance to embrace this reality, a blind spot that impacts performance, risk, compliance and (ultimately) systemic risk.

What is getting in the way? Perhaps it is FOFO (fear of finding out).

It is time to start finding out.