Humanising technology

Technology is developing at an amazing rate and providing organisations with greater efficiency and process optimisation. However, "if we want to prevent companies from being mere production machines, we need to humanise and ensure we remain human." This message comes from Tim Leberecht, co-founder of House of Beautiful Business, a global think-tank and community geared to humanising business in the ages of machines, which, together with Galp, organised The Great Unknown, held at the same time as the Web Summit in Lisbon.

At the second edition in partnership with Galp, which joined the project in 2018, the central topic that laid the foundations for a day of debate was learning in the age of machines. "Learning is a contact sport as it involves the whole body, all our emotions, and is not just a rational acquisition of knowledge," the head of the organisation told Energiser. That´s why, he adds, it is of paramount importance for us “to be prepared for this great unknown. Furthermore, today, through the sharing of experiences, we want to explore not only what this means for the manner in which humans learn, but also for the manner in which machines and AI 'learn', how we should learn from them, and how we should train them to serve human purposes.

As far as Tim Leberecht is concerned, it is essential humans reinforce their inherently human capacities and are able to adjust, learn, and feel discomfort, as this is the only way of learning. “It's the best we can do to prepare ourselves for an unpredictable future,” he says. This is, moreover, the work he conducts through The Business Romantic Society, which he founded in 2018 together with Till Grusche, an organisation that works with companies and their leaders with a view to rendering humans more human and businesses more attractive. “We put a lot of work into principles such as embodied leadership and emotional intelligence, but what makes us unique is the fact that we turn this into emotional experiences,” explains the House of Beautiful Business executive. The principle underlying this activity is the conviction that people do not learn from PowerPoint documents or from reading a book, as they need to feel and experience. “This is the only way of learning and internalising knowledge and we produce this kind of experiences for our clients,” he emphasises.

IN SEARCH OF A CULTURE OF LEARNING

The importance of creating and developing a culture of learning is one of Galp´s priorities, which explains the interest and involvement at these conferences as a key partner. “The challenge at all organisations lies in reconnecting people with the importance of learning on a daily basis in their work, in addition to them as people,” Paulo Pisano, director of human resources at Galp, declares to Energiser. The same can be said of the energy corporation, which has been devoting much of its time to rethinking learning in the last three years. “We believe that people are capable of learning at any time in their lives, and anywhere,” he explains.

Nevertheless, learning in the age of machines is a huge unknown, as Paulo Pisano points out. The head of human resources at Galp explains that at a time when technology development is happening so fast and has such an enormous impact on organisations, the full potential of the same is hard to comprehend. This is why, he adds, "the ability of humans to learn to work both with one another and with machines will be increasingly essential."

Internally, he says, Galp is developing a process of greater humanisation, while developing technology at an extremely fast rate. "The challenge of technology is that it is highly seductive, we are seduced by its power and tend to forget that it exists to serve ideals and human values," he concludes.