Release 14

HR Best practice : “ HR must empower people to become quantum beings and enable them to realize quantum potential in them.”

We have reengineered business but malaise continues. Stress and job burnout statistics are soaring while employee job satisfaction continues to decline. Empowerment initiatives such as self directed teams and total quality programs are floundering. None of our late twentieth century organizational fixes seem to be making much difference in either job performance or employee morale.

Perhaps we have put the proverbial cart before the horse. We have attempted to change the internal constructs of our minds. In short, we have attempted to create 21st century organization while those of us who work in these organizations still rely primarily on 17th century skills. As a result of this oversight our organizational change efforts are incremental at best and often merely cosmetic. If we are to take a quantum leap into new ways of living and working together, each of us must change our outdated beliefs about the way the world works, and we must learn a new set of skill – skills that will enable us to create balanced lines and whole brain organizations.

The traditional business skills of planning, organizing, directing and controlling are primarily left brain skills. They are derived from a 300 year-old world view - a world view based primarily on Isaac Newton’s laws of classical physics. Newton’s laws were premised on the assumption that reality is objective, effects are practicable and knowledge comes through analysis. A world view based on these assumptions requires logical linear, left brain thinking skills. And for more then 300 yrs. these skills have served society well. Our well honed ability to plan, organize, direct and control has enabled us to harness the forces of nature develop sophisticated technology and dramatically improve our standard of living.

There is however a problem. These mechanistic skills were formulated for life in a stable universe one that functions in a logical linear predictable manner. Our fast paced constantly changing intractable world is neither stable nor predictable. Our ability to plan, organize, direct and control in such a world is incessantly compromised. These 17th century skills are simply not adequate for life and work in the 21st century. The challenge is two-fold:

1. Where can we turn for a new world view?
2. What skills are required in order to put this new world view into practice in our
individual lives and in work places?

Even through we are material beings subject to Newton’s classical laws, we also have an invisible, non-material dimension (the mind or consciousness) that may function according to quantum principles.

There is still much disagreement about whether or not human consciousness is subject to quantum effects. However there is increasing agreement that quantum there is at the very least is a better metaphor for human behavior than the laws of classical physics. Our beliefs about human potential and thus the potential of our workplaces have been severely limited by the mechanistic, deterministic, reductions world view. We are ready not only for a new world view but for a new set of skills – skills that are adequate to meet the complexities of the quantum age – skills that enable us to live our quantum potential. The quantum world view provides the conceptual foundation for the 7 Quantum skills. This worldview characterizes the universe as a dynamic unpredictable subjective self-objective machine.

Such a view demands new skills – skills that enable not only to see the world from a new perspective but to be in the world in a new way.

As we work with these skills we will discover that there is much more to life than meets the eye. These Quantum skills can act as decoder for our hidden potentials. In the next release we will study these magical seven Quantum skills at length.

New sciences provide concepts and images for an updated world view – a world view that characterizes the universe as a complex unpredictable, interactive system, rather than as a stable objective machine; many of us resonate strongly with this more dynamic world view. Yet, all of us struggle with practical applications. We can use basic principles of quantum mechanics (subatomic physics) as a conceptual metaphor for a new set of skills, quantum skills that we can use to integrate a new more holistic world view into our individual lives and into our organization.

These quantum skills like the traditional skills of planning, organizing, directing and controlling in both personal and professional lives are deeply intertwined. We do not use one set skills in one arena of our lives and another set elsewhere. We tend to act consistently.

Therefore, if we can learn to apply these quantum skills in our personal lives, we will also begin to use them at work. When enough of us make new choices quantum leaps will occur. And contrary to Newtonian laws these quantum leaps happen without external force or manipulation. They are triggered by internal shifts in consciousness.

Until recently, we have been hesitant to apply quantum concepts to human behavior. Opinions are however shifting. Recent research in psychology, biology and neurophysiology suggests that we are indeed quantum beings.

Article by: Prof.S.V. Khambete