Views of humanity in organizations

Every organization has a view of humanity. It is rarely written down. Yet it is present everywhere: in the room people have to exercise judgment, in what happens when someone fails, and in who is trusted.

Organizations like to speak about values, engagement, and responsibility. Their systems, meanwhile, may tell a very different story. A value such as trust sounds different when every choice requires approval. “People first” loses its meaning when people are treated primarily as resources, risks, or data points.

That tension is at the heart of Meaning & Bullshit. The point is not to ridicule ambitious language, but to examine when words become credible. Bullshit emerges when an organization’s outward story becomes detached from the experiences on the inside.

In this keynote, I show how language, stories, rituals, rules, and KPIs reveal the view of humanity an organization actually holds. Through philosophy, organizational theory, research, and recognizable examples, audiences gain a new way to look at culture and leadership.

The central question is not only: what are our values? More importantly: what would you have to believe about people to understand why our organization works the way it does?

A sharp and accessible talk for organizations that take their big words seriously enough to test them against practice.