Humanizing Business

As we’ve elevated technical and financial acumen in business, we’ve devalued the humanities; and in doing so, we’ve devalued people. The consequences are showing up everywhere: in leadership, short-term and siloed thinking, disengagement, sustainability taking a backseat, and declining trust.

“Humanities” are the disciplines of Arts: philosophy, history, literature, sociology, psychology, ethics, linguistics, and culture, to name a few. Studies of how humans create meaning, make decisions, and live together.

When humanities acumen is lacking, people notice but do not necessarily connect the issue to its root cause.

Critiques of HR and the Decline of Humanities

In the 90s, I attended an event where an accountant lectured a room of HR professionals about the importance of financial acumen. It stung. I was an HR compensation analyst, and I’d recently worked as an underwriter. How did he not see the technical analysis HR already does or how much more complex it is to work with people? How did he not recognize the negativity his admonishment spread, eroding trust with his audience?

With Y2K, the critique aimed at HR shifted to tech skills; 10 years later, risk management; and lately, it’s about AI. Over the same period, business, engineering, and technology were elevated as “future skills,” while the humanities were and are increasingly devalued.

Yet in a curious parallel, we embraced terms like “behavioral economics,” “client value proposition,” “collaboration,” “leadership,” “decision making,” and being “purpose-led.” These are re-branded humanities topics. Experienced people in business noticed capability gaps in the workplace and came up with novel ideas about critical skills that directly tie back to humanities acumen.

Humanities are Future Skills, and Now Skills

Humanities are not about being “nice.” This is about ways of understanding humans, our evolution, and the thoughtful creation of our future: how meaning is made, how power operates, how decisions ripple through systems, the role of people alongside the technologies we create, and how ethics guide action under uncertainty.

Presently, there is a collective drumming for innovation and change-resilience capabilities: a combination of psychology, artistic creativity, and sociology.

We are also navigating a global political landscape arising from historical, religious and societal events where political science, history, philosophy, and religious literacy matter. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, for example, are interconnected Abrahamic traditions. Historically, political states have drawn on each to legitimize territorial expansion through conquest, occupation, or empire. This may sound controversial, but it is just history. How can we navigate responsibly if we don’t connect events to the historical context?

Humanities acumen is as critical as STEM, and often more so, because all systems ultimately operate through and for people. STEM needs to be integrated with humanities, and medicine (health).

Humanities Skills in Everyday Business

Consider business writing. It’s long been popular, but we gloss over its roots in literature and sociology: the ability to write creatively in a way that truly engages an audience. Not long ago, an investment management team asked me to help investment bankers communicate more effectively with clients. The team was brilliant, but many struggled to perceive from the client’s point of view and to craft for group dynamics: humanities skills.

The Human Cost of Devaluing Humanities

Meanwhile, mental-health concerns deepen. Global engagement is falling. These are not only individual struggles, but a larger societal shift. The devaluation of the humanities is a symptom of a broader devaluation of people—a systemic discounting of basic human needs. Work–life balance is too often recast as: how much can we suppress our needs to keep working? How often do we sacrifice sleep, posture, or tolerate fluorescent glare to push longer hours? How often are we expected to carry out work that harms other parties or the environment? When risks to people, communities, and ecosystems are hard to quantify, they’re relegated to “secondary” issues: somehow less real than the financials.

Leadership, Talent, and the Missing Piece

Leaders privately admit that what keeps them up at night is people: how to foster innovation, build change resilience, and sustain excellence. We strive to optimize human talent while discounting humanities education and acumen. Then come the business books: realizations, after many years, that being people-centric and purpose-led is essential.

A Story from the Field

Take one example: a mass layoff at a highly profitable company in a buoyant market, implemented to improve the profit margin by ~24 bps. This was a multi-year “Best Employer,” with executives speaking at esteemed forums.

I proposed we reach the same financial ends through attrition. I was told that if layoffs occurred this fiscal year, they wouldn’t count against the KPI’s in the bonus calculation. The executive team wanted the layoffs immediately to lock in bonuses, with Board support.

The stress of such incongruence was crushing. I developed Bell’s Palsy and left the project. I was disillusioned by the willingness to harm so many with so little accountability for the human impact. The next project leader also developed Bell’s Palsy within months and to this day will openly declares that workplace was “toxic,” attributing it as causing “PTSD.”

This is not an isolated story: it’s playing out in many companies, across many countries, an example of “successful" leadership. Accountability for people, society, country or humanity are just not part of the discussion. And people are noticing: calling out to rehumanize work.

I share this not to shock, but to illustrate what happens when systems reward financial outcomes while severing accountability for human impact. It’s an example of how “successful” business leaders operate in large organizations.

Reconnecting Business with Humanity

Today, it isn’t technical acumen that feels most scarce; it’s humanities acumen—and humanity in leadership. Underneath this critique is sadness for leaders’ inner worlds, for the ways they’re pressured to sever heart from business and humans from their humanity. It doesn’t need to be lonely at the top. It doesn’t need to be elbows-up within our own organizations and toward the communities we share.

Questions for Boards and C-Suite

1. Purpose – How does our core purpose serve society? What responsibility do we hold to the communities where we thrive?

2. Inclusion & Legacy – Is our strategy shaped by community voices and designed with future generations in mind?

3. Stewardship – Does our mission align with the long-term sustainability of humanity, honoring the land, water, and creatures that sustain us?

Humanities as Critical Business Skills

The humanities disciplines translate into business capabilities:

• Philosophy - Critical reasoning under uncertainty; ethical decision‑making; navigating trade‑offs and competing interests.

• History - Long‑term strategic thinking; geopolitical, economic and regulatory awareness; avoiding repeat failures and short‑termism.

• Literature - Clear, persuasive communication; narrative coherence; building trust with clients, teams, and investors.

• Linguistics - Cross‑cultural communication; negotiation clarity; reducing ambiguity and misinterpretation in high‑stakes contexts.

• Cultural Studies - Inclusion and market relevance; product and policy fit across diverse communities; reputational risk mitigation.

• Psychology - Motivation and behavior; change adoption; leadership effectiveness; team dynamics; and resilience.

• Sociology - Organizational culture; social trends; power dynamics; stakeholder mapping and relations; understanding systems and incentives.

• Ethics - Governance, compliance, and accountability; risk management; sustaining legitimacy and social license to operate.

• Art & Design - Creativity and innovation; human‑centered design; branding, experience, and sense‑making under complexity.

These capabilities are aspects of effective leadership; humanities education makes them explicit, teachable, and accountable.

Not sure where to start? Best place is to start with emotional acumen. Understanding motivation and insecurity is a powerful lens.

Rehumanize for the future of humanity

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In the spirit of respect and truth, I honour and acknowledge that I live and work within the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

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