What is the secret ingredient of thriving companies?Human magic. “A fertile environment is one where employees have a spring in their step in pursuit of a noble purpose and where everyone can become the best, biggest and most beautiful version of themselves. It’s the kind of environment that can unleash what I call human magic,” says the former CEO of Best Buy, a large American retail chain, Hubert Joly.
The executive presented his vision in an issue of the prestigious Harvard Business Review. Joly presented six indispensable ingredients for a company’s human magic: purpose, authentic human connections, psychological safety, autonomy, a learning environment and autonomy. These elements strengthen each other and help companies to create humanized roots in order to grow in a healthy way.
The humanizing aspect is essential for human behavior, but also for machines and systems. No, this is not a contradiction. Humanized technology is fundamental to improving retail. It focuses on ensuring that interactions between humans and machines are natural, intuitive and meaningful. In addition, humanized technology can improve employee efficiency and productivity, as automation tools eliminate repetitive and time-consuming tasks, allowing employees to focus on strategic and higher value-added activities.
Humanized technology also makes it possible to create a more collaborative and inclusive work environment, allowing employees to communicate and work as a team more effectively. This is no small feat. It means putting people first, even in the process of developing solutions. Multinational and national companies are already dedicated to creating technologies that humanize the relationship with automation systems, making them more intuitive and user-friendly – valuing collaboration, empathy and even co-creation between developers and users. ABB, the Swiss energy and automation technology company, is working to “humanize” technology, making it more intuitive and easier to use. The company believes that technology should be designed with human beings in mind, rather than forcing people to adapt to it. To this end, the company has put artificial intelligence, robotics and automation to work to create solutions that meet human needs. It also works with other companies and organizations on standards and guidelines for the “humanization” of technology.
The Swiss company hopes that by making technology easier and more intuitive to use, people will be able to benefit more from its resources and improve their quality of life. Based in Alphaville (SP), the innovation and technology company GIC Brasil is moving in the same direction. It has chosen “humanized technology” as a kind of mantra that extends from the office, through the innovation laboratory, to the client and the end consumer. As a motto, the company has adapted the saying “time is money” to a more innovative one: “time is life”.
In other words, the two technology companies seem to be pointing to the fact that technology should be seen as a means to improve the quality of human life, and not as a kind of end in itself. “In other words, an interface should be intuitive and natural to use. Users should be able to access and master new tools and functions with the shortest possible learning curve,” ABB explains in one of its documents on the subject.
