From Astrophysics to Human Flourishing: A New Conversation About Organisations

I trained as an astrophysicist before I trained as a manager. That habit of mind has stayed with me. When something is not working, I ask what system produced it.

So, when we talk about burnout, disengagement, and the quiet quitting that has now become a global phenomenon, the question I cannot stop asking is this: What system are we running, that produces these outputs at this scale.

Part of the answer is in the way we measure success. We have spent fifty years optimizing organizations against metrics — GDP at the macro level, shareholder return at the firm level — that systematically excludes the things we now know matter most: meaning, belonging, mental and emotional health, and the long-term coherence of the social and ecological systems on which all economic activity depends. Stiglitz and Sen have been telling us this for over a decade. Layard’s happiness research has been telling us this for twenty years. The data is no longer in question.

What is in question is whether our institutions can change quickly enough to use it.

That is the work of HAANA Institute for Leadership and Wellbeing, the institute we are now building: An International institute for leadership and wellbeing, grounded in serious systems thinking, serious wellbeing science, and serious organizational practice. Not a softer business school. A more honest one.

If this is your conversation too, find me here over the coming months. I will be writing about systems, transformation, and what comes after the affluent society.

Jürgen Mohr
– Co-Founder at HAANA Institute for Leadership and Wellbeing –
– Program Development and Student Communication –