Why Culture Change Starts With an H

In a world of rapid technological acceleration, it’s tempting to believe that transformation begins with strategy decks and AI models. The prevailing narrative is that what companies need now is a stronger tech stack, a more agile operating model, or perhaps a tighter performance framework.

What we often forget, especially in corporate circles, is that change doesn’t start with infrastructure. It starts with humans. In fact, the more we talk about “new ways of working,” the more I find myself returning to a deceptively simple question: what does the “H” in HR actually stand for?

Of course it stands for human. Yet, it is often the first thing we lose sight of.

In The Individualized Corporation by Sumantra Ghoshal and Christopher Bartlett, a book I often return to, I continue to be struck by how prescient their ideas remain, nearly three decades on. Long before remote work and artificial intelligence became commonplace topics, they challenged us to move beyond a perverse obsession with strategy, structure, and systems. In their place, they offered a more human-centered lens: purpose, process, and people.

It’s a shift that sounds subtle, but it rewires everything.

Purpose, they argue, must replace strategy as the driving force of an organization. Strategy may chart a course, but only purpose can inspire people to follow it. When employees understand why their work matters—not just what they must deliver—they are more willing to show up with intention. More willing to stretch, to care, to lead. Purpose is not a slogan. It is a shared sense of meaning that anchors people in uncertain times.

Process, too, must evolve. Not the kind measured by workflows and KPIs, but the lived processes of human interaction. This encompasses how decisions are made, how voices are heard, how trust is built. In the age of transformation, top-down communication and rigid hierarchy are not just ineffective; they are corrosive. Culture change, in this light, is not something that can be engineered. It is something that is experienced daily—through dialogue, through learning, through the subtle dynamics of how people work together.

And then, of course, there are the people. We should think of them not as roles to be managed, but as individuals to be supported. Ghoshal and Bartlett put it plainly: “You do not manage people—you support them.” Yet, so many change initiatives treat people as obstacles to overcome or resources to optimize. The real work of transformation begins when we reverse that thinking. When we trust people to shape their own evolution. When we give them room to breathe, to reflect, and to grow.

If this all sounds a bit idealistic, consider what happened at Microsoft.

When Satya Nadella became CEO in 2014, Microsoft was a company with world-class talent. Unfortunately, it was paralyzed by internal silos, a culture of rivalry, and a fear of failure. Nadella didn’t launch his tenure with a new product or a restructuring. He began with a shift in mindset. Drawing on the work of psychologist Carol Dweck, he introduced the concept of a “growth mindset”, which encouraged employees to learn, collaborate, and lead with empathy.

It wasn’t just rhetoric. HR retooled its development programs to emphasize emotional intelligence. Managers were encouraged to create safe spaces for experimentation. Collaboration across teams became a performance expectation. Over time, these cultural shifts enabled Microsoft to re-emerge as one of the most innovative and admired companies in the world. Its transformation wasn’t just about software. It was about soft skills.

This is why I believe the future of work cannot be engineered from the top down. It must be cultivated from the inside out.

Too often brilliant strategies fall flat because they fail to meet people where they are. Metrics may tell us if a message was delivered. But they can’t tell us if it was received, if it was felt, if it inspired someone to do something differently, or to become someone new.

As artificial intelligence and automation continue to reshape the nature of work, the temptation to prioritize efficiency over empathy will only grow. But we would be wise to remember that it is our human qualities of curiosity, compassion, and adaptability that make the difference between compliance and commitment, between change that sticks and change that stalls.

If we want new ways of working to take root, we must make room for new ways of relating. We must lead not just with vision, but with purpose. We must communicate not just with clarity, but with care. And we must remember that culture lives not in dashboards, but in daily choices.

In the end, real transformation is not about getting people to do something different.

It’s about helping them become someone different.

That work begins with “H.”