Work is not just a means to survive. For many professionals, work itself has become something to survive, day after day, until retirement or death. Overwork, dysfunctional relationships, layoffs, and toxic cultures have made this work experience inhumane-literally lacking in humanity. We live in fear of losing our jobs while wishing we didn't have to work at all.
In Humanity at Work, former physicist turned business consultant and executive coach Patrick Manigault challenges the impersonal and transactional status quo that has shaped the modern workplace. He recounts how the pioneers of the Industrial Revolution drove unprecedented efficiency and growth but marginalized the most important side of the equation: us. In the attempt to optimize work, the human experience has become secondary to productivity and profit.
Now, in an increasingly AI-driven and automated world, we no longer need to work like machines for businesses to survive. Better machines keep coming. What we need is a new, much more human way of working.
Humanity at Work is for anyone who has climbed-or is climbing-the corporate ladder
and still finds themselves exhausted, unfulfilled, and dissatisfied. It is for those who believe work can be more than a paycheck, more than a dream to chase, win, or survive. It invites us into a workplace where we are more relational than transactional, where we treat ourselves and each other like humans rather than machines, and where we remember that how we are being together is just as important as what we do together.
When we bring our whole human selves to work, our experience of work will change-for ourselves, for our teams, and for every organization brave enough to try. Together, we will transform work into a place where everyone can thrive.