You actually might have a point there

Welcome to Discuss HR, the HR blog written by Human Resources UK. 

Graham Salisbury previously asked when did you last read a book; he now returns to question a widely held view on social media and throws a bit of Darwinism in for good measure! (Ed Scrivener)

You actually might have a point there

(Health Warning! This blog does have something to do with HR. Honestly. But bear with me for a moment or two while I take you down a side street of contemporary philosophy!)

All is not well in the New Atheism camp.

Thomas Nagel is a renowned Atheist professor of Law and Philosophy at New York University and many of his books have met with great critical acclaim. If you're looking for a first-rate introduction to philosophy, you need look no further than his excellent "What Does It All Mean", and if that whets your appetite, you may wish to have a look at his 1974 classic journal article, "What Is It Like To Be A Bat". No, I am not joking. The article is a masterwork in trying to look at something from an unfamiliar angle. (Hmm... Looking at an issue from someone else's point of view .... perhaps that has something to do with HR after all ...)

But his recent book (snappily titled "Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False) has really infuriated some of his former bedfellows in the New Atheism camp (that's the likes of Richard Dawkins (author of The God Delusion) for the uninitiated)

No, he's not Got Religion or anything like that. But what he has done is something far, far worse:

He has asked some questions. 

In particular he has dared to challenge the prevalent neo-Darwinian view that Evolution provides a complete  explanation of how we got here.  (That is code for "can a complex life form like man really have developed from primordial soup")

He hasn't actually come up with any serious alternative views, but has said that "I find neo-Darwinianism antecendently unbelievable - a heroic triumph of ideological theory over common sense. I would be willing to bet that the present right-thinking consensus will come to seem laughable in a generation or two." (That is code for "In a couple of generations, people with think that Richard Dawkins was barking.)

In doing so, he has been vilified, virtually excommunicated, and even had his sanity called into question by others in the New Atheist fraternity, not for any alternative hypothesis that he has proposed, but merely for saying that those who question the consensus might actually have a point, and that their countervailing views deserve to be treated seriously and not rejected out of hand. He puts it like this:

"Even if one is not drawn to their alternative explanations, the problems caused by the iconoclasts should be taken seriously. They do not deserve the scorn with which they are commonly met. It is manifestly unfair"

What the heck has this got to do with HR, I hear you cry?

Quite a lot I believe.

How many of our beliefs about the HR profession are so set in stone that even to question them is inviting scorn and ridicule?

Let's take the issue of the importance of social media to the HR profession. 

Ever risked life and limb by questioning if social media is the salvation of the HR community? There are plenty of our fellow HR colleagues who would doubt your sanity were you to say that social media was anything less than the holy grail of the HR profession. 

But let's look at a few facts (and in doing so I can sense some of my contacts on twitter clicking the Unfollow button). 

Social Media (and I guess that I am talking chiefly about twitter here) is sold as the Great White Hope that will pull us all closer together and get us collaborating. 

But it doesn't. 

There are many people for whom twitter is an optional extra that they have chosen to ignore. For others it is simply an irrelevance.  These are not Bad People, nor are they Luddites. They have just made a choice that is contrary to that of the majority. To put this in context: CIPD CEO Peter Cheese follows a mere 41 people, and (at the time of writing) tweeted just 108 times. Dave Ulrich may be slightly more active, but a quick glance reveals that his account is managed by his publisher rather than by the man himself. They are no better or worse for not being prolific tweeters.

There are also those who have found that far from being a mechanism for bringing people together, twitter has in fact become a barrier rather than a bridge. It has led to them feeling excluded and an outsider rather than part of the inner circle of the faithful.

But just utter the words "Is social media all it's hyped up to be?" and you can almost hear the Angry Mob marching round to your door.

To ridicule or ignore the views of such people just isn't on.  As HR Professionals (perhaps I should say "Above all as HR Professionals" we are in the business both of uniting people but also asking challenging questions which may unsettle the status quo.

Let's not make the debate over the nature and future of social media one in which it is regarded as heresy to simply ask if we are heading down the right path.

Wouldn't it be good if we all occasionally gave credit to those with views that are different to our own by simply saying, "You actually might have a point there"?

Read about Graham and our other authors here

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Discuss HR is the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK, the 10,000 member strong LinkedIn group dedicated to the HR professionals in the UK.  Discuss HR is published twice weekly and looks to take an insightful, informative and sometimes irreverent view on the world of HR – all with the purpose of generating a discussion.

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