Ready-ing HRD for complexity

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article imagines the future of HRD using a complexity lens. Complexity calls for rethinking the industrial-era framing of work, learning, and change. We discuss foundational concepts and terminology that inform our work and consider links with HRD. We adopt the idea of ‘ready-ing’, introduced by Nora Bateson, who challenges strongly held theories of top-down, step-by-step change that do not work well in complex adaptive systems. She instead suggests we should ready people and organisations for change they might not imagine and cannot predict. We then draw from earlier thinking on sculpting the learning organisation that seems relevant to complexity. To illustrate what ready-ing might look like in practice, we elaborate four examples, or sightings, of how organisations ready for change. We discuss the resulting implications for HRD practice in leadership development and organisational change. We also examine ways that university preparation has pivoted towards a future of ready-ing HRD scholars and researchers for ‘what if’ thinking and complex adaptive change. We conclude with reflections on developing new mindsets and skill sets for HRD’s ready-ing for complexity.