At the dawn of the fourth industrial revolution, humanity may well be on the brink of a movie-like sci-fi future as imagined in movies such as the now hundred years old Metropolis by Fritz Lang (1927), or the more recent Blade Runner (1987 & 2017). Adapted from Philip K. Dick’s fiction book, it shows a world where machines and humans are quasi-identical. While for some this image conjures up hope, for others it brings fear and doubt.

It has been predicted by McKinsey, and others, that in the next few decades machines will outperform humans in many tasks. Raymond Kurzweil in 2005 went further, predicting that by 2045 we will be facing the singularity moment where non-biological distinctions will cease. No doubt, there will still be a lot we will want to leave in human’s hands. Which role then will humans play in that soon-to-be society?

The creation and sustainability of the future is frequently best imagined through art, particularly when the topic is the often-depicted difficult relationship between humans and cyborgs. In the Blade Runner movies, we are transported into an apocalyptic future where such relations are at an extreme. On-screen, cyborgs are virtually identic to humans. Off-screen, in the real world some humans act like and/or are treated as slave-robots while others are free and encouraged to express and use their human nature. This tension, which is at the heart of the narrative, is perhaps a depiction of an ancient quest for our true human nature and a way to make sense of an inner clash between productivity and creativity, convenience and profoundness, that is often reflected in a battle for sustainability, between short and long term gain. This battle is as important to management as ever.

This sort of issue was of interest to Abraham Maslow in the 1960s in the context of the human experience at work. Back then, Maslow, now famous for his hierarchy of needs (1. Physiological; 2. Safety; 3. Belonging and Love; 4. Esteem; 5. Self-actualization), imagined the requirements and consequences of a utopian world with only self-actualizing workers and called it Eupsychia. In that world, self-actualizing “highly evolved individuals assimilate work into identity, into the self, i.e., work actually becomes part of the self, part of the individual’s definition of himself”. Managers, of course, become facilitators and practitioners of an enlightened management style, so-called Eupsychian Management.

Using this lens to watch the Blade Runner movies, we can see, in some of the cyborgs, Maslow’s path of personal development, a journey to Eupsychia, which is in many ways analogous to the cyborgs’ path to freedom from their robotic shackles, via the realization of their true nature, and the unbearable limitations of their enslaved position in society.

Sensemaking and creative thinking will free cyborgs and allow them to start moving towards a sustainable future, which from their point of view is simply one where they are free to pursue their true nature.

For Karl Weick, the father of the sensemaking literature, sensemaking does not initiate from decision-making but from cosmological episodes in which “people suddenly and deeply feel that the universe is no longer a rational, orderly system”. We propose that it is the creation of such episodes that can give rise to what we call a Eupsychian Disruption, the moment in which, for example while watching Blade Runner, the viewer might realize that, as the song goes, we are the robots. To promote such moments, Eupsychian Managers should present employees with shocking, awe inspiring information, by getting across the message that non-compliance, dissent, change are expected or by reflecting on and speaking of the dangers of customary authoritarianism, to which we often revert to by default.

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