Lee—agree with the shift from programme ownership to systems architecture, but it might be worth asking why programmes became the dominant container in the first place.
I argued in a 2017 Deloitte Review piece (Reconstructing Work) that HR organised around programmes because programmes are decomposable into tasks, and tasks were the stable unit the function knew how to administer. The deeper problem AI creates isn't that programmes are too narrow—it's that the task itself is dissolving. AI doesn't automate tasks so much as it operates behaviourally: contextually, relationally, across interactions that have no clean boundaries. When the unit of work shifts toward problem-definition rather than task-execution, the programme becomes the wrong container, not in degree but in kind.
That's what makes the 'systems architect' framing both appropriate and incomplete. It's a governance reframe. What it doesn't yet answer is the harder question: if problem-definition is the new unit of value, who trains for it, assesses it, builds a career ladder around it? The Industrial Revolution required roughly fifty years and a labour movement to settle what a good job looked like in the task era. HR probably isn't the institution that builds the equivalent for the problem era, but it might be the one that notices the gap first.
Excellent post, Lee. I always appreciate your writing and your insight, but this one hit close to home.
I wrote a research brief in 4Q25 as part of a final stage interview entitled “CHRO of the Future: Strategic Work Architect and Responsible Innovation Catalyst.” It called out many of these points, including how this role (and the function they lead) needs to be reimagined. Frankly, everything an organization does going forward needs a rethink. And perhaps transformation leaders should be evaluated for the CHRO role.
On the ground, things are so much worse. I have just observed a complete HR-led restructure of the industrial org I have been embedded in for over 3 years. It was done by a consultancy (Mercer) that is purely HR, but uses the term Organisationsdesign, plus a lot of agile terminology. Their work ended where the org chart was finished. What shocked me most is that the director I had been working with said the stated goal of the work was to "break up structures." Probably the expectation being that new structures, through which the work happens, would form organically if we just put people in offices - we are talking highly complex work in operational technology. The capacity to get things done was destroyed, and the responsibility to rebuild fell to individual managers. (I had been working for a year to get a pilot Collaboration Architecture project off the ground, where we would design coordination infrastructure with deep understanding from operations but Enterprise Architecture would also be a direct sponsor, that is gone now too.)
Hi Anke - that sounds ... less than ideal. Hopefully, along with taking more ownership for outcomes, the best HR leaders will also lean less on HR consulting firms and the kinds of blunt instrument you describe.
Lee—agree with the shift from programme ownership to systems architecture, but it might be worth asking why programmes became the dominant container in the first place.
I argued in a 2017 Deloitte Review piece (Reconstructing Work) that HR organised around programmes because programmes are decomposable into tasks, and tasks were the stable unit the function knew how to administer. The deeper problem AI creates isn't that programmes are too narrow—it's that the task itself is dissolving. AI doesn't automate tasks so much as it operates behaviourally: contextually, relationally, across interactions that have no clean boundaries. When the unit of work shifts toward problem-definition rather than task-execution, the programme becomes the wrong container, not in degree but in kind.
That's what makes the 'systems architect' framing both appropriate and incomplete. It's a governance reframe. What it doesn't yet answer is the harder question: if problem-definition is the new unit of value, who trains for it, assesses it, builds a career ladder around it? The Industrial Revolution required roughly fifty years and a labour movement to settle what a good job looked like in the task era. HR probably isn't the institution that builds the equivalent for the problem era, but it might be the one that notices the gap first.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180202111312/https://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/deloitte-review/issue-21/artificial-intelligence-and-the-future-of-work.html
Excellent post, Lee. I always appreciate your writing and your insight, but this one hit close to home.
I wrote a research brief in 4Q25 as part of a final stage interview entitled “CHRO of the Future: Strategic Work Architect and Responsible Innovation Catalyst.” It called out many of these points, including how this role (and the function they lead) needs to be reimagined. Frankly, everything an organization does going forward needs a rethink. And perhaps transformation leaders should be evaluated for the CHRO role.
Always great to hear your perspective Bob as someone we have enjoyed reading on these topics over the years
On the ground, things are so much worse. I have just observed a complete HR-led restructure of the industrial org I have been embedded in for over 3 years. It was done by a consultancy (Mercer) that is purely HR, but uses the term Organisationsdesign, plus a lot of agile terminology. Their work ended where the org chart was finished. What shocked me most is that the director I had been working with said the stated goal of the work was to "break up structures." Probably the expectation being that new structures, through which the work happens, would form organically if we just put people in offices - we are talking highly complex work in operational technology. The capacity to get things done was destroyed, and the responsibility to rebuild fell to individual managers. (I had been working for a year to get a pilot Collaboration Architecture project off the ground, where we would design coordination infrastructure with deep understanding from operations but Enterprise Architecture would also be a direct sponsor, that is gone now too.)
Hi Anke - that sounds ... less than ideal. Hopefully, along with taking more ownership for outcomes, the best HR leaders will also lean less on HR consulting firms and the kinds of blunt instrument you describe.