About HumanCentric Labs
We invented
Talent+AI™
as the new unit
of managing work.
We are a team of highly experienced operating executives and researchers focused on one mission: integrating, managing, and optimizing Talent+AI™ hybrid as the new work unit of a talent/AI workforce — benefiting of both individual and organization.
MISSION
Foster Highly Adaptable Organizations — where Talent+AI™ creates compound value for individuals, customers, organizations, and humanity.
VISION
Shape the future of Talent+AI™ — human judgment and AI capability unified into a single, measurable value-creating work unit.
PURPOSE
Service Humanity — build the organizational model where services of customer value chains shape market forces and governance to ensure AI is a source for good.
Built over fifteen years. Ready now.
In 2011, Michael Grove had a conviction: the model for managing work needed to change. The job description — an industrial artifact for roles and tasks — could not capture what knowledge workers did, for whom, its value and who benefited.
The insight was simple and radical: every act of work is a service. Every service has a customer. Define work this way and you can measure it, improve it, and connect it directly financially.
In 2014, “All Work as a Service” was published. First client implementations began. The role is the service profile included services, customers, skills, % FTE, service value metric, and applications.
In 2024, the model met its moment. AI tools made the limitation of the job-based model unmistakably clear: AI cannot be assigned a job description. But it can be assigned to services — measured in the same unit as human talent, evaluated by the same customer.
Today, HumanCentric Labs works with executive teams ready to build the Highly Adaptable Organization — and capture the early-adopter advantage that compounds over time.
2011
2014
2014
2024
NOW
Vision
Published
HCL Founded
AI Moment
18–24 months to HAO
2011
The Vision
Michael Grove starts developing the service model. Core conviction: every act of work is a service with a customer. The job hides value. This service model reveals it.
Fifteen Years in the Making
2014
Published
"All Work as a Service" is published. First client implementations begin. The service profile replaces the job description with measurable, customer-linked work.
2022
HCL Funded
HumanCentric Labs is established. SMMS™ evolves into a full operating platform. ROTA™ bridges service value to P&L.
2024
AI Meets Model
Talent+AI™ is named as the new unit. Human Equivalence™ makes AI resource manageable with human talent. The HAO becomes the destination.
NOW
+20% Proven
Client deployments demonstrate +20% service value. Investment recovered in 5 months. Opportunity for early-adopter advantage is now.
Simple steps. Measurable results. The early-adopter advantage compounds.
Not McKinsey. Not JoshBersin.
The originator of this category.
We have been implementing the service model with clients since 2014. Our advisory team brings deep operational expertise enabling organizations to build confidence, clarify their Talent+AI™ strategy, and sustain the adaptability needed to compound value creation and accelerate margin.
ORIGINATOR
Talent+AI™, SMMS™, ROTA™, Human Equivalence™ — producing the new workforce operating model. Built since 2011. Not available anywhere else.
PROVEN
AI frees talent time to increase value — +20% service value and full ROI in 5 months. Real client results, not projections. We demonstrate. We don’t just describe.
DIFFERENT
Our advisory enables adaptability and empowers the workforce to create value — building a culture where Talent+AI™ compounds rather than competes.
Simple steps, easy to scale.
1
The Capture
Months 1-3
Map every individual’s work as services to named customers. A few hours per person generates more clarity than any org chart.
2
Signal
Months 2-6
Customers rate services on importance and quality. The gap is the value signal — this is where Talent+AI™ investment pays highest.
3
Improve
Months 4-18
Teams form around customer need, not the org chart. AI is integrated where it creates capacity for higher-value work. ROTA™ connects to P&L.
4
Scale
Months 12-24
Overhead converts to value creators. No overhead in the HAO — only value delivered or value yet to be unlocked.
Talent+AI™ is the new unit • SMMS™ is the system • ROTA™ is the measure • HAO is the destination
SMMS™ begins within existing structure. No restructuring required. No new technology infrastructure before starting. It takes hours to understand and produce value . Proof of concept results make the case for scaling.
FOUNDER & CEO
Michael Grove
"In 2011 I had a vision that the model for managing work needed to change — to the benefit of both individual and organization. Fifteen years later, Talent+AI™ makes this vision real."
Michael grew up at Lockheed-Martin, then founded and led five startups. Across those decades, one observation kept returning: the job description was built for a different era. It could not describe the actual work was actually , for whom, or its value.
In 2011, he began developing the service model. In 2014, he published "All Work as a Service" — the intellectual foundation of what would become SMMS™. First clients included Qualcomm, HERE, Clorox, and Morning Star. The model worked.
In 2022, Michael founded HumanCentric Labs. In 2024, the emergence of enterprise AI made the limitation of the job-based model unmistakably clear. Talent+AI™ was named as the new unit. The Highly Adaptable Organization became the destination.
CHIEF OF VALUE CREATION
Hunter Hastings
"Make the customer the boss. Define value in the customer’s terms. The organization that does this becomes faster, more adaptive, and very hard to compete with."
In executive roles, Hunter watched smart people and good ideas get impeded by the organizations they were supposed to animate. The gap between potential and performance was not a talent gap — it was a design gap.
His research journey — through Austrian economics, entrepreneurship, and conversations with CEOs and founders — converged on one principle: make the customer the boss. Remove the barriers between service providers and customers’ aspirations.
In partnership with HumanCentric Labs, Hunter brings the value creation operations layer that makes the HAO real: not as a vision, but as an 18-to-24-month journey with measurable results at every step.
Deep expertise. Diverse domains. One mission.
-
Minako Honda
CULTURE & HR LEADERSHIP
"I see this limitation everywhere: talented people constrained by rigid job-based models. When teams own and improve their services, leadership becomes lighter and more meaningful."
-
Joerg Schreiner
ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATION
"HAO means having the high performance of a startup at the scale of a large corporation. Size converts into speed. Entrepreneurial energy gets boosted everywhere." -
Janka Krings-Klebe
ECOSYSTEM STRATEGY
"The organizations that win in the AI era are not those with the best tools — they are those that have redesigned how value flows. From hierarchy to ecosystem." -
Gary Corbett
TEAM PERFORMANCE & COACHING
"There are many technology-centric models in the AI era. Few start from the goal of creating a sustainable, human-centric organization. HCL does." -
Dr. Ross Wirth
ADAPTIVE ORGANIZATION DESIGN
"Many leaders recognize the need to move beyond bureaucracy but struggle to begin. I help run small, context-specific experiments and scale what works."
-
Raffy Espiritu
FACILITIES & WORKPLACE STRATEGY
"Most organizations are addressing the new distributed workplace using legacy change management models. HCL delivers a clear action plan — AI talent integrated into strategy."
-
Patrick Cowden
RELATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE
"Forty years, three continents, one conclusion: structure and strategy are not the game-changer. The human factor is — trust, presence, and connection at the point of execution."
-
Kathleen Curran PhD
GLOBAL LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
"HAO demands that talent and AI operate as a unified value-creating force. But talent cannot create value from a place of fear or reaction. The human operating system changes first."
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Geoff Hinsley
LEADERSHIP PRACTICE
"IDKN® develops in leaders the capacity to navigate uncertainty with clarity and lead adaptively when no playbook exists. This is the nervous system that makes the HAO structure come alive."
We are seeking executive teams that understand a new approach to managing work is essential and strategic to their organization’s future. Not a POC. Not a consulting engagement. A new category — with client proof.
Ready to build your organization to fully embrace talent and AI integration?
The acceleration gap is structural — not a technology gap, not a talent gap.
AI replacing Talent is linear. Talent+AI™ compounds growth and accelerates margin.
A 90-day pilot proves this model before committing at scale.
A Highly Adaptable Organization is achievable in 18–24 months — No restructuring to start.
The current barrier to scaling AI is eliminated