ABSTRACT
The suggestion is proffered that we do not know how to access what is in the human mind (the “black box”) unless we engage the other, asking what she or he is thinking. It is only then that researchers in human resource development can begin to understand the deepest human needs, wishes and desires that affect human performance in the workplace. Five related issues are taken up: the major issues confronting the field of human resource development; the problem with “measuring” learning, especially in the workplace; performance as a desired outcome vs. performances of the postmodern, saturated self, which has many choices about identities, roles, enactments, self-presentations; the relationship of human resource development to higher education, which is a supersaturated project in human resource development itself, and; what qualitative methods can help us to unlock and understand about human beings and being human.
