[Neurons] 2009 Meta Reflections #22

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2009 Meta Reflections #22

May 18, 2009

 

 

THE SELF-ACTUALIZATION DRIVE

And Self-Actualizing Companies

 

 

I recently re-read a class in the field of business, management, and
leadership- In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-run
Companies by Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman, Jr.   Even though it's an
old work (1982) and many of the "excellent companies" at the time of that
research have lost their standing, I think the work is still highly relevant
and significant for several reasons.  From their extensive research, they
identified eight basics of management excellence.  "These eight attributes
emerged to characterize most nearly the distinction of the excellent,
innovative companies."

1) A bias for action, for getting on with it. 

2) Close to the customer: they learn from the people they serve.

3) Autonomy and entrepreneurship: they encourage practical risk taking.

4) Productivity through people: treating people with respect and belief in
their potentials.

5) Hands-on, value driven: grounded in clearly articulated set of values.

6) Stick to the knitting: stay with the basics and never acquire a business
you don't' know how to run.

7) Simple form, lean staff: to stay focused on core competencies.

8) Simultaneous loose-tight properties. (pages 13-15)

 

Above and beyond these keys to creating excellent companies, the authors
emphasized the role of people in great companies.  The excellent companies
focus on people, they believe in people, they respect people, and they
communicate and work to bring out the best in people.

"Rene McPherson says, 'Almost everyone agrees, 'People are our most
important asset.'  Yet almost none really lives it.  The excellence
companies live their commitment to people, as they also do their preference
for action-- any action - over countless standing committees and endless
500-page studies."

 

Peters and Waterman argue that "organization" and "people" are synonymous.
(39) and "that's why every one of the eight distinctions that characterize
the excellent companies is actually about people."

"Treat people as adults.  Treat them as partners; treat them with dignity;
treat them with respect. ... These are the fundamental lessons from the
excellence companies research.  If you want productivity and the financial
reward that goes with it, you must treat your workers as your most important
asset." (238)

 

Yet in spite of this focus on people, that is, on human capital,
intelligence, creativity, and spirit, in their effort to identify a theory
of management they skipped right over Maslow and McGregor.  I didn't notice
that years ago when I first read In Search of Excellence.  At that time I
had not read Maslow indepth and had not read McGregor at all.  In their
third chapter , they search for a theory about human nature.  And while they
mention McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y of management, and even later use
the content of Theory Y to explain the excellent companies, they do not
credit McGregor with that nor do they even mention Maslow once.  Tragic.

 

And because they even mention know Maslow and show no awareness of
Self-Actualization Psychology, they draw some conclusions about human nature
that misdirect their conclusions from their research on the excellent
companies and its application today for business, leadership, and
management.  So without understanding the self-actualization drive in human
nature, Peters and Waterman conclude that human nature is irrational and
full of paradox(!). 

"People are not very rational. ...  Man is the ultimate study in conflict
and paradox.  All of us are self-centered, suckers for a bit of praise, and
generally like to think of ourselves as winners." (55)   None of us is
really as good as he or she would like to think.  We reason by stories at
least as often as with good data.  'Does it feel right?' counts for more
than 'Does it add up?' or 'Can I prove it?'

 

"We desperately need meaning in our lives and will sacrifice a great deal to
institutions that will provide meaning for us.  We simultaneously need
independence, to feel as though we are in charge of our destinies, and to
have the ability to stick out. (56).  We all think we're tops.  We're
exuberantly, wildly irrational about ourselves. ... the message that comes
through so poignantly in the studies we reviewed is that we like to think of
ourselves as winners. (57)

 

Highly irrational, emotional human beings - who want to be on winning teams
and individuals who thrive on the camaraderie of an effective small group;
creatures who want to be made to feel that they are in at least partial
control of their destinies.  They simply allow for and take advantage of,
the emotional, the more primitive side of human nature.  Stories influence
us more than data. (60)

 

Now if you don't understand Maslow's hierarchy of needs and how we adult
human beings are simultaneously driven by needs at all levels as filtered
via our meanings- then you will conclude, as Peters and Waterman did, that
we are irrational, crazy, in conflict, and that our nature is one of
paradox.  But if you understand The Matrix Embedded Pyramid of Needs and
Self-Actualization Psychology, then there is no paradox here and no
irrationality.  There is the self-actualization drive.  The key to this
understanding involves two things:

 

First, simultaneous drives.

As biological beings, we are driven by the survival needs and as social
beings we are driven by love and affection, belonging, bonding, connecting,
etc., and as self-reflexive beings with a sense of self and transcendence,
we are driven by meaning, contribution, making a difference, etc.- the being
needs.  And all of this is occurring at the same time!  It is not an
either-or experience, but a both-and one-a systemic experience.  We want to
be a part of a winning team and we also want to stand out in making our
unique contribution.  That doesn't equate to "irrational" although it may
put us in internal conflict if we don't understand our nature.  And it is
not a paradox once you have sorted out the different logical levels.

 

Second, the meaning matrix embedded within the hierarchy.

Given that Maslow missed meaning and only danced around the idea of symbolic
gratifications (Self-Actualization Psychology, 2008), the Neuro-Semantic
model of the Matrix Embedded Pyramid / Volcano connects our meaning-making
powers as cognitive and self-reflexive beings with our drives.  This
explains how our drive for meaning and meaningfulness colors, textures, and
qualifies our drives.  It shows how that we can distort our drives and end
up psycho-eating, spending, saving, sexing, etc.   And it reveals how we can
just as well use our psycho-logics for excellence so that we transcend and
actualize our highest and best potentials, values, and visions.

 

And when you know these two keys - you also know how leaders and managers
can create self-actualizing companies by tapping into the human assets of
creativity and intelligence.

 

The bottom line is that to understand yourself, those you live with and work
with, and people in general, you have to understand the self-actualization
drive.  Yet psychology grew up and developed in the twentieth century
without recognizing this as one of our basic drives.  It wasn't until
mid-twentieth century that Abraham Maslow identified and began modeling this
drive.  Today we know that understanding the self-actualization drive is
critical.  If you don't understand it, then you won't understand yourself,
or understand how human beings work and what they want and need, or how to
adequately, effectively, and truly meet these needs.  And if you can't do
that, then you won't be able to effectively bring out your best or the best
in others.

 

It is the self-actualization drive that motivation us to want to stand out
while simultaneously being a part of a great winning team; why we all
consistently over-rate ourselves as we want to be a somebody and make a
difference.   We are a species driven to actualize our potentials.  We need
to; we want to- or we diminish our humanity.

 

 

Next Year:

 

New Dates for NSTT (Neuro-Semantic Trainers Training): June 15-31, 2010 ---
Colorado




 

 

L.  Michael Hall, Ph.D.

International Society of Neuro-Semantics

Meta-Coach Training System

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO.  81520 USA

1 970-523-7877

1 970-523-5790 fax

      <http://www.neurosemantics.com/> www.neurosemantics.com 

       <http://www.neuro-semantics-trainings.com/>
www.neuro-semantics-trainings.com 

       <http://www.self-actualizing.org/> www.self-actualizing.org

       <http://www.meta-coaching.org/> www.meta-coaching.org

       <http://www.ns-video.com/> www.ns-video.com 

 

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