[Neurons] 2009 Meta Reflections #36

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Meta Reflections #36

August 24, 2009

 

 

SELF-ACTUALIZATION

IN BUSINESSES

 

 

 

In the past month I have been with hundreds of business people- leaders,
managers, and employees.  I have been with them in business meetings and in
trainings within organizations.  And while no one has asked the following
questions in exactly these words, I find that when many people first heard
the words "self-actualization" and business, they have certain questions
about that:

"What does self-actualization have to do with business?  Are you mixing oil
and water?  Work is about products and services, what does it have to do
with self-actualization?  Should people take care of that outside of work?
And what about those who aren't interested in self-actualization?"

 

The answer is that self-actualization has everything to do with business
because business is what people do and it is what people do through people.
So the quality of the people, the level of motivation at which they live,
their intentions in their visions and missions, the values the company
expresses, the culture that governs the organization -all of these are
reflections of the development level of the people involved.  And therefore
the development level of the company.

 

Because self-actualization refers to people being at their best, unleashing
their potentials, fulfilling what is richly meaningful, contributing
being-values (order, beauty, excellence, goodness, quality, etc.) businesses
thrive when leaders, managers, and employees are self-actualizing people.
And conversely, when you have the opposite- fearful, rigid, non-creative,
self-absorbed, self-serving leaders, managers, and people-business will
suffer.  These are the things that make business a jungle.  There will be
unethical competition, lying, cheating, stealing, and every other thing that
makes business ugly.  And that sabotage the business.  These are the things
that cause businesses to go bankrupt and CEO to be handcuffed and led off to
prison.

 

The quality of business depends on the quality of people.  The quality of
the products and services we create in our businesses depends on the quality
of the leaders, managers, and employees. And that's why it begins with
self-actualizing leaders who set a vision for a more human and humane
organization.  It begins with self-actualizing leaders who begin with the
right psychology- Self-Actualization Psychology.

 

When we get our psychology right, then we can make leadership and management
right.  Maslow argued for this 70 years ago and McGregor put it into the
language of Theory X and Theory Y of management.  And while you may think
that this is "old stuff," it is only in terms of what we know.  But in terms
of practice- it is absolutely new and revolutionary!  That's because to
effectively lead and work with people we have to know what drives them and
how they effectively gratify those drives.  In Neuro-Semantics, that's where
we have extended Maslow's hierarchy of needs in our Matrix Embedded Volcano.

 

What does that mean?  It means that we humans do not merely have drives that
motivate us, but our driving needs are informed by the meanings that we
create about those impulses.  That's why every single one of us have
different experiences with the same driving needs within us.  It all depends
on how you think about, represent, belief, frame, decide, etc. about your
needs.  How you frame (or meta-state) your needs and what you understand
about gratifying them transform them into healthy motivational energy or
neurotic motivational energies.  This is what Neuro-Semantic NLP uniquely
offers to leadership and business development today.

 

Now you can discover why and how any person can distort his or her drives
and end up psycho-eating, psycho-spending, psycho-sexing, psycho-securing,
psycho-approval-seeking, etc.  And when that happens, the need has you.  The
need distorts life.   And the pseudo-coping skills cause you to become stuck
at that level of need and unable to move up to the self-actualization needs.

 

Businesses work best when people are actualizing their highest meanings and
values and making real their best potentials.  Companies need people who are
able to tap their human capital of intelligence and creativity.  They need
people living above the Jungle Needs (the first four levels of the hierarchy
of needs)- people who live in the highest self-actualization needs.  Firms
need leaders who can lead people to new visions of possibilities, managers
who can empower and coach people to bring out their best, and people who
enjoy fully engaging their best efforts in creating valuable products and
services.  Such companies are self-actualizing companies.

 

The inescapable fact is this: People at work in every role are still human
beings.  We don't leave our humanness when we enter the front door of the
office or the factory.   Inside the business people are still driven by
their needs and those needs are informed by their meanings and
understandings.   And the level at which they live and work determine the
quality of their lives as well the health or sickness they bring to all
their actions and relationships.  Does a person live at the survival level?
Then that person probably won't attend to safety concerns.  Does a person
feel unsafe and need security?  Then that person will not likely to give
much energy to how he or she treats others and feels connected.  Does a
person live at the social need level (love and affection)?  Then that person
will be unlikely to treat himself with dignity and worth.

 

It is only the person living at the level of the self-actualization drives
and needs that's able to get the ego out of the way and effectively
contribute without being self-absorbed.  It is only when a firm has
self-actualizing leaders and employees that people get beyond the deficiency
needs that a firm can be organized in a way that makes the culture human.

 

Post Script

            I'm please to announce that the book - Unleashing Leadership:
Self-Actualizing Leaders and Companies has now been published and is
available.  It is 280 pages and $25.  I will be sending a follow up post to
this one - giving details on how to order it.

 

 

 

 

--- Meta-Coach Trainings coming 2009 - 2010

 

                                    

1) Sweden

       Sept. 15, 16-23 - Coaching Mastery.  Sweden: Stockholm

       Sponsors: Sara Lee, Niklas Daver, and Helene Nordgen

        <mailto:niklas.daver at gmail.com> sara.m.lee at gmail.com
niklas.daver at gmail.com helene-nordgren at tele2.se 

 

2) New Zealand

      October 1, 2- 9 - Coaching Mastery.  Auckland, New Zealand

     Sponsor: Ignition - Colin Cox and Lena Gray - www.ignition.co.za
<http://www.ignition.co.za/>  

     Lena at ignition.co.za                                               

 

3) South Africa

     Oct. 22, 23-30 - Coaching Mastery.  Pretoria, South Africa

    cheryl at peoplesa.co.za                                

    Cell : 083 267 1412   Tel: 012 362 6542    Fax : 088 012 362 6641

    Skype: meta coach   www.psacoaching.co.za 

                        

4) Australia

       November 19, 20-27 - Coaching Mastery.  Sydney, Australia

      Sponsors: Laureli Blyth and Heidi Heron                  

      Heidi at nlpworldwide.com              Laureli at nlpworldwide.com 

 

5) Australia --- 2010

     March 19 (Leadership Team training) and March 20-27 ACMC Training


     Gold Coast, Australia --- Martin Urban:  61 7  5500 4175

       martin at urbantrainings.com
www.UrbanTrainings.com 

 

 

6) China --- 2010

      Meta-Coaching in two parts --   January 17-22 and May 9-14  (6 days
each time): 

Includes also Module II (Coaching Genius).  

            Guangzhou, China:  Sponsor: Team Huang --- supported by
Neuro-Semantic Trainers: 

Mandy Chai and Wilkie Choi   For Chinese---   yeshow at 163.net .  For English
speakers: 

Mandy Chai: chaimansun at yahoo.com.hk 

 

 

7) Mexico --- 2010

     In two parts --- March 4-7 (March 3 for Team Leaders) and April 15-18
(April 14 for Team Leaders). 

     Sponsor: Salom Change Dynamics-  www.salomchd.com  (55) 30930687 ---
emilia at salomchd.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 

 

To sign up for a free subscription to the egroup of Neuro-Semantics
(Neurons) go to  <http://www.neurosemantics.com/> www.neurosemantics.com ---
you can  subscribe and unsubscribe there.   Meta Reflection articles by Dr.
Hall are sent out every Monday and meta-Coach Reflections sent out every
Wednesdday to the Meta-Coaches egroup.

 

 

 

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