[Neurons] 2009 Meta Reflections #41

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Meta Reflections #41

Sept. 28, 2009

The Fifth Discipline and Self-Actualization #3

 

 

 

A SELF-ACTUALIZING LEADER

SPEAKS OUT

 

 

 

While Peter Senge does not himself use the term self-actualization" in his
book The Fifth Discipline, or even mention Maslow, what follows here is a
long quotation in the book by a CEO who does.  If there is one person that
Senge quotes extensively throughout his book, it is Bill O'Brien, who was at
that time the President and CEO of Hanover Insurance.  In fact, Bill O'Brien
not only mentions Maslow, speaks about the hierarchy of needs,
self-actualization, but repeatedly through the Fifth Discipline described
and argued for things that today we know as the premises of
Self-Actualization Psychology.  Here's a sampling of quotes from O'Brien.

 

In speaking about the need for managers to redefine their job from the "old
dogma of planning, organizing, and controlling," he says they must realize
"the almost sacredness of their responsibility for the lives of so many
people.  Managers' fundamental task is "providing the enabling conditions
for people to lead the most enriching lives they can." (p. 140)

"The total development of our people is essential to achieving our goal of
corporate excellence. ... we believe there is no fundamental tradeoff
between the higher virtues in life and economic success.  We believe we can
have both.  In fact, we believe that, over the long term, the more we
practice the higher virtues of life, the more economic success we will
have."

"The ferment in management will continue until we build organizations that
are more consistent with man's higher aspirations beyond food, shelter, and
belonging." (p. 5)

 

He says that people with high levels of personal mastery are more committed.
They take more initiative.  They have a broader and deeper sense of
responsibility for their work (p. 143).

"In the type of organization we seek to build, the fullest development of
people is on an equal plane with financial success.  This goes along with
our most basic premise: that practicing the virtues of life and business
success are not only compatible but enrich one another.  This is a far cry
from the traditional 'morals of the marketplace.'" (p. 144)

"Early on we recognized that there is a burning need for people to feel part
of an ennobling mission.  If it is absent many will seek fulfillment only in
outside interests instead of in their work.  But we also discovered that
stating a mission or purpose in words was not enough. ... people need
visions to make the purpose more concrete and tangible." (p. 224)

Finally there is a long passage from O'Brien.  I invite you to read the
following knowing what you now know about Self-Actualization Psychology and
notice if this is not a great quote from a leader who thinks in terms of
self-actualization.

"Our traditional organizations are designed to provide for the first three
levels of Maslow's hierarchy of human needs: food, shelter, and belonging.
Since these are now widely available to members of industrial society, our
organizations do not provide significantly unique opportunities to command
the loyalty and commitment of our people.  The ferment in management will
continue until organizations begin to address the higher order needs:
self-respect and self-actualization." [Aim for the higher needs, "seek the
peak" to create loyalty and commitment.]

 

"This is the quest we at Hanover have been on for almost twenty years now-
to discover the guiding principles, design, and tools needed to build
organizations more consistent with human nature." [The principles of
self-actualization that accord with the best in human nature.]

 

"We weren't focused on organization learning initially.  We set out to
identify and eliminate the diseases that afflict hierarchical organizations
and make them inconsistent with the higher aspects of human nature." [First,
release the interferences to unleashing the highest potentials.]

 

"All of this was based on certain beliefs about people, as are all forms of
organization.  If you believe that people are most concerned with getting
along and putting together coalitions to wield power, that's a political
environment.  If you believe that once you're on top the secret is staying
on top, that's a bureaucratic environment.  If you believe, as we did, that
there's an enormous reservoir of untapped potential in people that can be
channeled more productively than it is, you try to build a value-based,
vision-driven environment." [Beliefs about people create the organization's
culture- a self-actualizing culture is value-based and vision driven about
the potentials in their people.]

 

"Now, I think that the human being has a deep drive to learning.  So, as you
create organizations that are more in line with human nature, you are
building learning organizations.  So, although we started in a different
place, we ended up in the same place."

 

At that point Senge asked a question about the timeliness of a
self-actualizing company to today's world (well, the world in 1987): "Why do
you think that organizations more consistent with human nature are timely?"

"My personal view is that this has to do with the evolution of
consciousness.  Mankind's nature is to ascend to greater awareness of our
place in the natural order- yet, everywhere we look we see society in a
terrible mess of self-centeredness, greed, and nearsightedness.  In modern
society, business has the greatest potential to offer a different way of
operating.  The potential of business to contribute toward dealing with a
broad range of society's problems is enormous.  But we must show the way by
example not by moralizing.  We must learn how to harness the commitment of
our people- then our commitment to building a better world will have some
meaning." (pp. 347-348) [This is what Maslow discovered in 1960 and is even
more timely today- we build self-actualizing companies to build a better
world.]

 

I'll end with this quotation from Peter Senge himself:

"I believe our fundamental challenge is tapping the intellectual capacity of
people at all levels, both as individuals and as groups.  To truly engage
everyone- that's the untapped potential in modern corporations.  This leads
me to the notion of an organization as a learning organism." (p. 350)


 

So while Senge calls it a "learning organization," we call it a
self-actualizing organization in Neuro-Semantics which I will address more
in the next Meta Reflection.  And you can read all about such in Unleashing
Leadership (2009, $25) as well as in Self-Actualization Psychology (2008,
$25), and you can learn all about it in the new trainings called -
Unleashing Leadership.

 

 




 

 

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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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Hall are sent out every Monday and meta-Coach Reflections sent out every
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