Self-Actualizing Leaders & Companies
3 day Training - September 2010
Presented by Dr .L Michael Hall and
brought to you by PeopleSA Coaching·Leadership
This Self-actualization workshop brings together all of Dr. Halls research in self-actualization Psychology and relates it to Leaders and Companies. Below is an article which touches on some of the learning’s one can gain from the workshop.
The Self-Acualisation Drive
and Self-Actualizing Companies
written by Dr Michael Hall
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."
- A bias for action, for getting on with it.
- Close to the customer: they learn from the people they serve.
- Autonomy and entrepreneurship: they encourage practical risk taking.
- Productivity through people: treating people with respect and belief in their potentials.
- Hands-on, value driven: grounded in clearly articulated set of values.
- Stick to the knitting: stay with the basics and never acquire a business you don't' know how to run.
- Simple form, lean staff: to stay focused on core competencies.
- 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 colours, 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 modelling 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.
If you are a coach, Leader, CEO, manager, business owner or entrepreneur this workshop is for you.
Learn the criteria and characteristics of Self-Actualizing Leaders and companies.
Training Date:
Self Actualising Leaders & Companies - Sept 2010
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Email us for more information about Dr Michael Hall and this Training on Self Actualising Leaders and companies
Presented by Dr Michael Hall
As an author, Dr. Hall is known as a prolific writer with 30 some books to his name, more than 100 published articles and is recognized as a leading NLP Trainer and developer of many models, most notably the revolutionary Meta-States model and more recently the Matrix model.
In 1996, Michael co-founded with Dr. Bob Bodenhamer Neuro-Semantics® as a field of study and as an International Society.
Today Michael spends most of his time researching and modeling and training internationally. His modeling projects have included modeling excellence in a variety of areas: resilience, self-reflexive consciousness, state management, sales, persuasion, accelerated learning, wealth building, women in leadership, fitness and health, culture and cultural phenomena, business and leadership.