Archive for the ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs’ Category
Wants vs Needs
Wednesday, July 25th, 2007One of my favorite pastimes is traveling. While this isn’t unusual for most Americans, I have to say that one of the primary reasons I enjoy traveling is because it means uninterrupted reading time on cramped planes. And, what a stroke of luck it is when your destination and your reading material crescendo into a “Eureka” moment.
I’m writing this particular musing as I travel on a cramped plane to London after a week in Prague and Budapest having devoured Gregg Easterbrook’s The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse . Easterbrook successfully dissects an issue that I address in my upcoming book, “Peak”: the fact that the Western world is increasingly more prosperous, yet shows no more happiness associated with this affluence (in concert with Martin Seligman’s Authentic Happiness and Darrin McMahon’s Happiness: A History , I’ve had a curious appetite for understanding the ephemeral pursuit that our founding fathers articulated in the Declaration of Independence). The punchline from each of these books seems to suggest an old Henny Youngman joke: “What good is happiness? It can’t buy money.”
I’d love to join Gregg Easterbrook at a spirited dinner table with a good Hungarian bottle of wine because his thoughtful arguments (80% of which I agree with) are perfectly suited to a verbal jousting match. But, what I found most interesting was his dozen page recital of how the study of psychology, which had its origins in the Enlightenment period of world history, moved from a desire to elevate the mind to the Freudian/Behaviorist perspective of the last century that psychology’s purpose was to understand malady (as opposed to sanity, or for that matter, happiness). Imagine if business leaders focused on “worst practices” as opposed to “best practices” in trying to understand how to improve their operating performance. A “Freudian financier” could tell you all the ways he could lose money, but wouldn’t have a clue how to make a buck.
This part of the book also outlines how the positive psychology community (a movement that sprouted out of Abraham Maslow’s humanist psychology writings) is proving that happiness has an awful lot to do with distinguishing between one’s wants and one’s needs. He writes, “The blurring of needs and wants is important here because needs can be satisfied. A person needs food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education, and transportation; once attained, these needs are fulfilled. Wants, by contrast, can never be satisfied. The more you want, the more likely you are to feel disgruntled; the more you acquire, the more likely you are to feel controlled by your own possessions.”
This quandary of affluence is at the root of why modern man can become more prosperous, yet still be “wanting.” It seems that wants are truly personal and individualistic, while needs are more universal to man. Paris Hilton or Dick Cheney’s “hierarchy of wants” might be quite different from my own, but our “hierarchy of needs” (credit Dr. Maslow) might be uniformly common. Easterbrook quotes George Will who has written that today’s need “is defined, in contemporary America, as a 48-hour-old want.” The result is a “blurring of needs and wants,” which leads to a “tyranny of the unnecessary.” My biz school classmate and the co-author of our first books together, Seth Godin , should also be added to that dinner table conversation with Gregg Easterbrook as he and I once started an engaged email conversation about wants versus needs that still needs to be finished (while we’re at it, please make it a table of four as let’s add George Will to the dinner party, too).
One other key point, which Easterbrook makes, that resonated with me and the Relationship Truths pyramid I’ve outlined in my book “Peak” is the idea that happiness comes from transcending the base of the pyramid. The idea that we aspire to something greater and more full of meaning is a basic precept of both individuals as well as employees in the workplace. He writes, “A transition from material want to meaning want is in progress on an historically unprecedented scale involving hundreds of millions of people and may eventually be recognized as a principal cultural development of our age.” He continues, “Ultimately, the reason that possessions and their attendant stress are so alluring is that acquiring possessions is a simpler challenge than acquiring a fulfilling philosophy of life. Western society has concentrated intently on producing a vast output of material goods in part because this was an empirical, tangible goal – we knew we could do it. Now we face a task about which we are less confident, the search for meaning.”
Viktor Frankl’s stunning account of his time in a concentration camp Man’s Search For Meaning is worth reading if you want to explore an argument for the importance of meaning in one’s life that is both intellectually-rigorous while emotionally-wrenching. From the perspective of the workplace, I think that companies as diverse as Southwest Airlines, Harley-Davidson, Whole Foods Market, Medtronic, and Joie de Vivre Hospitality have proven that elevating employees’ perspective on their work from a job to a career to a calling has proven to result in peak performance. Unfortunately, most company leaders (and even HR departments) have a tin ear for meaning. And, our capitalistic society (whether we’re the producer or consumer) tends to get a little too enamored with elements that are lower on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs pyramid.
Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn once wrote about the U.S. and Europe by saying these places “were full of choice, unfortunately most of the choices are mundane.” Having just spent a week in two former Soviet block countries – the Czech Republic and Hungary – I was struck with the dramatic difference in spirit and perspective (dare I say happiness) that existed between two of the star cities in the democratizing Central Europe: Prague and Budapest. In Prague, we found a positive enterprising philosophy in the people we met that matched the pristine and unique architecture. As one Czech said to us, “The past is behind us and the future is bright.” In contrast, many of Budapest’s buildings, while historically majestic, were falling down and so seemed to be the spirit of the people. After having chosen the wrong side in the first two World Wars and having been occupied by the Nazis and then the Soviets, most Hungarians seemed to have lost their meaning or hope in life.
Even the historical sightseeing tributes (or, more accurately, the accounting of the assaults) that both cities have created suggest a difference in perspective. Prague has a Museum of Communism that is ironically upstairs from a McDonald’s and next door to a casino and shopping mall. This Museum is quaint, almost a little haphazard, and has a bit of a sense of humor (where else would you find a mock Soviet poster with a collection of smiling but stern mid-20th century women under the heading “Like their sisters in the West, they would’ve burnt their bras, if there were any in the shops”) in the telling of the tale of how the Czech Republic suffered under the yoke of communism. Budapest’s House of Terror is quite a different place albeit with the same intent in its storytelling. Ironically, while Budapest is clearly behind Prague in its modernization and prosperity, a small fortune and quite a bit of ingenuity have gone into telling the story of how the Hungarian people have persevered while being occupied for nearly a half-century by hostile powers. Unlike the Czechs who seemed to have moved on from their tragic past, the Hungarian’s impressive House of Terror museum suggested that tyranny wasn’t a distant memory and was still deeply-rooted into the population’s psyche.
Of course, some of the collective psychology of these two places has to do with their respective economies (the Czech Republic is on fire while Hungary is waded in debt…similarly, Prague has proven to be a more captivating tourist destination than Budapest). One could make the argument that it’s a strong argument for a free market economy as the Czechs have embraced capitalism more than the Hungarians. But, there seem to be other factors at work here also – some of them potentially very historical in nature while others purely a function of the needs and wants of the people.
One particular conversation with a Hungarian summed it up for me. He said, “We see our fellow Soviet block folks like the Czechs and Croatians evolve into happier and prosperous people. It seems like they are getting everything they want, but we here in Hungary are barely able to get what we need.” The moral of the story: focus on your needs first and foremost and only then will you have the luxury of striving for those elusive wants. (Just as an aside: my partner Donald and I actually preferred Budapest for its impressive bathing culture and monumental architecture as we found Prague tilting too much toward tourist trinkets.)
Job, Career, Calling
Sunday, June 17th, 2007Are there times when your life just feels out of control? I’ve been feeling that way lately – given all the travel, the fast growing company, and all the preparation for the launch of another book. Fortunately, this weekend I went back to a practice that my good friend Jon Staub and I have been enjoying for years and years (but one I’ve neglected too often lately). Each season, Jon and I would come up to his mountaintop ranch in Sonoma and do a three and a half day organic grape juice fast interspersed with meandering hikes, long steam baths, and the occasional nap. It’s amazing how a fast can slow you down and put you back in touch with what’s essential in who you are.
While up here, I’ve been reading a fascinating book by Darrin McMahon called HAPPINESS: A HISTORY . McMahon charts the history of that ephemeral concept called happiness and how it has morphed through time. My favorite philosopher that he’s been quoting is Jean-Jacques Rousseau who wrote in the mid-1700’s. On a fast, how can I not be drawn to writing that suggests our happiness can be “nothing external to us, nothing apart from ourselves and our existence”? He made the point that happiness is not pleasure. He went on to write, “The happiness for which my soul longs is not made up of fleeting moments (of pleasure), but of a single and lasting state.” Rousseau questioned the era of Enlightenment with its modern concepts and new age of aesthetics. He pondered, “What if the advance of modern civilization was the cause of this conflict, leading human beings not closer to their intended end but farther away, farther away from themselves?”
There’s something about Rousseau, Thoreau, and Maslow – beyond the fact that these three scholars have names that rhyme – that suggests the true purpose in life is to strip away the non-essential crap that tends to weigh us down (although they didn’t put it in those terms). Rousseau wrote, “Let us begin by re-becoming ourselves, by concentrating our attention upon ourselves, by circumscribing our soul with the same boundaries and limits that nature has given to our being; let us begin, in a word, by gathering ourselves here where we are.” McMahan, in the book, suggests that “this language, with its suggestion of self-exploration and retrieval – finding the self, collecting the self, returning the self – is so common to our modern vocabulary that it is easy to miss both the novelty and the essential strangeness of Rousseau’s words.” Rousseau – more than a quarter-millennium ago (yes, that’s more than 250 years) – wrote a very Maslovian statement when he penned, “As soon as man’s needs exceed his faculties and the objects of his desire expand and multiply, he must either remain eternally unhappy or seek a new form of being from which he can draw the resources he no longer finds in himself.” This is the dilemma of modern man – constantly striving for things just beyond our reach (that typically have some external motivation). Strangely, we pursue happiness when, in fact, we should settle into happiness as oppose to chasing it.
Such are the meandering thoughts of a writer/CEO/overworked American who hasn’t had solid food in nearly 70 hours (yes, I do remember my last meal very well…but don’t get me started as I’ve done a phenomenal job of not thinking about all my favorite San Francisco restaurants). On a fast, one has the time to do some serious self-reflection beyond how many inches will I lose from my waist. What’s most been on my mind is something I write about in the last chapter of PEAK: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow. It’s the idea that we have one of three relationships with our work or how we make a living. As with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, the goal is to transcend the tangible base of the pyramid to find what’s more essential and personal at the intangible peak of the pyramid.
People with JOBS focus on the financial rewards of working more than the pleasure or fulfillment of what they’re doing. Many of these folks may find their true enjoyment outside of their 9-to-5 existence. Those with CAREERS focus primarily on growing their talent and advancement. While they may gain quite a bit of satisfaction in their work, it is often associated with the esteem that comes from external sources (like recognition or raises). The lucky few who pursue a CALLING find their work fulfilling in its own right, without regard for money or advancement. Those pursuing their calling would recognize Maslow’s statement in their own life: “One must respond to one’s fate or one’s destiny or pay a heavy price. One must yield to it; one must surrender to it. One must permit one’s self to be chosen.”
Each of these three approaches to work correspond to a different level of what I call the Transformation Pyramid (Sustain / Succeed / Transform) or the Employee Pyramid (Money / Recognition / Meaning) – to learn more about those, buy PEAK when it comes out in September.
How do you know which level you, your friends, family, or work associates would be placed on this pyramid? Based upon my fast and the reading I’ve been doing, it’s clear to me that happiness takes hold of us when we turn off the external antenna and tap into the internal. The fact is, a spirit greater than you may be calling to a particular path in life but you and I put up such a collection of distractions and excuses that we can’t even hear the whispers of this calling in our ear. Personally, that whisper has become a shout for me lately as the mud-wrestling between my career and my calling has been entertaining (if you’re the observer) but grueling.
Given that this talk of job, career, calling, and just the basics of happiness have the risk of being vague, I created a test in PEAK for the reader to try and understand where they are in their life. Feel free to take the following test, although beware that your answers will be influenced by your current state of mind, which means you may want to take the test twice, at least one week apart, to really gauge your accurate score. Read each of the following statements and place a check next to the five that best describe your relationship with your current work. Be careful, as it’s easy to think broadly about how certain statements SHOULD reflect your work life. What we’re looking for here are the statements that actually reflect your work life today:
1. While I enjoy what I do at work and am very good at it, I often feel like I’ve “topped-out” and I have to look elsewhere – my home, my spiritual life, my friends, my hobbies, my community service – for inspiration or fulfillment.
2. I tend to lose myself in my work. I just feel like I’m in the “flow” and I lose all sense of time.
3. I like what I do, but I don’t expect a lot from my work. It just provides me what I need to do the other more important things in my life. I enjoy my leisure life more than my work life.
4. My work truly makes a difference in the world.
5. The greatest experience I have at work is when I’m truly recognized by others for what I’ve accomplished.
6. If I had to choose between receiving a 10% raise at work or finding a new best friend at work, I would probably choose the raise.
7. I quite often feel like the work I’m doing is coming from some source bigger than me. I’m just channeling this energy or this talent and I’m quite often amazed by its power.
8. I’m often not that excited to go to work on Monday morning.
9. My goal in life is to rise to the top of my field.
10. There are moments when I think to myself, “If I were independently wealthy, I’d probably still be doing this work.” I do what I do because I just love it.
11. I’ve thought pretty deeply about where my work will take me the next ten years and what I need to do to excel in this field.
12. I’m pretty conscious to use my vacation time and sick days off so that I can create more balance and ensure that work doesn’t dominate my life.
13. I often feel like my work allows me to show the “real me.” My work lets me use my deepest creative gifts.
14. I think work is overrated when you consider what percentage of our lives we spend working as compared to enjoying life. I don’t think much about work when I’m not there.
15. I will do what it takes to become a success in my work.
Okay, I know that wasn’t easy. You may have had either a hard time trimming down to just five, or you may have found it difficult finding five statements that represent your perspective on your work. Here’s how we’ll score them. The following statements reflect someone who has a “job” perspective: 3, 6, 8, 12, and 14. The “career” statements are: 1, 5, 9, 11, and 15. And, the “calling” statements are: 2, 4, 7, 10, and 13.
How many did you have in each category? Your dominant category will tell you a lot about your relationship with your current work. If your dominant category wasn’t “calling,” don’t be alarmed, as most people find their calling outside of their work—whether it’s as a Girl Scout leader, a gardener, a tri-athlete, a devoted friend, or an ardent political activist. The big question you need to ask yourself – and you don’t have to go on a half-week fast to figure this out (and credit to poet Mary Oliver for a portion of my phrasing) – is “Left to your own choice with no external influences, what would you do with this one precious life you’ve been given?” Or think even bigger, “What’s the legacy you’ll leave long after you’re gone?”
With those audacious questions hanging in the air, I’m off to pursue my calling of this very moment: a deep-tissue detox massage.
Mellow Musings on Maslow
Monday, May 7th, 2007You’re catching me in the midst of a peak experience. Woke up this Sunday morning to the call of a rooster at 5:45 am, sauntered down a cliffside trail–with the crescendo-ing crash of the surf to my right–to find myself alone in a shoulder deep sulphur-infused mineral bath perched precariously above a rocky Big Sur beach. Yes, I’ve made the trek to the Esalen Institute for a one-night getaway with my partner-in-curiosity and best friend, Vanda. Forty-five years ago, myth has it that Abraham Maslow and his wife just happened upon this burgeoning little community just as Maslow was becoming a superstar in the yet-to-be-named human potential movement. The Maslows were a little lost having survived the twists and turns of Highway One’s adrenaline-inducing path. When they innocently dropped in on Esalen looking for a place to stay, they were welcomed like the second coming in a Baptist revival tent. This turned out to be the first of many excursions for Abe to what became known as the most famous spot in the world for personal growth workshops and exploration. Strange irony that I was put in a room in the Maslow building and that there was a workshop on self-actualization going on in the slightly-too-noisy room right next door.
I will have an odd segue later today as I join my YPO (Young President’s Organization) mates in Carmel Valley for a two-day retreat of CEO navel-gazing. Similarly, here’s on odd segue for Esalen: I’m probably the only one down here who brought a Fortune magazine. Of course, I don’t read it in public, but as I was safely ensconced in my bed last night, I was reading the editor’s notes on their annual Fortune 500 issue. Geoff Colvin’s headline was “The 500 Gets Religion: Why Big Companies are in the Business of Solving the World’s Woes.” He starts his editor’s note with my favorite Peter Drucker question, “What business are you in?” (which starts one of the chapters in my new book PEAK, which comes out in September). He goes on to write that America’s biggest companies are remaking themselves, as they used to be in the business of solving people’s problems but now they’re in the business of solving the world’s problems. Colvin ultimately says these companies are doing this partly because the world needs these big solutions, but also because – while he doesn’t exactly quote Maslow – we are transcending the bottom of the human needs pyramid as we’ve become more affluent.
He writes, “Companies definitely aren’t solving society’s problems by taking care of employees the way they used to; we all know the trends in job security, pay, pensions, and health care coverage. But employers are trying to attract and hold employees in a new way that exactly parallels the change in how they’re appealing to consumers; by giving more meaning to their lives. That’s a deep shift in the way companies are managed.” Pinch me. No, harder. Has this Fortune magazine been scrubbed clean by the Esalen “meaning” police?….has the Gestalt Gestapo seized any capitalist reading material and sanitized it with a healthy dollop of Maslow’s meaning musings? Colvin goes on to cite GE’s CEO Jeffrey Immelt as an example of the new kind of business leader who’s as concerned about his employee’s meaning needs as he is about their basic pay package. Colvin writes, “An old-school cynic would respond that such a purpose doesn’t put groceries on the table, and that’s what employees need. But that kind of thinking doesn’t apply as broadly as it used to.”
Fortune meets Esalen….ten years ago, it was unimaginable, but today the new age has gotten practical and 21st century youthful entrepreneurs – who might have been soaking in a hot tub a generation ago – are using the capitalist system to make a difference and make a buck. In other words, they’re making a fortune with the an Esalen mindset. Similarly, the Fortune 500 realize that this socially responsible train is leaving the station and they best not be left behind. I guess it’s not surprising that the subconscious tune I’ve been humming for the past 24 hours has been “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” A place like Esalen just makes you feel idealistic in that Dorothy on a Kansas farm kind of way (especially when one – that one being me – is tapping on his laptop in the middle of an abundant organic garden overlooking the grand Pacific with a cloudless sun beating upon my back). We’ve come quite a way…exampled by this CEO humming that famous tune…while reading Fortune magazine.