Climbing up Maslow’s hierarchy

So much of what we do is about meeting needs.

Maslow outlined it perfectly in his hierarchy of needs; you have to meet basic requirements before you can deal with higher level needs. At the bottom of the Maslow’s pyramid are needs associated with food, water and sleep, this is followed by physical safety, then belonging and affiliation, next is esteem and right at the top of the pyramid is self actualization. This is the point where we fully realize our potential.


Here in North America we have made good strides in meeting employees needs as outlined by Maslow’s hierarchy. We pay decently and frequently offer benefits, safety is a focus for all out organizations, and we work hard at developing culture and recognizing our employees. But somehow that whole actualization thing is a little bit trickier then it should be. Not all our employees feel like they make a contribution to the success of the organization and the direct impact of that is poor engagement. Not surprising given engagement is all about the involvement, commitment and satisfaction that employees have with their work.


The level of employee engagement is directly associated with performance. Some 32 % of Canadian employees are partly or fully "disengaged." Companies with the lowest percentage of engagement show declines of 33 per cent in operating income and 11 per cent in earnings per share.


I can’t think of one client I have worked with who hasn’t imagined how exciting it would be to have the majority of employees right at the top of the pyramid. Most of us can recall a situation where we have been involved with a motivated, excited group of individuals - people who feel they are making a major contribution to the organization. It is a powerful experience!


I have worked with several such teams and observed a number. The common denominator is excellence in leadership. More specifically leaders who establish a clear vision and create the kind of environment that deliberately takes care of all Maslow’s levels – pushing people up to self actualization, where they are at their most engaged and most productive.


One of the most effective means of helping people understand their contribution and how valued they are is by connecting them directly with customer needs. Helping employees understand the Maslow equivalent of client needs and what this means for them.


I was privy to an excellent example of Maslow-focused project management. This particular project manager worked to put her team in the shoes of the client, building understanding and relationship between the two that would pleasantly surprise any client. Together her team established service criteria based on client needs. She then worked very, very hard to model the kind of behaviour she wanted her employees to adopt. Her team was a screaming, happy mess of actualized success. Her company made money on the project and brought in more business because of it.


What she did sounds pretty straightforward, but it’s not always that easy to build a self-actualized team when you’re dealing with the reality of getting things done. The approach that the project manager above took meant that she had to do a lot of planning and thinking about the people stuff. Often it’s easier to simply do the work at hand.


Another example came from a manger who helped his employees connect their own needs with those of their customers – right at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy. He encouraged employees to become involved in community projects of their choice. In this way he blurred the lines between customer and employee.


Helping your employees reach their fullest potential begins with leadership. Here are six steps you can take to begin to build your employees toward self actualization.

1. Begin with yourself. How far on Maslow’s hierarchy are you? What do you need to do travel further? Understand what makes you most fulfilled.

2. Build a customer-focused vision with your team. They will be more likely to accept a vision they have been involved in developing.

3. Together with the team establish your customer-service standards.

4. Work individually with each team member to ensure s/he understands their personal contribution. Plan with each employee to find opportunities for his or her special talents. Help them build their own self-actualization plan.

5. Build a community giving program. This helps shift the focus to the higher levels of Maslow’s hierarchy.

6. Develop your own local reward process.

Saying thank you still the best way to engage

I am in the process of developing a Webinar on leadership communications. There are a number of cool things about the technology, such as being able to hold random polls at any point during the presentation, share multiple documents, work on a whiteboard as a group and surf the web. But my favourite is the thumbs up button. How wonderful to be able to give on the spot praise, something we are short on in our culture. We spend vast fortunes on reward and recognition programs when the most effective and well received strategy is to say “well done” right there and then. Cost to the organization: $0, payback: priceless!

Body Shop founder Dame Anita Roddick leaves storytellng legacy

Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop died yesterday after suffering a brain hemorrhage. She was 64.

Roddick began her beauty and retailing career in 1976 in a little hippie shop in Brighton England . She set herself apart by underscoring the ethical properties of her formulations, created with natural ingredients, and often sourced from the developing world.

In 2006, The Body Shop was purchased by L'Oreal Group, but remains an independently run company. Today there are nearly 2,000 body shop stores in 50 countries.

In addition to being a visionary entrepreneur Roddick was also a great storyteller. Here is a story from a woman who went boldly where others would not:

“My first shop was between two funeral parlors. They objected to the name Body Shop because of course they had coffins passing by all day. I remember thinking “they can’t stop me, but I can have some fun with this”. So I called the local newspaper - anonymously with the hankie over the mouthpiece - and told them I was being intimidated by “mafia undertakers”. It was my first free publicity and I have never paid for publicity since.”

Anita Roddick, 2007

Stories make connections around the globe

Travel broadens the mind, and in my case, the hips as well. The good meals and interesting conversations I had last week in the UK are to blame.

I am struck, as always, by the cultural differences between our polite and charming European cousins and North Americans. I am also, as usual, struck by the similarities. Let me explain: In all nations we face the common challenge of ensuring our people are thoroughly engaged in the organizational journey. In all countries we struggle with the challenges of making our most expensive and most precious resource, people, highly productive.

We have long been schooled in cultural differences. North Americans and Europeans seek eye contact, the Japanese avoid it. In India you indicate yes by shaking your head, in North America that means no. In the rush to honor differences we sometimes overlook the similarities.

I attended a large corporate event in London. It was within a stones throw of Hyde Park, which certainly lent a little grandeur to the occasion. Initially I was so focused on the differences that I couldn't see the commonalities. There were obvious differences in language, humor and culture. For example I have never been to a North American corporate event where the CEO sent everyone off to get a drink before he closed the session.

But in one respect we are the same the world over. We all need to make that human connection; to be acknowledged and build relationships. Whether you are in London, Chicago, Toronto, Tokyo or Delhi that need remains constant. It also seems the hardest to fulfill, certainly within the business context. Stories do it. At the meeting in London, executives and employees used stories to talk about how they met objectives. The real human stories of endeavor and success made it right to the hearts of the attendees. Our language might change depending on where we are; our emphasis and manners might differ. But we all achieve the same result when we tell a story - connections that speak volumes to our common humanity.

Outcomes as the starting point for effective communication

I am fortunate to have the acquaintance of some truly inspiring individuals. Spending time with them is not unlike sharing a meal with the angels. You're up there in the intellectual ether.

I had one such opportunity recently in London with storytelling systems and process guru, Marcus Hayes. What I love about people like Marcus is their ability not only to play with ideas, but their capacity to develop real and workable solutions with those ideas.

Marcus is currently looking at re-engineering some of our standard processes; starting with outcome to stimulate small groups to develop strategy and the corresponding actions. It's a novel approach; we're more accustomed to starting with strategy, then moving to actions and finally outcomes. Marcus however, begins by linking individual outcomes directly to corporate strategy and so providing each of us with the opportunity to dream our own reality. What an exciting idea - every employee writing his or her own corporate vision statement.

Outcomes are of course what we are all after - the gold standard. That's why we invest so much time developing strategy and measuring performance. So beginning with the outcomes you want to achieve is a rather good idea. Provided, of course, that those outcomes support the strategic direction.

In his most recent article, Strategic Connections Inc president, Ken Milloy, talks about our role as communicators in shaping outcomes. (And by the way I happen to believe that anyone with the word 'supervisor' 'leader' or 'manager' in their title is by definition a communicator.) Ken - a pretty sharp thinker himself - is very clear that as communicators our outcomes should be a lot more than product, including:

• Helping employees develop a better understanding of how what they do relates to the organization's vision, strategies, goals and performance.
• Ensuring employees not only get, but understand, the information they need to help guide their day-to-day decisions.
  Recognizing and reinforcing desired behaviors and outcomes through communication.
• Establishing a communication environment that involves employees in thinking about and understanding how they influence business results.

It's the Kens and the Marcus' of the world who help us to build our competencies and dream a little more effectively. What are your outcome dreams?