A Self-Actualization Company — What Would It Be Like?

The great majority of companies, businesses, and corporations today are not Self-Actualization Companies. That’s not what they are about; that is not their structure, their objective, their nature. Yet they could become such.

• How are they not?
• What would a Self-Actualization look like?
• How would it work?
• Would it be commercially viable?

A single owner of a company (a CEO or president) and a group of owners (shareholders) invest capital into a business to provide products and services to customers for the purpose of creating more wealth in many forms: money, investment, stocks, brand, etc. In the beginning of industries and the industrial age, owners needed people primarily for raw man-power, not for ideas or creativity. They needed workers for manual labor and some skilled labor and so structured their organizations after the military model. The primary motive of workers was money, it was for income to survive and make a living.

The higher needs of workers were hardly considered at all. But as the industrial age matured, and the information age began, things changed. Workers were not merely satisfied with their lower needs gratified, now they wanted financial and job security, then better relationships with colleagues, then status, recognition, dignity, etc. This societal growth of businesses continued as we moved into the computer and service ages.

The result is that today in most Western societies with an almost full employment rate (below %5 in the USA at this writing), people have many choices. They do not only work for a paycheck, for an income, for survival, nor even for security, social needs or even self needs, now they are living, thinking, and feeling at an even higher level—the level of self-actualizing. Now they want such things as to make a difference, to contribute, to learn, create justice, discover, create, and other things that makes the job meaningful and the work experience with colleagues, bosses, employees as rich in significance and value.

Yet, can “work” —can employment and career be expected to meet such self-actualization needs? And if it can, how would that influence the very structure and direction of a company or business? How would that change and influence the way leaders and managers work?

Maslow began thinking about the idea of a Self-Actualization Company from his work with the Blackfoot Indians in Canada and his mentorship with Ruth Benedict and her concept of synergy. She said that groups and societies, which includes companies, can become synergistic. A business with high synergy, rather than low synergy, is one in which the success and achievements of one individual enriches everyone in the business.

Structurally this would mean a radical reduction of internal competition and the development of more of a sense of team. It would mean more democratization so that people treat each other more as equals and as colleagues, and so communicate more openly, keep fewer secrets, support each other, validate each person’s different gifts and strengths, and reduce all that has become associated with bad politics. If any of this sounds familiar, you will recognize that this has been the direction that business has been moving for decades: de-centralizing bureaucratic structures, flattening hierarchy, management by walking around and coaching, opening the books to employees and teaching them to read a financial statement, etc.

In the mid-1960s Maslow become a Visiting Fellow at a company in California (Non-Linear Systems) to translate and apply his theory of motivation and personality to corporate life. This enabled him to take McGreogory’s Theory X / Theory Y to a whole new level. In Enlightened Management he suggested numerous ways for coming come together in a company so that we relate to each other and to set up structures and systems that take into account human motivation at all of its levels. We have been selling human nature short, he asserted, and we have been managing processes based on a limited understanding of human motivation and personality.

Today it is now common knowledge, even a cliche, to assert that “our best resource is our people.” As we have moved from industrialism to an economy of service and creativity, we have come to realize the critical importance of human capital. In most businesses, the company’s human capital of the knowledge, creativity, and human skills walk out at 5 p.m. So what holds them there? What could or does drive them out? Research shows that 80% of people who leave, leave because of their immediate manager. In fact, retention of “talent” has become one of the biggest challenges. So also the field of how to profile, select, hire, and retain the best people. Whole industries have arisen to deal with these issues.

Why? Because “workers” no longer have to stay. They can leave. And they do leave if some of their higher needs are not met. Our expectations of what we want from “work” have risen so that we use our work to follow our passions, to express our talents, to develop more skills, to enjoy working with colleagues, to be a part of a successful team, to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, etc.

Without question, this puts a lot of pressure on owners, CEOs, leaders, managers, and entrepreneurs. It has also challenged theorists about how do we create self-actualization companies, societies, and cultures.

In a joint research study at Columbia University supported by the Sloan Foundation, Carnegie Mellon University, and the World Bank, David Lewin researched 495 organizations. He especially tracked the relationship between human resource practices and economic indicators since 1986. Among his conclusions were the following.

• 1) Companies that share profits and gains with employees have significantly better financial performance that those who don’t.
• 2) Companies that share information broadly and that have broad programs of employee involvement perform significantly better than companies that are run autocratically.
• 3) In these companies, flexible work design is significantly related to financial success.
• 4) Training and development has a positive effect on business financial performance.

In fact, two-thirds of the bottom line impact was due to the combined effect of group economic participation, intellectual participation, flexible job design, and training and development.

What is a self-actualization company? It’s a business or company that recognizes that people are motivated at multiple levels and that as individuals move to the level of the self-actualization needs, so do groups of people. Societies are just as prone to keep growing and maturing and will do so until they come to the place where meaning, significance, and value become critical factors in the psychological makeup of how we work together.

In a self-actualization company, leaders and managers fully appreciate the role that meaning plays in terms of producing top performers. To get peak performance from people, they not only know that their people have to find their work meaningful, they have to frame the vision in terms of meaning so that it creates buy in and commitment. All of this highlights the crucial role of soft skills in taking a company from good to great.

Within a Self-Actualization Company we understand that our success is dependent upon working as a team, communicating with precision and clarity, and constantly learning and improving. That’s why a Self-Actualization Company will have a coaching culture, will recognize the problem of paradigm blindness, and will know how to capitalize on the mental-emotional, personal, creative, and spiritual capital of everyone.

Given this, those leading a Self-Actualization Company know that attitude is critical as is the goal of bringing out the best in other (which is the purpose of management), facilitating new resources, activating creativity, and communicating in a way that inspires.