There is something so deeply satisfying about knowing you’ve made a positive difference. Perhaps especially when it happens in an unanticipated way.
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Category Archives: wisdom
How We Know What We Know by Michelle Kunz
Most of what we know is someone’s opinion. In fact, most of what we know is someone else’s opinion. I’m reading a fascinating biography on Mary Queen of Scots and although the author is a well known English historian and has researched her subject thoroughly, most of what she writes is her interpretation of what few unarguable facts remain of her subject’s life. It turns out most of modern life works the same way. Unless we are subject matter experts in a pure science such as mathematics or biology, most of what we know is our own or someone else’s opinion. We give lip service to innovation, but we have no idea how to begin with something as simple as innovating how we know what we know.
This applies most basically and most powerfully to the questions of who we are and why we do what we do. Most of us define who we are in terms of our current and past roles. “I am business owner or executive, life partner, parent, child, friend.” These are indeed facts, but what they actually say about us are opinions. What does it say about us that we are an executive at Company X? That we are in a relationship with Person Y? That we are the child of These Parents? We aren’t always sure what it says, and often the meaning doesn’t carry any true connection to who we are inside. That’s because what it says is someone else’s words imbued with someone else’s meaning.
Defining “Who am I?” can be one of the most liberating and empowering exercises we ever engage with. Claiming our attributes and characteristics, our preferences and strengths, reframing what we once saw as negative into positive — all of these activities clarify areas of our lives and our work where once there was vague cloudiness. We gain focus and motivation, definition, power, and new frames from which to lead and empower others.
Who are you really? If you stop listening to the opinions of others, and even your own old mantras about roles and positions, who are you? What are the implications for fully claiming that identity? What one action can you take this week to wean yourself off the opinions of others and begin to claim the leader you really are?
New Model for Needs Hierarchy by Michelle Kunz
A poor person isn’t he who has little, but he who needs a lot. – German Proverb
Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it. – Marian Anderson
I was at a networking event last week where a very interesting topic came up: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. For those of you who are a bit rusty on your psychology, Abraham Maslow developed a theory back in the 1940s that explained human motivation based on our needs. To make it simple, once our most basic physiological needs are met — clothing, food, shelter, sleep — we can turn our attention to higher needs such as personal safety: personal safety from crime, financial security, health and well-being, safety nets against accidents and illness. Next on the list would be the group centered on love or belonging — our social needs: developing and growing friendship, family and sexual intimacy. Esteem follows: self-esteem, confidence, respect and a sense of achievement. The highest of all needs is labeled self-actualization and includes creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, acceptance and lack of prejudice. These needs are typically represented as a pyramid, with lowest needs at the base and highest needs at the pinnacle.
The first four sets of needs (all but self-actualization) Maslow referred to as Deficiency Needs. Whenever any of these needs are absent or threatened, we are likely to feel anxious or even suffer depression. However, according to Maslow, once we have met the needs in one group, we move up the pyramid and remain focused primarily on the needs of the next level. We may re-prioritize our attention for a period of time on a lower level need, but we do not permanently shift back down.
The conversation I had at this networking event challenged this last bit of the theory. In today’s society we are teethed on Oprah, well acquainted with Dr. Chopra and his friends, we’ve heard of Wayne Dyer and Don Miguel Ruiz, even if we haven’t read their works. We probably feel pretty self-actualized. We are in touch with our creativity, enjoy a degree of spontaneity unavailable to previous generations, engage in extremely innovative problem solving techniques — we even hire people to teach us to be more out of the box than we already are because we value this so highly. We are accepting and unprejudiced. Right?
So why are we so anxious about the market and the possibility of losing our jobs if something should go wrong? Why do we stay up at night worrying about the mortgage and the bills? Why do we agonize over the right school for our kids and whether or not we are truly safe? We don’t follow doctor’s orders to stop smoking or lose weight or even perform self breast exams because we are anxious about the truth of our health in spite of thousands of dollars a year in health club fees. We eat junk, we eat more junk when we are stressed and we spend money on things we will never, ever, ever need. How does this fit into Maslow’s hierarchy?
My conversation partner proposed we needed a new model — Maslow’s was developed for a society where people went to work for the same company until they retired. Once you had a job, you had job security and that was that. You worked twenty years, you retired, you received your pension, and you were done. And you knew that in advance. But hold on, this was the middle of World War II. That idyllic picture was gone. Our men were at war and our women were at work keeping the war going. Everyone was anxious. Why? Because personal security, national security — ALL security was at risk. Families and friendships were temporarily and often permanently broken and divided during the war. And at the lowest level of needs — there was frequent rationing of basic supplies. People were unable to sleep well. Who had time for self-actualization?
Modern Society’s War on Self-Actualization
I was willing to entertain the need for a new model during my conversation. But after giving this some additional thought, I am reversing that opinion. I think Maslow’s hierarchy works as well today as it ever did. The trouble is, we are at war with self-actualization. We do lip service to it — we have the books and the TV shows and all the proper vocabulary. But we do not dedicate any real time to the pursuit of creativity, spontaneity, innovation, acceptance and lack of prejudice. But we sense it would be a nice thing to do, so we talk about it a lot. But there is a huge difference between lip service and sweat service.
Here’s the problem: we are still stuck on things. We are committed to the pursuit of material goods. We are stockpiling against the possibility of loss, so we buy more, bigger, fancier and more expensive to prove our worth, our success, our worthiness, our happiness, and our lack of concern. It’s all backwards. The acquisition of those items belongs in the first level of needs, along with clothing, food, shelter, and perhaps a few belong with personal security if you’d like to count that fancy security system on your home or the bigger car because you think it will protect you in an accident. Those are low level needs, my friends.
Friendship, family and intimacy are not grown through the constant acquisition of material goods. Neither are self esteem, confidence, nor respect. Every time I get a fancy catalog in the mail and they are trying to sell me prestige or self esteem, or worse, my own sex appeal, I laugh out loud. They do not fool me. I know that none of those can be bought. Well, perhaps prestige, but that is extremely superficial, and we all know it. Having it adds to our sense of anxiety. Self esteem, confidence, achievement, respect, creativity, spontaneity, acceptance, lack of prejudice — these run deep and cannot ever be purchased, not at any price in any store. You earn these.
If you are worried about your job or the market or any of the things which are out of your control, why not take stock? Do you have your basic needs met to the best of your ability? If so, why not take a leap of faith and let go of what you cannot purchase? Opportunities lie in wait where disaster appears to those with lesser courage. Yearn for higher needs and nothing can happen that you cannot handle. It’s called self actualization and it can solve a lot of your anxiety problems. Embrace active creativity, innovation, acceptance and spontaneity. Do something, don’t just talk about it.
motivation, action, needs, leadership, self-esteem, self-confidence