Feb
16
2011
“Peak” by Chip Conley
The following is a quote dump from Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow, which I read at exactly the right time in my life:
“Work is about daily meaning as well as daily bread; for recognition as well as cash; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday-through-Friday sort of dying….We have a right to ask of work that it include meaning, recognition, astonishment, and life.” Studs Terkel in “Working”
W. Edward, father of the total quality movement, once said that the primary duty of every leader to to remove fear from the workplace. But organizational wellness doesn’t emerge simply from the absence of fear. Fear must be replaced with a positive spirit of fulfillment and vitality.
“There’s a reason our flight attendants appear happier than those at other airlines. We take them into account when we make key operationg decisions in our company. I’m not sure our competitors do the same.” Gary Kelly, CEO, Southwest Airlines
In this age of commoditization, one of the truly differentiating characteristics of leaders and companies is the quality and durability of the relationships they create.
A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualization….it refers to man’s desire for self-fulfillment, namely to the tendency for him to become actually in what is potentially: to become everything one is capable of becoming.” Abraham Maslow, Maslow on Management
[Andrew] Kay noticed that his workers were more productive at the end of the assembly line, where finality of the assembly provided a sense of accomplishment.
But is the inability to easily measure something a valid excuse for dismissing its value?
Sustained performers are set apart from their competitors by a higher willingness to engage in activities that increase the longevity of their relationships, both internally and externally.
The shared experience of authenticity facing vulnerability and the sense of connectedness that comes from a focused team can create a true self-actualizing experience in the workplace.
Companies like Apple and Harley-Davidson have become highly successful cult brands by creating self-actualizing experiences for their customers.
Maslow believed that you could learn a lot by the “grumbles and complaints,” as he acknowledged, “human beings will always complain.” Our Joie de Vivre team knew that once we started hearing “higher levels complaints,” like what kinds of classes we were teaching in “JDV University” or how often we had fun company events, we had moved our employees beyond the base of the pyramid mindset.
Reading [Fortune’s annual 100 Best Places to Work] article (which usually appears in January) is a must for any executive who wants to understand best practices with respect to creative competency.
In our time-compressed world, maybe the greatest compensation gift an employer can give its employees is time off. For this reason, for years, Joie de Vivre has offered its salaried (and some of its hourly) employees a one-month paid sabbatical every three years of continuous employment.
What perishible asset can your company make available to your employees that would boost their perception of their compensation package?
As physical hunger needs are met, the kind of hunger people feel most acutely is the hunger for recognition.
Giving authentic recognition to peers is one of the greatest ways to ensure low turnover and high productivity.
So the mantra in your company should be, “Whenever possible, connect with your people in person.”
All work contains drudgery; yet the difference between one job and the next is whether employees have a sense of meaning in what they do.
Companies that know how to harness their technology /and/ empower their people have the potential to deliver customized service that will translate into committed customers.
Technology /enables/ great service, it doesn’t /create/ great service.
“It’s pretty easy to spot an overwhelmingly strong candidate or even an underwhelmingly strong candidate. It’s the ‘whelming’ candidate you must avoid at all costs, because that’s the one who can and will do your organization the most long-lasting harm. Overwhelmers earn you raves. Underwhelmers either leave of their own volition or are terminated. Whelmers, sadly, are like a stubborn stain you can’t get out of the carpet. They infuse an organization and its staff with mediocrity; they’re comfortable, and so they never leave; and, frustratingly, they never do anything that rises to the level of gretting them promoted or sinks to the level of getting them fired. And because you either can’t or dont’ fire them, you and they conspire to send a dangerous message to your staff and guests that ‘average’ is acceptable.” Danny Meyer in “Setting the Table”
Your customers aren’t monolithic; therefore, your pyramid needs to be adaptable depending on which customers you’re talking about and their changing tastes.
Companies that create self-actualized customers inspire true devotion and evangelism.
When a company can comprehensively assist customers to reach their highest goals, it has built a deeply engaged relationship.
In his later years, Maslow expanded his Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid from five to eight levels, with the highest level being “self-trancendence,” the almost spiritual sense of being on this planet for something beyond your own personal needs.
Ask Drucker’s famous question, “What business are you in?” or adapt it to, “What business do your customers (or your future customers) wish you were in?”
“The difference between the great and good societies and the regressing, deteriorating societies is largely in terms of the entrepreneurial opportunity and the number of such people in the society. I think everyone would agree that the most valuable 100 people to bring into a deteriorating society would be not 100 chemists, or politicians, or professors, or engineers, but rather 100 entrepreneurs.” Abraham Maslow in “The Maslow Business Reader”
The investor on a path toward self-actualization realizes that the scarce commodity in the investment world isn’t necessarily a good deal but a good partner relationship.
“The secret to great investing isn’t becoming the ultimate whiz kid at financial models or neccesarily being the shrewdest negotiator in the room, it has a lot more to do with building long-term relationships with entrepreneurs and business leaders who deserve your confidence.” Bill Price, co-founder of Texas Pacific Group
When money or ROI becomes the only language that glues a company and its investor together, it is likely this will be a short-lived relationship.
“It seems the more wealth investors accumulate, the smaller and more elite thir social circles become. With that said, they clearly want to remain active in projects, make a contribution and be ‘in the know.’ My experience is that investments allow them to travel outside of their typical social circles into other ‘communities’ for collaboration.” Jack Crawford, Jr., general partner, Velocity Venture Capital
So what can you offer to deepen the relationship with your investors? Is it taking your top investor to the Super Bowl or giving them the opportunity to try out your top-secret new product before it hits the market?
Herbisms: “don’t think about profit, think about customer service; profit is a by-product of customer service” “the customer always comes second; our employees are first” “The tragedy of our time is that we’ve got it backwards … we’ve learned to love techniques and use people.” Herb Kelleher, co-founder, Southwest Airlines
The role of our senior leadership is to create a unique corporate culture and to help it spread throughout all of our businesses.
“We fear our highest possibilities. We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments, under conditions of great courage. We enjoy and even thrill to the godlike possibilities we see in ourselves in such peak moments. And yet we simultaneously shiver with weakness, awe, and fear before these very same possibilities. Obviously the most beautiful fate, the most wonderful good fortune that can happen to any human being, is to be paid for doing that which he passionately loves to do.” Abraham Maslow
