In one of my earlier posts, I discussed the concept of “Flow” and how the key to achieving flow – and ultimately happiness – is being able to live a life filled with involvement and enthusiasm in all areas.
In retrospect, is this reasonable given that one’s life circumstances aren’t necessarily such where “happiness” or “flow” is the primary focus? For example, if my house recently burned down, my primary focus will be on finding immediate shelter – not on being “enthusiastic” or “engaged”. My focus in this situation is survival.
As you can imagine, there is an ordering of needs that needs to be understood. Such an ordering – the Hierarchy of Needs – was devised by psychologist Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Motivation”.
“Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is predetermined in order of importance. It is often depicted as a pyramid consisting of five levels: the lowest level is associated with physiological needs, while the uppermost level is associated with self-actualization needs, particularly those related to identity and purpose. Deficiency needs must be met first. Once these are met, seeking to satisfy growth needs drives personal growth. The higher needs in this hierarchy only come into focus when the lower needs in the pyramid are met. Once an individual has moved upwards to the next level, needs in the lower level will no longer be prioritized. If a lower set of needs is no longer being met, the individual will temporarily re-prioritize those needs by focusing attention on the unfulfilled needs, but will not permanently regress to the lower level.” – Wikipedia
The hierarchy – represented in the form of a pyramid – has the following structure:
– Self-actualization
– Esteem
– Love/Belonging
– Safety
– Physiological
As just mentioned, in this hierarchy the higher needs come into focus only when the lower needs are met. Thus, the house example presented earlier makes sense given the ordering shown here – i.e. I need to be safe before I can really focus on my long-term goals, etc. The key is to ultimately address “core” needs such that one can realize her/his fullest potential through a “self-actualization” phase.
This “hierarchy of needs” concept is applicable in other disciplines as well.
For example, in the book “Universal Principles of Design“, the “Hierarchy of Needs” is one of the 210 design principles described. The specific use of this hierarchy shows how a given design “…must serve the low-level needs (e.g. it must function), before the higher-level needs, such as creativity, can begin to be addressed”.
This particular implementation of the hierarchy of needs looks as follows:
– Creativity
– Proficiency
– Usability
– Reliability
– Functionality
Having some experience with the design lifecycle, this makes complete sense. An iPod that looks nice but breaks after the first two months clearly isn’t a good design. The authors recommend using this hierarchy as a “report card” of sorts to determine where modifications should be made to existing designs to further improve them.
Another discipline where this concept is useful is in the project management arena. Having considerable experience in this space, I was puzzled with the absence of “interpersonal” elements in project management literature given that the team is ultimately the core of any successful project. To this end, I formulated a hierarchy of needs that incorporates pure project management concepts along with core interpersonal elements.
This hierarchy looks like the following:
– Momentum
– Problem-Solving
– Constraints
– Storytelling
– Constraints
– Foundation
The key behind this structure is that it has a very close relationship to Maslow’s original hierarchy of needs.
The “real” goal of any project is to have a team where each individual is striving to be the best. If each team member can work within an environment or “operating structure” (the layers listed above) such that they are able to realize their full potential (i.e. she/he is involved and engaged) and reach a state of “flow” (self-actualization), the collective team will ultimately build enough positive momentum to virtually guarantee project success.
Full details about each of these layers will be published in early July 2009.
The thing to remember is that this hierarchy concept can be employed in many other disciplines – not just the three described here. Think about how a “hierarchy of needs” can work within your particular discipline. What is the “ultimate” objective / goal? How can you use this hierarchy to measure not only your performance but others that also rely upon this structure?