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One of Maslow’s insights was that until the lower level needs were met an individual would not progress or be interested in the needs higher up the pyramid. He saw the first four levels of needs as ‘deficiency’ needs. By that he meant that it was the absence of satisfaction that led to the individual being motivated to achieve something.

Physiological needs are requirements such as food, water, shelter and sexual release. Clearly when they are lacking the individual will experience physiological symptoms such as hunger, thirst, discomfort and frustration.

Safety needs are those that are concerned with the level of threat and desire for a sense of security. Although safety needs for some might be concerned with actual physical safety, Maslow saw that for many in the western world the need was based more on the idea of psychological safety. We might experience this level of need when faced with redundancy.

Love and belonging needs are more interpersonal. This involves the need for affection and affiliation on an emotionally intimate scale. It is important here to note that Maslow introduces a sense of reciprocity into the equation. A sense of belonging can rarely be achieved unless an individual gives as well as receives. People have to invest something of themselves in the situation or with the person or group. Even though it is higher in the hierarchy than physical or safety needs, the desire for love and belonging is similar in that it motivates people when they feel its absence.

Self-esteem needs are met in two ways. They are met through the satisfaction individuals get when they achieve competence or mastery in doing something. They are also met through receiving recognition for their achievement.

Maslow postulated one final need – the need for self-actualization. He described it as ‘the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming’. He observed that people continued to search for something else once all their other needs were being satisfied. Individuals try to become the person they believe or feel that they are capable of becoming. It is a difficult concept to put into words. Perhaps it is a longing for something to emerge from the depths of your being.

Before his death, Rabbi Zusya said, ‘In the coming world, they will not ask me, “Why were you not Moses?” They will ask me, “Why were you not Zusya?”’

Martin Buber, 1961, Tales of the Hasidim

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Self-actualization can take many forms, depending on the individual. These variations may include the quest for knowledge, understanding, peace, self-fulfilment, meaning in life, or beauty… but the need for beauty is neither higher nor lower than the other needs at the top of the pyramid. Self- actualization needs aren’t hierarchically ordered.

(Griffin, 1991)

Rogers and the path to personal growth

Carl Rogers was one of the founders of the humanistic movement. He wrote extensively on the stages through which people travel on their journey towards ‘becoming a person’. Rogers’ work was predominately based on his observations in the field of psychotherapy. However, he was increasingly interested in how people learn, how they exercise power and how they behave within organizations.

Rogers is an important researcher and writer for consultants, as his ‘client-centred approach’ to growth and development provides clues and cues as to how we as change agents might bring about growth and development with individuals within organizations. Rogers (1967) highlighted three crucial conditions for this to occur:

1. Genuineness and congruence: to be aware of your own feelings, to be real, to be authentic. Rogers’ research showed that the more genuine and congruent the change agent is in the relationship, the greater the probability of change in the personality of the client.

2. Unconditional positive regard: a genuine willingness to allow the client’s process to continue, and an acceptance of whatever feelings are going on inside the client. Whatever feeling the client is experiencing, be it anger, fear, hatred, then that is all right. It is saying that underneath all this the person is all right.

3. Empathic understanding: in Rogers’ words, ‘it is only as I understand the feelings and thoughts which seem so horrible to you, or so weak, or so sentimental, or so bizarre – it is only as I see them as you see them, and accept them and you, that you feel really free to explore all the hidden roots and frightening crannies of your inner and often buried experience.’

Rogers continues: ‘in trying to grasp and conceptualize the process of change… I gradually developed this concept of a process, discriminating

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seven stages in it’. The following are the consistently recurring qualities at each stage as described by Rogers:

• One: – an unwillingness to communicate about self, only externals; – no desire for change; – feelings neither recognized nor owned; – problems neither recognized nor perceived.

• Two: – expressions begin to flow; – feelings may be shown but not owned; – problems perceived but seen as external; – no sense of personal responsibility; – experience more in terms of the past not the present.

• Three: – a little talk about the self, but only as an object; – expression of feelings, but in the past; – non-acceptance of feelings; seen as bad, shameful, abnormal; – recognition of contradictions; – personal choice seen as ineffective.

• Four: – more intense past feelings; – occasional expression of current feelings; – distrust and fear of direct expression of feelings; – a little acceptance of feelings; – possible current experiencing; – some discovery of personal constructs; – some feelings of self-responsibility in problems; – close relationships seen as dangerous; – some small risk taking.

• Five: – feelings freely expressed in the present; – surprise and fright at emerging feelings; – increasing ownership of feelings; – increasing self-responsibility; – clear facing up to contradictions and incongruence.

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Six: – previously stuck feelings experienced in the here and now; – the self seen as less of an object, more of a feeling; – some physiological loosening; – some psychological loosening – that is, new ways of seeing the world and the self; – incongruence between experience and awareness reduced.

• Seven: – new feelings experienced and accepted in the present; – basic trust in the process; – self becomes confidently felt in the process; – personal constructs reformulated but much less rigid; – strong feelings of choice and self-responsibility.

There are a number of key concepts that emerge from Rogers’ work which are important when managing change within organizations at an individual level:

• The creation of a facilitating environment, through authenticity, positive regard and empathic understanding, enables growth and development to occur.

• Given this facilitating environment and the correct stance of the change agent, clients will be able to surface and work through any negative feelings they may have about the change.

• Given this facilitating environment and the correct stance of the change agent, there will be a movement from rigidity to more fluidity in the client’s approach to thinking and feeling. This allows more creativity and risk taking to occur.

• Given this facilitating environment and the correct stance of the change agent, clients will move towards accepting a greater degree of self-responsibility for their situation, enabling them to have more options from which to choose.

The role and the stance of the change agent will be discussed in Chapter 5; many of the attributes of Rogers’ approach would be a welcome addition to the change agent’s ‘kit bag’.

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Gestalt approach to individual and organizational change

Gestalt therapy originated with Fritz Perls, who was interested in the here and now. Perls believed that a person’s difficulties today arise because of the way he or she is acting today, here and now. In Perls’ words:

[The] goal… must be to give him the means with which he can solve his present problems and any that may arise tomorrow or next year. The tool is self-support, and this he achieves by dealing with himself and his problems with all the means presently at his command, right now. If he can be truly aware at every instant of himself and his actions on whatever level – fantasy, verbal or physical – he can see how he is producing his difficulties, he can see what his present difficulties are, and he can help himself to solve them in the present, in the here and now.

(Perls, 1976)

A consultant using a Gestalt approach has the primary aim of showing clients that they interrupt themselves in achieving what they want. Gestalt is experiential, not just based on talking, and there is an emphasis on doing, acting and feeling. Gestaltists use a cycle of experience to map how individuals and groups enact their desires, but more often than not how they block themselves from completing the cycle as shown in Figure 1.11.

Figure 1.11 The Gestalt cycle

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A favourite saying of Fritz Perls was to ‘get out of your mind and come to your senses’. Gestalt always begins with what one is experiencing in the here and now. Experiencing has as its basis what one is sensing. ‘Sensing determines the nature of awareness’ (Perls et al, 1951).

What we sense outside of ourselves or within leads to awareness. Awareness comes when we alight or focus upon what we are experiencing. Nevis (1998) describes it as ‘the spontaneous sensing of what arises or becomes figural, and it involves direct, immediate experience’. He gives a comprehensive list of the many things that we can be aware of at any one moment, including the following:

• what we sense: sights, sounds, textures, tastes, smells, kinaesthetic stimulations and so on; • what we verbalize and visualize: thinking, planning, remembering, imagining and so on; • what we feel: happiness, sadness, fearfulness, wonder, anger, pride, empathy, indifference,

compassion, anxiety and so on; • what we value: inclinations, judgements, conclusions, prejudices and so on; • how we interact: participation patterns, communication styles, energy levels, norms and so on.

Although your awareness can only ever be in the present, this awareness can include memory of the past, anticipation of the future, inner experience and awareness of others and the environment.

Mobilization of energy occurs as awareness is focused on a specific facet. Imagine you have to give a piece of negative feedback to a colleague. As you focus on this challenge by bringing it into the foreground, you might start to feel butterflies in your stomach, or sweaty palms. This is like using a searchlight to illuminate a specific thing and bring it into full awareness. In Nevis’s terminology, this brings about an ‘energized concern’.

This energy then needs to be released, typically by doing something, by taking action, by making contact in and with the outside world. You give the feedback.

Closure might come when the colleague thanks you for the feedback and compliments you on the clarity and level of insight. Or perhaps you have an argument and agree to disagree. You will then experience a reduction in your energy, and will complete the cycle by having come to

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a resolution, with the object of attention fading into the background once more. The issue of the colleague’s performance becomes less important.

For real change to have occurred (either internally or out in the world) the full Gestalt cycle will need to have been experienced.

Nevis shows how the Gestalt cycle maps on to stages in managerial decision making:

• Awareness. Data generation, Seeking information, Sharing information, Reviewing past performance, Environmental scanning.

• Energy/action. Attempts to mobilize energy and interest in ideas or proposals, Supporting ideas presented by others, Identifying and experiencing differences and conflicts of competing interests or views, Supporting own position, Seeking maximum participation.

• Contact. Joining in a common objective, Common recognition of problem definition, Indications of understanding, not necessarily agreement, Choosing a course of possible future action.

• Resolution/closure. Testing, checking for common understanding, Reviewing what’s occurred, Acknowledgement of what’s been accomplished and what remains to be done, Identifying the meaning of the discussion, Generalizing from what’s been learned, Beginning to develop implementation and action plans.

• Withdrawal. Pausing to let things ‘sink in’, Reducing energy and interest in the issue, Turning to other tasks or problems, Ending the meeting.

STOP AND THINK!

Q 1.9 Use the Gestalt curve to describe how a manager moves from a concern about the team’s performance to launching and executing a change initiative.

Summary of the humanistic psychology approach

For the manager, the world of humanistic psychology opens up some interesting possibilities and challenges. For years we have been told that the world of organizations is one that is ruled by the rational mind. Recent studies such as Daniel Goleman’s (1998) on emotional intelligence and management competence (see Chapter 4) suggest that what makes

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for more effective managers is their degree of emotional self-awareness and ability to engage with others on an emotional level. Humanistic psychology would not only agree, but would go one step further in stating that without being fully present emotionally in the situation you cannot be fully effective, and you will not be able to maximize your learning, or anyone else’s learning.

PERSONALITY AND CHANGE

We have looked at different approaches to change, and suggested that individuals do not always experience these changes in a consistent or uniform way. However, we have not asked whether people are different, and if so, whether their difference affects the way they experience change.

We have found in working with individuals and teams through change that it is useful to identify and openly discuss people’s personality types. This information helps people to understand their responses to change. It also helps people to see why other people are different from them, and to be aware of how that may lead to either harmony or conflict.

The most effective tool for identifying personality type is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator™ (MBTI™). This is a personality inventory developed by Katharine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Myers. The MBTI™ is based on the work of the Swiss analytical psychologist Carl Jung. The MBTI™ identifies eight different personality ‘preferences’ that we all use at different times – but each individual will have a preference for one particular combination over the others. These eight preferences can be paired as set out below.

Where individuals draw their energy

Extroversion is a preference for drawing energy from the external world, tasks and things, whereas Introversion is a preference for drawing energy from the internal world of one’s thoughts and feelings.

What individuals pay attention to and how they receive data and information

Sensing is concerned with the five senses and what is and has been whereas Intuition is concerned with possibilities and patterns and what might be.

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How an individual makes decisions

Thinking is about making decisions in an objective, logical way based on concepts of right and wrong whereas Feeling is about making decisions in a more personal values-driven and empathic way.

What sort of lifestyle an individual enjoys

Judging is a preference for living in a more structured and organized world which is more orderly and predictable, whereas Perceiving is a preference for living in a more flexible or spontaneous world where options are kept open and decisions not made until absolutely necessary.

So for example, a person who has a preference for Introversion, Intuition, Thinking and Judging (an INTJ, in the jargon) will have certain characteristics. Likewise an individual with a preference for Extroversion, Sensing, Feeling and Perceiving (ESFP) will have quite different characteristics.

The MBTI™ has been researched and validated for over 50 years now, and people rarely move permanently from their preferred ‘home’ type. That is not to say that Extroverts cannot spend time reflecting and being on their own, nor Introverts spend time in large groups discussing a broad range of issues. What it means is that if you are a particular type you have particular preferences and are different from other people of different types. This means that when it comes to change, people with different preferences react differently to change, both when they initiate it and when they are on the receiving end of it.

Although there are 16 MBTI™ types, in our work with managers and leaders we have found that grouping them into four categories can generate significant understanding of the change process (see for example, Green, 2007b). One group of people will be cautious and careful about change – the Thoughtful Realists (those who are introverted sensing types). A second group will generate concepts that represent how things should be – the Thoughtful Innovators (introverted intuitives). A third group will have the energy and enthusiasm to get things done – the Action-oriented Realists (extroverted sensing). Meanwhile the fourth group – the Action-oriented Innovators (extroverted intuitives) – will be wanting to move into new areas and soon! (See Table 1.5.)

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Table 1.5 Myers-Briggs Type Indicator™ types by quadrant

IS Thoughtful Realist IN Thoughtful Inovator What they are most concerned with

Practicalities Thoughts, ideas, concepts

How they learn Pragmatically and by reading and observing

Conceptually by reading, listening and making connections

Where they focus their change efforts

Deciding what should be kept and what needs changing

Generating new ideas and theories

Motto ‘If it isn’t broke don’t fix it’ ‘Let’s think ahead’ ES Action-oriented Realist EN Action-oriented Innovator

What they are most concerned with

Actions New ways of doing things

How they learn Actively and by experimentation Creatively and with others Where they focus their change efforts

Making things better Putting new ideas into practice

Motto ‘Let’s just do it’ ‘Let’s change it’

STOP AND THINK!

Q 1.10 Use the Myers-Briggs quadrants to identify your reactions to change:

• In what ways do you fit the various profiles and in what ways do you differ? • How would you deal with someone like this when going through a challenging change process? • How do you like to be managed through change?

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