written by
Mike Todaro

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Editorial 1 min read

I'll bet many of you never studied 'org theory', about how people are motivated and satisfied. There were waves of social scientists who developed theories. My favorite, for the simplicity and logic of it, is Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, shown below. 

Put simply, he argued that we are motivated by a base set of needs; safety, food, shelter, clothing and more. Once we felt safe, we sought security, and so on as shown below.

I suspect many of our members were in the top of the pyramid prior to this crisis. Equally, I'll bet many of their staff and workers felt they belonged to a pretty good company. That's probably not true for many today. We're back at the base, worried about surviving.

In any event, the pyramid is a useful guide to how people feel today, and what to consider when we start firing the chain back up again SOON.

opinion