The role of self-actualization in creating a great company culture.

What do you think of your company’s culture?

Do you feel motivated, or do you dread coming to work each day?

Company culture is something that most businesses are striving to continuously evolve and improve.  When a business gets this right, its employees will walk over hot coals to achieve annual targets.  However, when a business gets this wrong it can lead to almost irreversible damage, creating to a negative reputation and disillusioned, demotivated workers.

From coaching clients and much reading and learning over the last year, I have a theory that the companies with the best reputation for culture offer their employees a multitude of ways to self-actualize.  Personally, I feel that this is even more important than having an inspiring vision or purpose which unites employees.

What is self-actualization?

I’ve referenced self-actualization in previous articles but let’s first recap on its definition.  Self-actualization is a concept introduced by the physician, Kurt Goldstein, and is the process by which an individual reaches his or her full potential.  As a concept it sits at the very top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Of course, the concept of reaching one’s “full potential” will differ greatly depending on the individual and their core values. 

Can companies create a culture to encourage self-actualization?

Companies can create a working environment to inspire self-actualization for its employees by actively listening to their workers about what matters to them.  The simplest way to do this is to canvass opinion and collect data via employee engagement surveys.

However, it is important that the burning questions are asked in these surveys to get the best quality data and feedback to be able to implement meaningful change.  For example, questions focused on gaining an understanding of what personal growth and fulfilment means to employees is going to be more insightful for building a great culture, than determining whether people can be their “true selves” in the workplace.

To be clear, I’m not diminishing the importance of people being able to feel comfortable and safe in the workplace.  However, I do believe that the idea of being able to fulfil one’s potential is a more inspiring notion for employees.

In my experience, many companies use these employee engagement surveys as a means to simply validate the measures they have already introduced.  Employees complete the survey, see the positive results heralded by the business but are often miffed that they didn’t have the option or ability to share their true thoughts on how to improve the culture.  In the most egregious case, I worked for a company that received such consistent negative feedback that they actually canned the employee engagement survey altogether!

The reason why flexible working is becoming a deal-breaker for employees.

There continues to be controversy around the subject of flexible working.  You have one camp that believes that employees should be in the office as much as possible, since it helps team bonding, and it speeds up the decision-making process.  Then you have the opposing camp that believes employees should have complete autonomy over their location of work.

This became a hot topic as the world emerged from COVID-19 lockdowns and I firmly believe that the reason why more people want flexible working is because it gives them the freedom to self-actualize.

When we were all forced to work from home during the lockdowns, it allowed us to connect more closely to what was truly important.  Initially it was very difficult as we lost the day-to-day social connections resulting from the most stringent lockdown rules. 

However, as time went on people found a plethora of gifts from the experience, particularly spending more quality time with their families and being able to prioritize their physical and mental health.  With no daily commute, there were even ambitious people who reclaimed that time to establish successful commercial side-hustles.  

People from all walks of life were able to find the time and space to get closer to reaching their full potential, which made them happier and more fulfilled.  And whilst there are studies which show that productivity fell during COVID, many workers (including myself) would vehemently disagree. 

I believe that increased happiness outside the workplace leads to greater dedication and effort inside the workplace.  This in turn helps to build a fantastic culture.  If flexible working can help achieve this goal, then I’m all in favour of it.

Learning and development offers employees the opportunity for personal and professional growth.

One of the worst things that businesses do during difficult trading periods is to cull the learning and development budget.  During challenging times extra training is needed the most for employees to provide them with the mental tools to help them navigate the choppy waters.

Learning and development programmes inherently help employees to self-actualize.  I’ve had the good fortune to complete some life-changing sales and negotiation courses throughout my career and that opportunity for personal growth always meant more to me than a higher salary or bonus.  When a business makes an investment in my personal and professional growth it galvanises my commitment to them.

Culturally, when teams go through this process of learning and development together it makes them closer.  Letting go of old ways of thinking and being open to new methods to grow requires vulnerability.  And when individuals in teams are willing to make themselves vulnerable as a collective this builds greater trust, which leads to stronger relationships. 

One size doesn’t fit all regarding company culture.

It is important to note that one size doesn’t fit all and the reason for this can be found at the start of the article.  Self-actualization holds different meaning for different people.

It is the reason why certain individuals will thrive in a culture that most people seem to think is toxic, is because it offers them the best environment for them to self-actualize based on their core values and personal goals. 

However, I think that a company that offers flexible working, trusts and empowers its employees to make important decisions and take risks, and invests in learning and development programmes will provide a culture which allows the vast majority of people to self-actualize.  And those businesses will reap the rewards in terms of peak performance and fantastic results.

How building Mental Fitness can help you self-actualize regardless of the company culture.

Building the core muscles of Mental Fitness will help you to find gifts and opportunities regardless of how challenging or demanding your company’s culture may be.  Being able to draw on the Sage Perspective and 5 Sage Powers will help you to overcome stress and deliver peak performance during stressful periods.  

As is true of any lasting habit change, this takes at least 6-weeks of intense work.  If you are interested in this game-changing program then take the Positive Intelligence Saboteur Assessment https://www.positiveintelligence.com/saboteurs/ and then book a free 30-minute coaching call with me at https://www.expcoaching.co.uk/ to find out more!