Why Maslow needs a reboot

And herein lies the clue. Self-actualisation – the famous pinnacle of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – is the focus of a thousand leadership books and TEDx talks and a recently re-proven mainstay in our understanding of why we do what we do, and what we’ll do next.

Maslow charted human progress through a series of need states, giving way to the next on our way through life. Like all good ideas that explain everything, it is drawn as a triangle.

Ever since, we’ve accepted that once we win at the game of life, it is time to think beyond property, prosperity and security, and begin to be motivated by ideas of morality, common good, being of consequence to the world, or what many call giving something back.

But that’s the old paradigm. In the new paradigm this could be the first generation who don’t arrive at a point of giving back because they never took anything in the first place.

Therefore, it’s time to update Maslow’s OS for clues to unlock the new leadership businesses need. So I’ve given it a reboot, as you can see below.

"Hope is critical and a lack of it conflicts with the ambitions of the next generation."

There are two essential upgrades. First, I’ve included wifi and battery life to the base of the pyramid along with food, shelter and warmth for, ‘duh’, obvious reasons.

Second, I’ve tipped the top of the triangle forwards, the bit when we have our Aha moment and realise there is more to life than accumulating stuff. It is my conviction that for the next generation of leaders, self-actualisation now starts at the beginning.

I’ve worked with thousands of young future leaders across countries and cultures over more than two decades. Whether they are urban or rural, middle class or marginalised, the importance of doing something that means something now starts sooner.

The evolved state of self-actualisation has tipped so that a point begins alongside, and with shared significance to, other baseline needs. Then, inversely mirroring our tapering progress, the importance of meaning expands until it is an equal signifier of success.

The much-quoted Deloitte Millennial Survey supports my Maslow hack. Barry Salzberg, CEO of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, says: ‘Millennials are just as interested in how a business develops its people and its contribution to society as they are in its products and profits. This should be a wake-up call to business, in the way they engage Millennial talent or risk being left behind.’

Rather than feel pessimistic at Eton rifles peering from the crumbling fort, I look forward to the next wave of leaders whose understanding of impact in a connected world isn’t just informed by decisions they have made, but by the decisions they will make.

For them, it clearly matters to do something that means something. Living and working without meaning renders you redundant. Note to Theresa May et al: the idea of giving a shit has gone from being something nice to have to being something we need to have.

To find the ideas we need, perhaps our leaders should stop looking up too, and instead look among the leaders of tomorrow, where they’ll find the answers they need.

I imagine some of you might think the idea that the future leaders among our young have more to offer than the current crop is a stretch too far. But if that is you, then I promise, it’s more an issue of your own imagination gap than it is of their talent gap.

Be More Pirate by Sam Conniff Allende is out now, published by Penguin Random House.

'I look forward to the next wave of leaders whose understanding of impact in a connected world isn’t just informed by decisions they have made, but by the decisions they will make.'