Maslow

Maslow hierarchy of needs

One of the most important issues in a company’s success is the capacity to get consensus and everyone’s maximum efficiency. From this statement, the manager has to think about how he can get this from his employees.
Maslow defines five levels of needs that are contributing at motivation and commitment: physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem and self-actualization.
As probably the most famous work about motivation, this pyramid has been very criticized among the years.
Nevertheless, we must recognize the progress that has been made thanks to this work. First, it helps managers to find priorities for employees’ satisfaction. They also know that they can’t afford to forget the first steps, otherwise it won’t work.
Another interesting progress made is the fact that this work has recorded all the factors that bring motivation. For every step, he describes several notions that can be directly noticed on someone. Indeed, he didn’t only give huge notions or needs that must be satisfied, he gives leads to apply his model.
Unfortunately, this model also has many incomplete solutions. The first of all is the legitimacy of the rankings Maslow has established: even if it seems logic, it’s still hard not to think that he ranked some of the needs empirically.
It’s also possible and frequent that someone has different priorities because of the context. The pyramid may also be a mistake, because some needs that are on the top (i.e the most difficult to satisfy) can weaken the most essential needs like the physiological ones.
There’s a last uncertainty about this hierarchy of needs: some problems, identified as needs, may be in fact desires. Thus, this is not a help to get people’s consensus, on the contrary of needs. [continues]

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