PEAK: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo From Maslow

Chip Conley

Chip has written a series of business books including The Rebel Rules: Daring to be Yourself in Business (foreword by Richard Branson) and Marketing That Matters: 10 Practices to Profit Your Business and Change the World. In his recent bestselling new book , PEAK: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo From Maslow, Chip shares his unique prescription for success based on legendary psychologist Abraham Maslow's iconic Hierarchy of Needs.

Chip's new theory illustrates how Employees, Customers and Investors are ultimately motivated by peak experiences that address their higher needs-and he demonstrates how to create these experiences for each using real-world examples from his own company and others. Chip credits this theory for helping Joie de Vivre triple its annual revenues between 2001 and 2008 (2008 projected revenues of $250 million).

Here's an excerpt from PEAK:

People with JOBS focus on the financial rewards of working more than the pleasure or fulfillment of what they’re doing. Many of these folks may find their true enjoyment outside of their 9-to-5 existence. Those with CAREERS focus primarily on growing their talent and advancement. While they may gain quite a bit of satisfaction in their work, it is often associated with the esteem that comes from external sources (like recognition or raises). The lucky few who pursue a CALLING find their work fulfilling in its own right, without regard for money or advancement. Those pursuing their calling would recognize Maslow’s statement in their own life: “One must respond to one’s fate or one’s destiny or pay a heavy price. One must yield to it; one must surrender to it. One must permit one’s self to be chosen.”

Each of these three approaches to work correspond to a different level of what I call the Transformation Pyramid (Sustain / Succeed / Transform) or the Employee Pyramid (Money / Recognition / Meaning).

How do you know which level you, your friends, family, or work associates would be placed on this pyramid? It’s clear to me that happiness takes hold of us when we turn off the external antenna and tap into the internal. The fact is, a spirit greater than you may be calling to a particular path in life but you and I put up such a collection of distractions and excuses that we can’t even hear the whispers of this calling in our ear.

Given that this talk of job, career, calling, and just the basics of happiness have the risk of being vague, I created a test in PEAK for the reader to try and understand where they are in their life. Feel free to take the following test, although beware that your answers will be influenced by your current state of mind, which means you may want to take the test twice, at least one week apart, to really gauge your accurate score. Read each of the following statements and place a check next to the five that best describe your relationship with your current work. Be careful, as it’s easy to think broadly about how certain statements SHOULD reflect your work life. What we’re looking for here are the statements that actually reflect your work life today:

1. While I enjoy what I do at work and am very good at it, I often feel like I’ve “topped-out” and I have to look elsewhere – my home, my spiritual life, my friends, my hobbies, my community service – for inspiration or fulfillment.

2. I tend to lose myself in my work. I just feel like I’m in the “flow” and I lose all sense of time.

3. I like what I do, but I don’t expect a lot from my work. It just provides me what I need to do the other more important things in my life. I enjoy my leisure life more than my work life.

4. My work truly makes a difference in the world.

5. The greatest experience I have at work is when I’m truly recognized by others for what I’ve accomplished.

6. If I had to choose between receiving a 10% raise at work or finding a new best friend at work, I would probably choose the raise.

7. I quite often feel like the work I’m doing is coming from some source bigger than me. I’m just channeling this energy or this talent and I’m quite often amazed by its power.

8. I’m often not that excited to go to work on Monday morning.

9. My goal in life is to rise to the top of my field.

10. There are moments when I think to myself, “If I were independently wealthy, I’d probably still be doing this work.” I do what I do because I just love it.

11. I’ve thought pretty deeply about where my work will take me the next ten years and what I need to do to excel in this field.

12. I’m pretty conscious to use my vacation time and sick days off so that I can create more balance and ensure that work doesn’t dominate my life.

13. I often feel like my work allows me to show the “real me.” My work lets me use my deepest creative gifts.

14. I think work is overrated when you consider what percentage of our lives we spend working as compared to enjoying life. I don’t think much about work when I’m not there.

15. I will do what it takes to become a success in my work.

Okay, I know that wasn’t easy. You may have had either a hard time trimming down to just five, or you may have found it difficult finding five statements that represent your perspective on your work. Here’s how we’ll score them. The following statements reflect someone who has a “job” perspective: 3, 6, 8, 12, and 14. The “career” statements are: 1, 5, 9, 11, and 15. And, the “calling” statements are: 2, 4, 7, 10, and 13.

How many did you have in each category? Your dominant category will tell you a lot about your relationship with your current work. If your dominant category wasn’t “calling,” don’t be alarmed, as most people find their calling outside of their work—whether it’s as a Girl Scout leader, a gardener, a tri-athlete, a devoted friend, or an ardent political activist. The big question you need to ask yourself – and you don’t have to go on a half-week fast to figure this out (and credit to poet Mary Oliver for a portion of my phrasing) – is “Left to your own choice with no external influences, what would you do with this one precious life you’ve been given?” Or think even bigger, “What’s the legacy you’ll leave long after you’re gone?”

About Chip Conley
A popular speaker and innovative leader, Chip is regularly consulted by corporate, civic and academic institutions for his opinions, guidance and wisdom on building and maintaining a successful and transformative enterprise in areas such as organizational leadership, creative business development, corporate social responsibility and spirit in business. In his bestselling new book, PEAK: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo From Maslow, Chip shares his unique prescription for success based on the iconic Hierarchy of Needs. His new theory illustrates how Employees, Customers and Investors are ultimately motivated by peak experiencesand he demonstrates how to create these for each using real-world examples from his own company and others.

Chip has received the top hospitality industry awards and was honored by the San Francisco Business Times as 2007s Most Admired CEO in Innovation. He is a committed philanthropist who founded San Franciscos Annual Celebrity Pool Toss, which has raised over 3 million dollars for inner city youth programs that now thrive in the troubled neighborhood where he launched his first hotel. Chip is a member of the Global Business Network and Young Presidents Organization and received his BA and MBA from Stanford University.

Despite using the word mojo in the subtitle and citing inspiration he received from 1960s counterculture icon Timothy Leary, this guide to better management isn't for hippies. Yes, Conley started the California boutique hotel chain Joie de Vivre Hospitality with the Phoenix Hotel, once a haven for faded rock stars. And yes, he quotes liberally from rebel CEOs who surf. But Conley's book is packed with thoughtful, instructional stories and advice for entrepreneurs as well as Fortune 500 managers, gleaned from his own experience as well as other business books. At the center of this confessional how-to is psychologist Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a pyramid that ranks human needs from base to self-actualizing. Used as the basis for employee, customer and stakeholder satisfaction, Conley contends, it can transform a business and its people. Though Stephen Covey and Peter Drucker have looked to Maslow before, Conley describes how using the pyramid saved his company from bankruptcy when the dot-com bubble burst. Conley is most successful when he expresses his ideas in numbered lists rather than the wordy passages that slow down the beginning. On the whole, though, his advice is inspiring and accessible.The Phoenix, Chip has always been on the cutting edge of what's new in hospitality. Inspired by the French expression for "joy of life," Chip created Joie de Vivre with the intention of developing what USA Today has called "the most delightfully schizophrenic collection of hotels in America."

Each of the company's 40 award-winning hotels has an original theme, personality and unique collection of services and amenities. The company gleans inspiration for the original personality of each hotel from popular magazines so that the Hotel Rex in San Francisco resembles The New Yorker, the Hotel Avante in Mountain View resembles Wired, and the The Shorebreak Hotel in Huntington Beach feels like Outside magazine meets Elle Decor. In a feature article on the growing proliferation of boutique hotels in the U.S., Time magazine suggested that "few boutique hotels are as genuine as those run by Joie de Vivre."

Chip has written a series of business books including The Rebel Rules: Daring to be Yourself in Business (foreword by Richard Branson) and Marketing That Matters: 10 Practices to Profit Your Business and Change the World. In his recent bestselling new book,PEAK: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo From Maslow, Chip shares his unique prescription for success based on legendary psychologist Abraham Maslow's iconic Hierarchy of Needs. Chip's new theory illustrates how Employees, Customers and Investors are ultimately motivated by peak experiences that address their higher needs-and he demonstrates how to create these experiences for each using real-world examples from his own company and others. Chip credits this theory for helping Joie de Vivre triple its annual revenues between 2001 and 2008 (2008 projected revenues of $250 million).

Chip has received numerous awards including Guerrilla Marketer of the Year for the U.S., National Humanitarian Hospitality Company of the Year, and Northern California Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2007, Chip was honored by the San Francisco Business Times as the Most Admired CEO in all of the Bay Area (including Silicon Valley) in the category of Innovation. He is a committed philanthropist who founded San Francisco's Annual Celebrity Pool Toss, which has raised over $3 million for inner city youth programs that now thrive in the troubled neighborhood where he launched his first hotel. Chip received his BA and MBA from Stanford University.

Resources

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