What does the world really need right now?

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This is the question that the TED 2010 conference, which just concluded this weekend, was trying to answer. One of the speakers, Chip Conley, pointed to employee happiness as the answer.

This is the question that the TED 2010 conference, which just concluded this weekend, was trying to answer. One of the speakers, Chip Conley, pointed to employee happiness as the answer.

Chip Conley, the CEO of Joie de Vivre, is known for his Transformation Pyramid; a reincarnation of Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid. Conley’s Transformation Pyramid applies to groups of people, such as a business, rather than just the individual. But what happens if you look at the Transformation Pyramid in the context of a social enterprise?

Conley’s point is that businesses must take intangible values, such as employee and customer happiness, seriously, because they are crucial for the success of the business. The three themes in the Transformation Pyramid are fundamental in life as well as in business. As in the case of Maslow’s renowned Hierarchy of Needs Conley moves from basic needs to full potential: From survival, to success, and to transformation. When self-actualization is achieved, when you are all you can be, or in Maslow’s words “when what ought to be just is”, the full potential of an individual, a business, or an organization is reached.

When we talk about social enterprises, especially ones akin to DDD, who aim to grow human resource in the developing parts of the world, it becomes clear that reaching the full potential is key. Employees’ self-actualization, i.e. transformation into skilled leaders and dedicated change makers, is the most important goal we strive for.

For the employees at DDD the first level of the pyramid, survival, also sometimes referred to as “money” or “compensation”, is closer to an actual matter of survival than Conley probably imagines. The operators who are accepted into DDD’s program come from disadvantaged backgrounds, and after four years of education and on-the-job training, they go on to earn six times the average income in Cambodia. Their success is continuously measured and validated through their productivity at work and their results in school, and if they fail someone in the DDD family is ready to help them succeed. In making sure that basic needs are fulfilled DDD is creating a habitat for happiness* – providing the opportunity for transformation. How we measure the amount and degree of transformation will likely continue to be a challenge for some time.

What the world really needs right now is the transformation of youth into skilled and dedicated leaders. Not for the sake of our business, or any business, but for the sake of the world.

***

Thank you to peakorganizations.com for transcribing Chip Conley’s talk, and to TED and Chip Conley for the inspiration.

* How the Bhutanese Prime Minister describes Bhutan. Shamelessly borrowed from Chip Conley’s talk at the 2010 TED Conference.