Maslow on Enlightened Management

“…any partner would take upon his own shoulders in emergencies any functions of the enterprise if he happened to be the one closest to the emergency. Any one of them, for instance, if he saw a fire breaking out would without taking votes about it or anything of the sort immediately go to put out the fire …

Now the point is this: All the experiments on enlightened management and humanistic supervision can be seen from this point of view, that in a brotherhood situation of this sort. every person is transformed into a partner rather than into an employee. He tends to think like a partner and act like a partner. He tends to take upon his own shoulders all the responsibilities of the whole enterprise. He tends voluntarily and automatically to assume responsibility for any of the various functions of an enterprise which an emergency might call for.

Partnership is the same as synergy, which is the same as recognizing that the interests of the other and one’s own interests merge and pool and unite instead of remaining separate or opposed or mutually exclusive."

~ Abraham Maslow, Maslow on Management, 1998, pp. 86-87

Enlightened Management

"As important as education is, perhaps even more important is the work life of the individual since everybody works.
If the lessons of psychology, of individual psychotherapy, of social psychology, etc., can be applied to man's economic life, then my hope is that this too can be given an enlightened direction, thereby tending to influence in principle all human beings ...

[there is] the hope that the industrial situation may serve as the new laboratory for the study of psychodynamics, of high human development, of ideal ecology for the human being."

~ Abraham Maslow, Maslow on Management, 1998, p. 2

"In 1961, the renowned psychologist Abraham Maslow agreed to publish a group of his unedited journals which resulted in what was then titled, at his insistence, Eupsychian Management. The book quickly went out of print, probably because it presented ideas ahead of their time, but resurfaced in 1998 under the auspices of Warren Bennis, Professor of Business Administration, University of Southern California, entitled Maslow on Management. In this book, Maslow, like several others of his time, pointed tot he human side of enterprise. It has been said that his ideas were more for the 21st century than the 20th. This thinking lays the foundation for [perceptual paradigm shifts] to succeed in the business environment."*


It was while reading the above book by Maslow as part of the research for my dissertation that I truly heard the calling for my work, shifting it from a clinical focus to organizational psychology. The awareness of the possibility of organizations becoming self-actualized communities which could then model and be a catalyst for a self-actualized society resonated with me like a tuning fork. Corporations and organizations are people, coming together, being in relationship, for a common intent. What could be generated for humanity if organizations could, alongside of generating a consistently opulent ROI, awaken to the possibility of being and modelling that which all of us long to experience: belonging, friendship, respect.

* (excerpted from Implications of the Health Realization Paradigm Experienced as Transformational Humor for Individuals and Organizations, Dissertation Manuscript, © 2001, Laura Basha, Ph.D.)

"Fulfilling A New Reality: What Does It Take?"

"Many people have compelling visions for life in a transformed world ...
But what does it take to realize those new realities?"

~ 2011 Conference for Global Transformation



This past weekend, May 20th - 22nd, was the 2011 Conference for Global Transformation, taking place in San Francisco, CA. (wisdomcgt.ning.com). Hundreds of people from around the world traveled to attend, people interested in transforming not the world of physical manifestation so much as re-inventing current global conversations that we take for granted which are creating our current realities. Generating new discourses designed to open up new realities of what is possible for humanity could then emerge in the language of all cultures, all people and all of our worlds.

I spoke at the conference on the topic of how to generate one's self to be self-actualized inside of a powerful context of purposeful living through extraordinary listening. It takes a continual listening to one's own resistance and outworn patterning, as well as the utilization of all the tools one has garnered and integrated along with a continual honing of them, to be an authentic expression for one's self and one's contribution to the world.

We truly are all one in the realm of consciousness. It's not just a "woo-woo" conversation, although that is what the identity would have us belief so that the ego could keep convincing us to make choices from it's perception.

It's all in the listening. Are we listening to the voice of the identity, or to the realm of essence and authenticity? Every breakthrough that is generated and every insight that is revealed through our own internal work, shifts what's available and therefore what's possible in that particular arena of consciousness in humanity. This is the impact of powerful listening.



~ ten thousand blessings to you ~

Aspiring Bodhisattvas

"Tradition holds that the giving of alms is the first of the ten perfections required of a future Buddha. ... there was no limit to the number of existences in which Gautama Buddha became perfect in almsgiving, but the height of his perfection was reached during a lifetime in which he was a rabbit,
the Wise Hare".

~ Lewis Hyde, The Gift, pp. 75-76

I was not aware of this tradition or of the story at all at the time I painted the above painting, The Hare and the Moon, in 2008. In fact, the story of how the image for the painting came about is a very interesting one, the composition having come together under pressure within a period of a few hours. What I find interesting is, given my long pursuit of spiritual understanding, that these images of the hare and the moon, not to mention my title for the piece, arose not from study but from intuition and openness to what I could create when it seemed as though I had no ideas available to me.

To have come across this story just a few weeks ago, 3 years after painting the piece, in Hyde's brilliant masterpiece, The Gift, validates the assumption that when we are present to the Silence and listening for an inspired muse of an idea, we do truly tap into Infinite Intelligence, which generously articulates Itself through us in alignment with our own developed capacities.

We do not have to be cognitively aware, rather simply open to "hearing" or "seeing" something new. We are creating through our own unique perspective from that which is equally-everywhere-present. We are I think actually not "creating", but rather formulating from what is infinitely already created. We need not be scholars as there are whole worlds available to us that if we listen deeply enough we may catch snippets and thus find inspired expression connected to archetypes and tomes of wisdom.

"'Wise Hare,' said Sakka [ruler of the heaven of sensual pleasure disguised as a Brahman to test the rabbit's sincerity], 'let your virtue be proclaimed to the end of this world-cycle.' And taking a mountain in his hand, he squeezed it and, with the juice, drew the outline of a hare on the disc of the moon."

~ Lewis Hyde, The Gift, p.77

~ ten thousand blessings to you ~

Happy Mother's Day!

"Our mothers and grandmothers,
some of them:
moving to music not yet written."

~ Alice Walker

Above is a photo of my children. As most every mother knows, in her decisions she thinks twice about everything - once for herself and once for her children. Our children's happiness brings not only joy but also peace of mind. That their life is fulfilling honors a mother's life, and validates a job well done.

I think there is a music to nurturing and caring for and mentoring. Unwritten music from which we take our cues for loving each other. We all have it as a capacity, maybe lying dormant, maybe fully expressed.

Celebrating the capacity of mothering within, wishing us all a
Happy Mothers Day!

~ ten thousand blessings to you ~

Power or Force?

" Reclaiming the authentic self and developing character are essential tasks in the second half of life. Congruence within our nature fosters authenticity. Acting with integrity is the practice that brings us into alignment and congruence."



~ Angeles Arrien, The Second Half of Life

For so long I was afraid to really know my own power, afraid that expressing it or even showing it was dangerous, that something unsafe would happen to me or that I would lose those closest to me. But power is a realm. And we breathe it in all the time; it permeates the ethers. Yet when we are afraid of that which is equally everywhere present, we try to control it through some fabrication of our own thinking. When we do this with power, it becomes force.

Force can express as domination, but also as withdrawal or shyness or aquiescence - any form of manipulation. The force can be expressed externally or directed more internally, when we inhibit ourselves from true and authentic expression.

When we stand in the psychological vantage point of power, we stand in the clarity of our compassionate commitment to humanity, unthreatened by another's perspective. We radiate impersonal centeredness from this source of our own integrity. We become magnets for other's integrity, and power - through us - elicits clarity from others, where before confusion lived.

The realm of power is actually the safest place to stand.

Force is rigid, brittle, and therefore an expression of weakness.

True power is formidable in its gentleness and therefore irresistable, an expression of strength.

Force is fear.
Power is Love.

~ ten thousand blessings to you ~