While Maslow’s Hierarchy at face
value seems like an overall life task list I see it in many more facets.
Consider the hierarchy a building block. No one builds a house with just one
block, well unless you live in a cave. To build a house it takes many if not
hundreds of blocks. The house representing your life and each block is another
piece; such has job, family, and so forth. With each aspect you can apply
Maslow’s ideas.
Take your job for instance the
physiological factors that go into it are having a job, being able to go to
your job. Safety will you keep your job. Love, relationships, do you get along
with your coworkers. Esteem, is it satisfying. Lastly self-actualization, do
you want to do more than you are and help others. Over all if any of these pieces
are missing the chance of self-actualization are minimal. Herzberg would call it motivation and that
may be more appropriate in the job sense.
Herzberg breaks down the base layer
into a lot of pieces. While more may be better to reach a state of motivation I
do not believe they all have to be present all the time. Some may come and go
and the end result will not be affected. To stick with the house analogy it
would be like remolding a house as long as not to much is taken away no one
really notices.
While Herzberg’s ideas may seem
like a ladder to climb I see it more like a bunch of items that are needed to
succeed, once again not all have to be present but the more the better chance
of being motivated.
All in all both equate to getting
on a track to not get burnt out at your job or in life. Personally I find more
truth in Maslow’s ideas.
I agree with your building analogy in the hierarchy theory. I also think, referring to your life house, that there must be a solid foundation before laying any blocks. We must have structure and with that structure should be solid core values but not so many that it gets cluttered along the way. Those values will sometimes change just like having to remodel your house. Sometime in your houses life it will need a new coat of paint or maybe even an addition that you didn't think you needed at the beginning but now experience has shown you that you do.
ReplyDeleteI have close friends that seem to have trouble with this concept and end up moving like once every 2-3 years. In the federal fire service this is often easy to do as long as there are job opening in the places you want to go. I never understood why they moved from place to place so much. Some of them would say they didn't like the area, or the schools were not adequate for the children future. Still there were those that couldn't keep a solid foundation where they were and thought that the grass is greener on the other side. Being burnt out in my mind is not about where you work, its a state of mind and how you carry yourself everyday. Each day has its own challenges so in my mind I believe we should tackle these challenges one at a time and try not to do them all alone. We all need help at some point.
I also like your analogy of the hierarchy theory of being a building. It makes the model more relate able. I do with they would have used it in the book. In the diagram of the Herzberg model, the hygiene factors were used as a base and a rocket was used for motivators. I do like at the end you say both models are great tools to help keep us on track in our fire and ems careers.
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