For the past few years, everyone has been talking about purpose-driven leadership and purpose-driven business. But we have been doing that for almost 20 years now. In 2003, researcher, author and change manager Eric HJ Bartels began a large-scale scientific study of the behavior of leaders, brands and companies. 450 interviews with international leaders, on-site research at over 100 companies, extensive desktop research, 5000 psychological tests and three books later, it became clear that purpose-driven leaders and purpose-driven brands and companies show radically different behavior on every conceivable level with a substantially higher financial return.
What Bartels and his research team also discovered is that purpose-driven work is just one of the manifestations of a deeper and more fundamental dynamic: a fundamental difference in mindset. Truly purpose-driven leaders, brands and companies have a mindset we call the ‘Stradivarius mindset’. A mindset that is organic-monistic. All other leaders, brands and companies have an functional-dualistic mindset that we call the ‘Henry Ford mindset’, which is typical of the industrial age. The Stradivarius mindset is characterized by intrinsic motivation: create value that improves the world. The Henry Ford mindset is characterized by extrinsic motivation: turnover, profit and market share.More sales, profit and market share
You would expect the latter to lead to more sales, profit and market share. But nothing is less true. Very counterintuitively, leaders, brands and companies with the Stradivarius mindset appear to realize substantially more sales, profit and market share. Furthermore, Stradivarius brands and companies distinguish themselves organizationally because they use a fundamentally different way of human interaction and operation. Within those organizations it is less about hierarchy and more about cooperation and personal responsibility. Creativity, flexibility, personal autonomy, innovation and agility are structurally higher within those organizations.
More sales, profit and market share
Bartels and his team have carefully modeled the behavior of Stradivarius leaders, brands and companies and transformed it into a unique methodology: the Become Framewor® with 6 unique canvasses: Purpose, Strategy, Tactics, Roadmap, Activation and Feedback. Anyone can use that framework to help people, departments, brands and companies adopt the Stradivarius mindset and from there find their purpose and develop an associated strategy, tactical planning and truly agile execution, leading to unprecedented improvements in performance and return.
Tip of the iceberg
We have now described to you the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the findings from our 19-year research. This tip of the iceberg rests on a great psychology-philosophical foundation, which Eric HJ Bartels describes in particular in his three books ‘Mens – het geheim van het zijn’ (English: ‘Human – the secret of being’), The Plan – het meesterschap principe’ (English: ‘The Plan- -the mastery principle’) and ‘Als je wilt winnen, moet je niet willen winnen’ (English: ‘The Power Of The Inner Why’).
We now present you a summary of the psychological-philosophical part of the Become Framework. We start with a description at the meta level. A description of the historical dynamics of human history and the era it has brought us into the 21st century. We then provide a philosophical and psychological explanation of this development, using the thinking of great philosophers such as Aristotle and Georg Hegel and psychologists such as Abraham Maslow and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Then we will describe how this development specifically affects our marketing and brand thinking. And what the consequences are for the way in which we organize our companies and brands.
Renaissance 2.0
We live in the midst of the dazzling transformation from the industrial age to the meaning-driven purpose age. In other words, the transformation from Western Enlightenment to Western Renaissance 2.0. The Western Enlightenment and its industrial age was characterized by extrinsic motivation or revenue and profit, functionality, hierarchy, control, planning & process and employee practices. With this we have achieved a fantastic development of the Western economies. All this based on a specific mindset and associated way of thinking: dualism (Henry Ford mindset!).
Dualism is not only seeing reality in parts, but especially in dual opposites. It always starts with ‘this and that’, then always becomes ‘this or that’ and then ‘this against that’. That is literally how we Westerners have been conditioned in the industrial age. We had to, because it enabled us to unleash a technological revolution. But that only works until a certain phase and then you have to return to reality as it is: systemic-organic. It’s like taking a motorcycle apart to understand and clean all its parts. But only when you put the parts back together to form the whole ‘motorcycle’ will you benefit from your Ducati Sport. We are now in that phase as humanity.
Systemic Purpose Economy
It is the transformation to Renaissance 2.0 with its systemic purpose economy. Concepts such as meaning, purpose, agile, sustainability and the like are all manifestations of one and the same: the systemic-organic thinking and acting of humans in Renaissance 2.0.
This Renaissance 2.0 with its systemic purpose economy is characterized by intrinsic motivation or offering meaningful value to the world, creativity instead of functionality, networking instead of hierarchy, empowerment instead of control, joint experimentation instead of planning & process and entrepreneurship instead of employment.
Intrinsic motivation
The intrinsic motivation – purpose – of our Become Alliance is helping people, brands, companies and institutions to function optimally in the systemic purpose economy. Extensive statistical research shows that turnover, profit and market share of brands and companies with the systemic purpose-economy mindset is exponentially better than turnover, profit and market share of brands and companies with the old industrial mindset. A company like Apple Inc. is an excellent example of this.
The foundation
The question now is which forces led to the rise of the Renaissance 2.0. We are going to look at that now.
The basis of our philosophy and thus the Become Framework® is the philosophy of the great Greek thinker Aristotle, which was elaborated centuries later by the American scientist and psychologist Dr. Abraham Maslow. This philosophy assumes that life is a focused process from potentiality to actuality. The blueprint for the fully realized chestnut tree is already stored in the chestnut. Under the right conditions, this blueprint realizes itself in the chestnut tree. In a human being there is the blueprint for the fully realized version of that human being. From a biological point of view, that is the Intrinsic potential of that human being. Behaviorally, these are the natural talents of that person.
Eudaimonia
According to Aristotle, a person can only reach the state of ‘eudaimonia’ if that person functions completely in line with his own natural talents. The ancient Greek word ‘eu’ means ‘good’ and the word ‘daimon’ means ‘soul’. Often this is translated with the term ‘happiness’ or ‘bliss’. But in essence it is the satisfaction that comes when man performs perfect actions, those actions that spring from his own natural talents. The famous Hungarian-American scientist and psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi calls this the state of ‘flow’.
Our own research, conducted with the help of our psychometric instruments, shows that only one in 10,000 people operate completely in line with their own natural talents. This means that out of a total world population of 7 billion people, only 455,000 adults function fully in line with their own natural talents and reach the state of ‘eudaimonia’. That is 0.01% of all adults on the planet.
Maslow
American scientist and psychologist Dr. Abraham Maslow developed his famous Maslow pyramid of needs based on Aristotle’s philosophy:
According to Maslow, who thus broke with the then widely accepted ideas of Sigmund Freud, a person is focused on actualizing their own potential. He calls this self-actualization. According to Maslow, that process goes through different need stages. If you have nothing, no food, no drink, no roof over your head, according to Maslow you are primarily driven by finding food, moisture and a place to sleep. When you have those basic needs at your disposal structurally, your priority shifts to the next stage, which is stability. If that is structurally present, your priority shifts to acceptance, then to prestige and only then to what really matters: self-actualization.
Maslow therefore sees a human life as a process aimed at fulfilling one’s own potential, but also indicates that certain circumstances must first be filled in before you can get to self-actualization. It is crucial to align yourself as a person with your own natural talents and therefore skills. Only when that is the case, the natural potentiality can be fully realized.
Self-actualization
People who therefore function completely in line with their own natural talents, realize their full potentiality and thus achieve the state of ‘flow’, which is characterized by optimal energy efficiency. Every top athlete recognizes this state. It is the state in which everything seems to go by itself. It takes no more effort and there are no more resistances to overcome. The American ice hockey coach Garret Kramer describes this extensively in his book ‘Stillpower – Excellence with Ease in Sports and Life’ (2012, Atria Books), based on his experiences with players. He uses the concept of ‘excellence’ as a description for the state of fully realized potentiality. So the state of self-actualization. It is based on an English translation of Aristotle’s pronunciation:
“Happiness is a maximum expression of man’s abilities,
set against standards of excellence.”
Where ‘happiness’ stands for the previously described term ‘eudaimonia’. And so a better translation would be:
“Fulfillment is a maximum expression of man’s abilities,
set against standards of excellence.”
In his books Eric Bartels also uses the terms ‘ultra performance’ and ‘mastery’ for the term ‘excellence’.
Professor Maslow then proceeds from potentiality to actuality, as described earlier, through the following need stages: existence> stability> acceptance> self-esteem> self-actualization. In ‘THE PLAN – the mastery principle’ Eric describes that the first four needs of the Maslow Pyramid are so-called survival needs. In that phase, humans focus on survival within their biological context. Eating and drinking is the individual basis of survival. Stability or safety, acceptance by the social environment and prestige or self-esteem within that environment are still aimed at being able to survive within that social context. The individual development of one’s own talents is not central in that phase, but the use of talents in order to survive within the social context. The goal is therefore more important in that phase than the means. If it is necessary to use unnatural talents or skills for survival, an individual will.
Survival Needs and Actualization Needs
Self-actualization is not a need for survival, but an actualization need. A fundamentally different need. Survival in the social context is guaranteed in the actualization phase. This paves the way for individual development of one’s own natural talents. The talents and skills no longer have to be used to survive, but can be used to fully realize one’s own potential for the sake of potential. The maximum development of the means has now become an end in itself.
In Eric’s book ‘HUMAN- the secret of being’ he describes that the way through the Maslow Pyramid applies not only to individual people, but also to humanity as a whole. Human history follows a logical path propelled by the forces of the Maslow Pyramid. When people are driven forward by the satisfaction of ever-increasing needs, it is only natural that the entirety of human history should follow the same path.
Georg Hegel
The idea that human history follows a logical path originates from the German philosopher of history Georg Hegel (1770-1831). Hegel introduces the concept of ‘historical dialectics’ within his philosophy. Historical dialectics implies that history is driven by the phenomenon of ‘thesis-antithesis-synthesis’. First there is a thesis, for example capitalism. This thesis evokes an anti-thesis, in this case communism. Subsequently, a certain synthesis arises from that dualistic force field, in this case for example social liberalism. Hegel predicts that this historical dialectic will end in liberal democracy as the end point of human history. That is not to say that after that end point no human event will take place, but that the dialectical process will end.
If you connect the historical dialectic of Hegel with the motivational teaching of Maslow, a deepening of that historical dialectic arises. A deepening that we are sure Hegel would have completely agreed with. The dialectical process of thesis-antithesis-synthesis is propelled within that compound by the human need to satisfy ever-increasing needs. Which ultimately results in the highest need for self-realization.
As mentioned, Hegel therefore predicts that the dialectical process will end with liberal democracy. Why? Because liberal democracy is the ultimate social order in which people can fully realize themselves in complete freedom. This social order is therefore the most advanced social order.
Democracy
In Eric’s book ‘HUMAN – the secret of being’ he describes that Western man is at the tipping point between Maslow 1-4 and Maslow 5. Citizens in the Maslow 5 state will only accept a liberal democracy. As said, because such a social system provides maximum facilitation for self-realization.
Incidentally, we must then further optimize that democratic social order. Right now, the system is focused on the people 150 years ago. The human being who was still largely in the lower and middle regions of the Maslow pyramid. In that state, self-determination is significantly less important than food, drink and a roof over your head. The current political system in the West gives citizens only indirect control over the government of the country. The current dissatisfaction with existing politics in all Western countries is again and again associated with topics such as mass immigration and Europe. The real reason for the dissatisfaction is the extent to which politicians can be held accountable for policy. In other words, it is the lack of self-determination that prompts people to vote for parties that promise more democracy and less dependence on an opaque EU.
Incidentally, we are not hereby saying that the EU in itself is not a sensible idea. If the EU is organized in an opaque way, a solution may be to leave it. But another solution could be to reorganize the EU so that citizens have a clear understanding of decision-making and also have a more direct influence on that decision-making.
Autonomy
Renaissance 2.0 is thus the logical consequence of the dialectical process described by Hegel that is driven by the development of human needs as described by Abraham Maslow. Since in the West in particular all our so-called deficit needs have been structurally met, our primary need turns towards the need for self-actualization. Actualization-driven people exhibit fundamentally different behavior than deficit-need-driven people. Actualization-driven people are driven by the need for autonomy, self-development, sustainability, creativity, flexible cooperation and purpose. Actualization-driven people also choose products fundamentally different. So let’s examine this development now.
Brand development
Within the development that we outline above, the development of product and brand has also taken place. To clarify this, we quote from Eric’s book THE PLAN – the mastery principle:
On the y-axis you see the Maslow pyramid plotted, on the x-axis the time. The rising arrow indicates the development of brands. In the beginning, a company was often just a factory (matter). In that context, imagine the United States between 1850 and 1900. A raw, survival-oriented society. Each for himself, God for all of us. Little hygiene, hardly any health care, poor education. Trade standards hardly existed. It was survival capitalism in its purest form. People could sell anything they wanted. As long as it made money. Whether the consumers died or not, it usually did not lead to imprisonment. In that context, it was logical that people started looking for reliability, for quality (a terrible catch-all term, but I use it for now), for safety. The trademark was born. In those days a trademark was no more and no less than a sign of reliability: you knew it wouldn’t kill you. And later, that it was tasty or fast or cheap. This was the foundation of the brand: safety.
The second phase of the brand was the aspiration brand. This began to emerge as early as the 1930s. Trademarks hired movie stars and athletes to appear on their posters. Soap brands began to hold beauty pageants. But it wasn’t until the rise of television in the 1950s that the brand as an aspiration really started to grow. The basic idea was that people were driven by the aspiration to achieve a certain social ideal, such as becoming a movie star, sports idol, aristocrat or a perfect mother. If we linked brands to a certain social ideal, this made the brand more attractive to consumers.
The next, and according to many last, phase of brand development is the brand as inspiration. We no longer want to be someone else, but especially very much ourselves. We want to build our own ‘persona’ based on brands. We are no longer loyal to a brand, but build a network of different brands that define ourselves in their choice. Look at community sites, for example, where you position yourself by indicating which brands you like. We still use famous people, but only to borrow part of their image to build our own image: a little Madonna, a little bit of Robby Williams, a pinch of Apple, a lick of Virgin and a lot of me.
Brands have become ingredients with which you can model your own unique self. But not an I as an identity, as a self, as a real person, but an I as a persona, or the perfect projection of a desired and created self. An I as the highest form of social adjustment in a system of social repression. The über-ich and über-ego respectively as the maximum eruption of the surviving human being.
Utility phase versus Meaning phase
All these four phases are intrinsically about the usefulness of the product and brand. As the self-actualization dynamic becomes dominant, as has happened over the past 15 years, the value of products and brands for people shifts from utility to meaning. Of course there is still use. When you buy a Spa Red, you are thirsty. But why do you buy Spa Red and not the private label? In the utility phase it is only about things like price / quality and a better manifestation of the own public image. This also plays a role in the meaning phase, but of secondary importance.
We quote again from THE PLAN – the mastery principle:
The new human being, the human being who tilts towards Maslow 5, must be addressed very differently and with very different needs than the industrial human being so far. That person is addressed on the purpose and meaning (of products / services) as I will describe in the following chapters.
The concept of ‘brand’, like the concept of ‘marketing’, emerged from the industrial age. An era in which man was primarily driven by the survival motivation to satisfy the Maslow 1-4 needs. The survival-driven human being traded authenticity, genuineness, freedom and actualization of their own potentiality for being able to satisfy these Maslow 1-4 needs. Persona and exterior, both products of our survival urge to adapt to the social context, predominated. Brand and marketing were a perfect fit: they create The Matrix, or the illusory world of image and false reality that gives us the illusion that we can become happy by satisfying our Maslow 1-4 needs. Nowhere have I seen it portrayed more impressively than in that scene from The Matrix that I already describe in Chapter 9:
“I know this steak doesn’t exist at all. I know that when I take a bite, The Matrix tells my brain it’s a delicious piece of tender meat. Do you know what I realize being in reality after nine years? Ignorance is wonderful!”
“Ignorance is wonderful!” It could be the ultimate pay-off for the classical duo ‘Marketing & Brand’.
Laws of success
In the industrial age, brand and marketing worked very well. Human systems such as companies and institutions did not have to use the real laws of success as so many successful people had done before them. People like Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Leonardo da Vinci, Stradivarius and many others. “Ignorance is wonderful!” and that is why some human systems could use repression (governments) and others got away with offering illusions with limited effect and an even more limited support around it (brands). And still many human systems think that they can get away with that limited behavior, even though everything now indicates the contrary.
Reciprocal meaning
Human systems in the current actualization era have to let go of ‘Ignorance-
is-wonderful! ‘ thinking and choose a deep reciprocal meaning that connects them optimally with the world. A deep reciprocal meaning that offers people the possibility of optimizing their own potentiality and satisfy their actualization-driven needs.
And for that we just have to let go of classical brand and marketing thinking and move towards a new interpretation of branding and marketing. A new interpretation that starts from the self-actualizing person and satisfies the needs of that person. This means that branding and marketing is no longer the creation of a public persona (an image that does not correspond to the actual identity of the brand or company), but the manifestation of the intrinsic identity of the brand or company in the world. It is authentic storytelling in which customer, product and brand / company play authentic roles. And exactly in that order. It’s the shift from ‘Ignorance is wonderful!’ to ‘Authenticity is wonderful!’
But as we mentioned earlier, these developments do not only affect brand and marketing. It is a completely new mindset that also has far-reaching organizational consequences. As we said, Stradivarius brands and companies distinguish themselves organizationally because they use a fundamentally different way of human interaction and operation. Within those organizations it is less about hierarchy and more about cooperation and personal responsibility. Creativity, flexibility, personal autonomy, innovation and agility are structurally higher within those organizations. The Stradivarius way of working will make the entire organization function better and lead to happier employees, much more loyal customers and radically higher sales, profit and market share.
Epilogue
We hope you enjoyed the above. If you want to know more about this subject, we advise you to order Eric HJ Bartels’ books in our webshop.