What are the key components of hierarchy of needs in business that define organizational growth

As per the hierarchy of needs in business, some needs should be filled first in order to maintain a motivated and creative workforce. For this, the organization should meet the physiological needs of the workforce by providing competitive salaries and comprehensive benefits packages. Moreover, ensuring security and safety and the workplace is crucial. The company culture should be robust that provides the employees with a sense of belongingness and fosters strong relationships among the staff. By providing opportunities for personal and professional growth, an organization can reach its full potential, and also help employees with their self-actualization needs.

Group50 consulting firm is implementing its proprietary change management framework, viz. Business Hierarchy of Needs ® since 2013, for achieving a company’s strategic objectives, and developing a culture of strategic execution. The hierarchy of needs in business model consists of three levels of activities that make an effective change management process for creating strategy, optimizing the organization, and implementing change.

First level of the business hierarchy of needs ®

The first level of hierarchy of needs in business identifies the information required to fully understand the current state of the organization, and to lay the foundation for clearly defined strategies that achieve a defined future state. While mission, vision and values are clearly defined strategies, Group50’s hierarchy of needs in business adds leadership traits, most important goals (MIGs), and value proposition to them. Once strategies have been designed and put in place, identifying strategic gaps and operating gaps, and the development of tactical objectives provide the basis for identifying what needs to be done to successfully execute strategy.

The second and third levels

The focus of the second level of the hierarchy of needs in business is on setting cascading objectives throughout the organization to deal with operating gaps and strategic gaps that define the required organization structure, skill maps, and training requirements. It is important to devote sufficient amount of time and effort to this step of hierarchy of needs in business, as short stepping this level will put the strategic execution into trouble. The third and last level of hierarchy of needs in business should be able to answer questions related to the establishment of the appropriate steering committee, creating roadmaps, defining project charters, and keeping skill development programs in place.

Avoid anti-strategy

Continuously improving business processes, products, and services to meet the needs of the company's stakeholders is a critical component of every successful business. In his Strategy Realized book on hierarchy of needs in business, Group50 consulting firm’s CEO Jim Gitney provides details on each step of the business hierarchy, and what all needs to be done to realize a business strategy. The book describes 29 elements of the business hierarchy of needs ®, and the importance of doing them in an integrated way. The book walks you through the proven steps for turning strategy into results into today’s business environment. The book gives you the ability to ask more probing and insightful questions, as well as make better decisions. It will help your company to avoid anti-strategy and move to a culture of Strategic Execution ™.

During my 45 years of corporate and consulting experience with companies ranging from start-ups to Fortune 50, I have learned what to do and what should never be done from some of the best and worst leaders.