Jürgen Wulff: In my experience, you can be successful even if you don’t have a high degree of awareness about yourself. If you only focus on money, you can be very successful. Of course, it could be even more successful if you develop people as you have described. But the people in charge don’t think about it because they don’t even understand it.
Darren Stevens: I can give you an example. Before I did my doctorate, I created a profile of about 50 entrepreneurs. Two of them were worth more than 10 million pounds. What level do you think they were at? In fact, the woman who had the most money was also the lowest on the scale. She was at level 2.4 on my old scale. She was very low, because for her it meant ‚It’s all about me. How much money can I make now? Can I make more money for me now?‘ That was all. So, of course you can be very successful. Her focus is so limited that she only thinks about money and herself. When you start getting to the higher levels, it’s more like a social enterprise, like I said.
Jürgen Wulff: But isn’t that a contradiction for companies? Companies have to make a profit. If they don’t make profits, they go bankrupt and cease to exist. So they attract people who want to make money. But we also have to attract people who not only want to make money, but also want to develop themselves and the people around them.
Darren Stevens: I agree with that. For example, if you sell cars and own a car dealership, you can be level 2. You could have a low level. But you have to hire people who are level 3, because level 3 is about the socialized mind: how are we doing? What is our relationship? Are we okay? It’s a family environment. So you hire these people because they’re the backbone of your business. Because when customers come through the door, they want to be greeted by a Level 3 person who is more ‚External‘, empathetic.
They don’t want a level 2 person, they don’t want a level 4 person, so if you’re smart, you can still be level 2 and rich because you’re hiring level 3 people. But if you start to leave level 3 and move towards level 4, you change your world view and money is not so important anymore. You are no longer valuable to the organization because your personal values have changed.
Jürgen Wulff: That’s exactly how it is. For this it is necessary that people can move up in the hierarchy. But it would also be necessary for them to resign if necessary because they have not developed enough. If we need an organization that continues to develop, it may be that we cannot keep a person in a certain role. Either the person leaves the organization or resigns.
Darren Stevens: You are absolutely right. There are two possibilities. The person is being promoted into the role and they can’t fill the role sufficiently. So they burn out. Or they get bored because the role is not as complex as they are. Then she gets bored and leaves. But whether they’re bored or burned out, they’ll leave. You have to match the person to the role that’s right for them at the time. And if it’s a large organization, when you develop that person, you have to have a role for him or her to grow into and fit.
Jürgen Wulff: So you need role finders for the employees in the HR department. You have to develop employees and they have to be willing to develop so that they can say, I’m in the role I always wanted to have, this is the right place for me. From there they have to develop.
Darren Stevens: The point is, the moment they say they don’t have to develop, you stop dealing with them. And that’s the flip side. That’s the negative side of what I’m talking about. There are people who are not capable of evolving. And we have to acknowledge that, because they are happy that they are doing what they want to do and they don’t want to go any further. But in reality they can’t go any further either. So we look at the capacity and the capabilities: Where are you now? Where do you think you can go? If they say I can’t go any further, they probably can’t. We have to be adult enough to accept that this is true for them. And we can’t force development on them.
Jürgen Wulff: Right. And you have to be adult enough to accept that for yourself. Some people are not, they are afraid of losing face. They are really embarrassed when they realize that they cannot develop further. I think that shouldn’t be a problem anymore, because you should be able to deal with different roles. And we have to find a role that suits them better.