The hidden need in Maslow hierarchy
Maslow hierarchy is often cited as a way to understand human psychology. I have also written about how a similar hierarchy exists for companies as well. What is not visible in this hierarchy, however, is a core human need — the need for certainty.
Let me show you how this need manifests itself in different ways.
Basics
At a basic level, hunger and thirst are just needs for survival. And need for survival is nothing but ensuring that you eliminate the uncertainty of dying. So, we want food and water to make sure that we live another day.
Similarly, the need for safety and security is often a higher abstraction of the same - certainty to live. If you have enough money, you again have an assurance of basic survival. If you are free from an environment with wild carnivores, you assure yourself of living longer.
Things get more interesting on the upper levels.
Career
The term ‘career’ itself is an indication of longevity and certainty, over the word ‘job’. By aligning ourselves with a career, we often eliminate the uncertainty to choose work.
E.g. If you have chosen a product management career for yourself, you are (at least currently) certain that whatever work you do will be in that ambit. The contours may change - B2B vs B2C, IC vs managerial, early vs late stage companies etc, but the canvas is limited to product management. And that limitation itself eliminates the pain of choosing any other work.
So you don’t have to think about becoming an engineer or designer (or anything else even) if you choose Product management as a career path.
Labels
Within one’s jobs as well, the entire construct of designations is a way to give certainty about a path.
The entire journey and next steps are clearly defined, you just1 have to traverse through them.
In this case, there’s another need that’s closely coupled - the need to feel that we are progressing. It’s hard to feel that we are progressing if we are just choosing directions, but much easier once we have chosen directions and are walking along them.
Another example of labels that give certainty is in personal domains, e.g. husband / wife. There’s a certainty that comes with the label, that two people have decided to be together for the foreseeable future.
More trivial labels exist in gamified apps, as you traverse through levels and earn badges / credentials.
The fourth layer of Maslow, of seeking prestige, is nothing but a label with a certain status in the society, which often makes our opportunities certain. E.g. Once you have earned your reputation as a PM, you are at least assured of PM opportunities. Once you have gotten a stamp of a prestigious university, you are at least assured of some status in jobs.
It’s a whole another matter though that all of these labels are crutches.2
Planning
The very act of planning is a testament to removing uncertainty in the future and making it more predictable.
Trivial Example - If you plan to go on a concert Sat evening, you are eliminating the uncertainty of all the different things you could have done then. Yes, this planning is also linked to desire i.e. If you like music and going to concerts, you need to plan for it. But I think the need to eliminate uncertainty is very much imbibed with it.
This is also why people who have high need for control (and often low tolerance for uncertainty) are also more planned and organised.
In case of businesses, planning is even more critical, since business is a commercial endeavour. And every commercial endeavour has to generate some returns. And every investor wants predictable returns3. That’s why certainty is indexed on very highly. And once you watch closely, you will find the manifestation of certainty in almost4 every thing that a business does.
Annual planning processes
Operational review cadences against targets
Hiring people who are good at setting and adhering to both of the above
Hiring specialists for roles as you scale (The best specialist is the one who has done the exact same work before in another org)
Early alarms in case of potential deviations from plans
Rewarding predictability
Downsides of certainty
The biggest downside of certainty is what you lose because of it - flexibility.
Certainty is convergent - making more commitment in one direction, and with that commitment, you leave the opportunity to explore spontaneously.
That is still manageable in case of smaller commitments, but things get harder with more serious commitments.
There are very few people who are truly okay with large uncertainties, like where to live, who to be with, what to work on. A lot of us would rather close these decisions sooner rather than later.
That is also why, after a certain age, people don’t change these decisions often.
Most people don’t move cities later
Most people don’t leave their careers and pick up another occupation altogether later
Most people also don’t change their core relationships later
The familiarity of existing things / people builds up a certainty around them at the cost of flexibility. Do that long enough and you lose your muscle to be flexible.
To summarise, our need for certainty, professionally and personally, leads us to create entities that reinforce that feeling. In most cases, that’s a good thing.
Except when you start forgetting that a lot of future will still be uncertain, and hence the efforts to eliminate uncertainty should be coupled with those to seek it when required or handle it when it arises.
I say just but I know it’s not simple. The idea is to point out that a clear direction exists.
But terrific inventions at giving a sense of progress. Hats off to the whoever figured out such a great retention lever.
You might argue that high risk asset class investors like VCs are okay with unpredictable returns, but at a portfolio level, they are not.
It is often this ‘almost’ that makes or breaks companies. More on that in a later post.
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