HIPOs in the Pursuit of
Happiness By Sydney Savion, EdD
“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately happy. What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization.” —Abraham Maslow The Pursuit of Happyness, based on a true story about a man named Christopher Gardner, focuses on the riveting life struggle of single parent Gardner and his young son. The two are homeless for almost a year after Gardner invests his life savings in a portable bone density scanner that offers a quantum leap over standard exams. However, the technology is only slightly better and costs much more. As Gardner tries to sort out how to make more sales, his life begins to crumble. His wife leaves him, and he loses his home, bank account, and credit cards. He is forced to live on the streets and in shelters with his son. But Gardner is extremely self-confident, quick-witted, and determined to be successful and to find a steady job. His resolve pays off, and he lands an unpaid six-month internship in a fiercely competitive Dean Witter stockbroker training program. Ultimately, he earns the coveted full-time position as a broker and prevails over his harrowing obstacles, rising to prominence as a Wall Street stockbroker, investor, entrepreneur, author, and philanthropist. Gardner displayed seven incomparable qualities: true expertise, agile mindedness and continuous learning, collaboration, ambition, a career focus, an ability to earn respect, and true grit. He was unwavering in realizing his full potential.
8 I AMA QUARTERLY I WINTER 2015-16
The Pursuit of Happyness is a film, but many high-potential employees (HIPOs) exhibit these same traits. They too are on a quest and have the desire, ability, motivation, and commitment to attain the next level.
WHAT DEFINES TRUE HIPOs All employees do not want the same thing, and therefore they should not all be developed or measured equally. Their goals, capabilities, values, attitudes, mental agility, priorities, and higher-level needs are unique. What drives one employee’s level of ambition compared with another’s? High-potential employees tend to be self-actualizing individuals. They have a desire for personal growth and seek out peak experiences to fulfill their potential. According to Abraham Maslow, self-actualization is “the desire for self-fulfillment, namely the tendency for him [the individual] to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.” Self-actualized people tend to be happy people, and happy people tend to be more productive. HIPOs are the “rising stars” and “top talent”—a powerful asset that can be leveraged to fuel productivity. They are the linchpin in a company’s capacity to survive or thrive. According