Interview with Carlos Valdes-Dapena
Carlos Valdes-Dapena is an organization development professional, author, and speaker with a focus on unlocking organizational performance through leadership and collaboration. He worked for Mars, Inc from 2000-2017. Prior to Mars, Carlos was an internal leadership coach and consultant working with IBM’s senior leaders.
Carlos is also the author of Virtual Teams: Holding the Center When You Can’t Meet Face-to-Face
The conversation
Alain: At one time in history, in our prehistoric hunter/gatherer days, we used to collaborate to be able to hunt big animals. I figure that collaboration would be natural to us in the workplace because we needed it for our survival.
When did we start collaborating and become individualist?
Carlos: When groups went out hunting, their payoff was specific and clear, to kill the animal so that they could survive. They were motivated to collaborate so that could be rewarded as a group, but they were also motivated individually because all of them got a piece of the animal.
In motivational theory in psychology we follow Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid. From the bottom of the hierarchy upwards, the needs are: physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization.
Corporations want individuals to work as groups, but they hold them accountable as individuals. They don’t do a “group paycheck.” they pay each individual in accord to his individual contribution, so employees would like to work more as a group, but they know that at the end of the day, they stand alone on whether he will get a pay raise, stay the same, or be among the next group to be laid off.
The corporation has to structure work in a way that inspires collaboration.
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