In a professional context, we repeatedly encounter people whose behavior challenges us. The colleague who is constantly looking for recognition. The employee who reacts hypersensitively to any criticism. The line manager who wants to keep control of everything and tends to micromanage. We then quickly try to evaluate such behavior and label it as “excessive”, “inappropriate” or even “manipulative”.
What if we were to change our perspective? What if this very behavior is not a deceptive maneuver, but the expression of a genuine and deeply rooted need?
In body-oriented, mindfulness-based Hakomi therapy, we look at assessments of this kind through a different lens.
This attitude simply changes everything. Instead of pathologizing or correcting the behaviour of our counterpart, Hakomi invites us to look behind it with curiosity. Because every behavior has a function, even the seemingly disruptive ones. It protects, regulates, secures attachment or recognition. It is the best available way for people to maintain a relationship with their inner world.
Hakomi work is about listening inwards with mindfulness. What is actually needed here? What was perhaps never fulfilled in the past?
Survival strategies from childhood
In the Hakomi therapy training, we deal with character study, which is based on the assumption that so-called character attitudes develop from early relationship experiences. These are patterns with which we have learned (at an early age) to cope in the world. These patterns are not mistakes, but intelligent adaptations of the system to what was possible or necessary at the time.
What does this mean for the business context?
When we shape leadership, collaboration and change, it is worth taking a look beneath the surface:
- The “unmotivated” employee may not be lazy, but frustrated because their need for effectiveness is not being met.
- The “complicated” colleague may need clarity because otherwise she feels insecure and excluded.
- The “dominant” boss longs for control because for her, trust is linked to a loss of control.
The approach of mindfulness, as practiced in Hakomi therapy, is not esoteric, but a central approach to enabling sustainable change in teams and organizations.
“Deep down, everyone has a need to be understood, validated and appreciated.” (Stephen R. Covey)
In the end, it’s all about attitude.
When we realize that there is a real need behind every behavior, our attitude changes. We start to listen with more empathy and ask different questions. We lead differently and we create spaces in which people don’t have to pretend, but instead come into contact – with themselves and with each other.
Because real change does not begin with methods, but with attitude. And that begins with the recognition of a simple truth:
People do not pretend to have needs. Needs are fundamental.
