PhD Spotlight w/ Ryan Meachen

Ryan Meachen

1) What is your research and how did you arrive at the topic?

I'm doing my PhD in Organizational behaviour, which is the field that studies all the exciting things about how people behave within the workplace. Things like: how do you create high-performing teams? how do you enable wellbeing in the workplace? how do you realise your potential as a leader?

Specifically, I'm looking at a concept I call 'Ideal-Self-Actualization'. Self-actualization is a flash concept popularised by Abraham Maslow, who used it to describe the pinnacle of human motivation - the drive to realise your potential and become all that you can uniquely be. Which sounded really cool and exciting, but alas, there's always a research gap to found when you dig into the literature.

I was looking at all the literature on self-actualization, as any half-decent PhD student would do, and there was a question that I kept returning to: "Actualizing towards what?". If self-actualization is a motivational process towards fulfilling your potential, then what's the reference point you should be striving towards? What should you be aiming for in order to fulfill your potential?

That's where I encountered research on Possible Selves, and Ideal Selves. Possible selves are the images and ideas that you have of who you could become in the future. Some of those possibilities are because of your fears (Feared selves!), some of those possibilities are because of the expectations others place upon you (called Ought selves!). But I'm focusing on Ideal Selves - which are the images of who you could be in the future that you find genuinely inspirational and really worth pursuing.

My answer to the reference point question, is that self-actualization is the process of feeling like you're becoming your ideal self. That's a potential pathway forward for what we should be aiming for in order to fulfil our potential. You're on the road to that big lofty mountain on the horizon. And not only do you find the destination at the end of the road inspiring, you find the journey towards that mountain summit fulfilling in and of itself.

What I want to answer with my PhD is two things:

1. What are the factors in organisations that either enable or hinder the feeling that an individual is fulfilling their potential, and becoming their ideal self?
2. How does the experience of ideal-self-actualisation impact people's sense of well-being, happiness and work engagement over time?

I landed on this topic because of my interest in human potential, and the environmental factors that either hinder or enable your ability to fulfil your potential - whether that be in the workplace, in families, in our communities, or across our societies.

I believe that the primary ethical duty of an organisation is to enable the fulfilment of human potential. Same goes for Aotearoa. The mark of a great nation is its capacity to enable individuals to fulfil their potential.

2) What has the process been like, how far through it are you, what’s next?

It's been cool! Straight up I never thought I'd be a PhD student. I'm first in my whanau to go to University. I still have days where I think, "how the heck did I end up here?" and "what the heck am I doing?".

But overall it's been great. I feel very lucky to have the supervisors I have. If you think about your PhD as an apprenticeship, then you gotta choose the Master you apprentice under wisely. I've been lucky enough to apprentice under Dr Ben Walker and Dr Jane Bryson , and they're both just great human beings. That makes a major difference when it comes to the PhD marathon. You have to have the right supervisors in your corner guiding you and cheering you on. Those relationships really matter.

Beyond that, being a PhD student has opened up some amazing opportunities to explore the world. In the last 18 months I've been to Oxford in the UK, Ljubljana in Slovenia, Vienna in Austria, Paris too. Not bad for a Hastings boy!

I've got about a year left on my PhD. I'm doing consulting work at the moment where I design and deliver leadership development programmes for organisations, which I really love and enjoy. I'm also a part of a volunteer organisation that teaches practical philosophy in prisons throughout Aotearoa. Both are amazing mediums to help people realise their potential. But, I also want to teach too. I want to be able to pass on the same moment of realisation, awakening - whatever you want to call it - that I experienced in Paul McDonald's organisational behaviour class when I did my MBA at VUW. I feel a deep duty to pass on that legacy; to give another person that same educational experience that awoke something special in me.

Long term I want to return home to Hastings and open a little community college or something. I want to teach young people from communities like my beloved Hastings & Flaxmere about the science of living a fulfilling life, finding and developing your purpose, and developing your potential as a leader - all of that amazing stuff that helped me on my own journey. I want to be able to help others navigate towards realising their potential too.

3) What’s your favourite thing about Wellington?

Man. Okay. Beyond all of this flash stuff about human potential and PhD study, I am also deeply passionate about fried chicken. Wellington has an amazing array of fried chicken restaurants. But my G.O.A.T so far is Platform 145 on Willis St. Their garlic soy Korean fried chicken is undefeated. When I eat that fried chicken I feel completely self-actualised. Email me if you reckon you've found better.

Wellington School of Business and Government Victoria University of Wellington

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