SWM-015: How the Business World Can Benefit from a Human-Centered Approach, with Mark Rodgers

“[T]he individual has within himself or herself vast resources for self-understanding, for altering his or her self-concept, attitudes and self-directed behavior...” —Carl Rogers

“Carl Rogers believed that the client could become their own engine for positive growth.” —Mark Rogers, Rogerian-trained psychotherapist and founder, The Unfinished Sentence…

This episode’s guest is human-centered design expert Mark Rodgers, who took part in a panel discussion titled “Carl Rogers and Humanistic-Experiential Theory” held at the end of last year as part of the Clinical & Community Practice Grand Rounds series.

We were interested in talking to Mark not just because of what he has to say about Carl Rogers, the founder of the humanist approach to clinical psychology, but also because he has forged a career path that combines his training in Rogerian psychotherapy with running his own branding and marketing agency—a story that could be of interest to students who can see themselves using their social work degrees in a business context.

While admitting he took a “circuitous route” into the world of business, Mark says that his clients appreciate his “humanistic approach.” Unlike more conventional branding agencies, he uses humanistic psychology to create an environment that is conducive for consumers to tell the truth about clients’ products. It is a process, he says, that leads clients to “new and promising paths” for brand innovation and renovation,” by giving them insights into products and services in tune with what customers really want.

DISCUSSION QUESTION

How can today’s business world make us of the “person-centered” skills possessed by social workers, psychologists, and psychotherapists?

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

• The unfinished sentence…, Mark Rodgers’ agency
• New York Person-Centered Resource Center, a humanistic mental health clinic based in New York City and directed by Dr. Sarton Weinraub
• The Carl Rogers Website, a gateway to the intellectual work of Dr. Carl R. Rogers
• “Is the MSW the New MBA?” by Christine Bader in Fast Company, posted 11 September 2014
• SWM-008: Social Work as Social Enterprise, with Alumnus Matt Omelagah, podcast with an SEA alumnus about his career path
• Sweet Dreams Are Made of This: Social Change Agent Alexis Miesen (MS’04), short film with an SEA alumna

SHOW NOTES

• Mark’s satisfaction in bringing elements of the person-centered approach into a commercial field [2:37]
• How Mark defines a “person-centered approach” [2:56]
• A short history of Carl Rogers’ rise to prominence and his insistence that clients can become their own engine for positive change [3:36]
• The three “core conditions” the therapist can offer to bring out a client’s “actualizing tendency”: empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard [4:15]
• On why Mark doesn’t think of himself as an “entrepreneur” [5:34]
• On why Mark thinks the business world doesn’t understand “consumers,” a term he doesn’t like [6:12]
• Mark’s alternative approach to testing “consumer” sentiment [7:18]
• How open the traditional business world is to social workers and others who take a “person centered” approach [9:27]
• The need to challenge the “whole economic model,” which relies on growth and income inequality [10:37]
• Why it might make sense to see the MSW as the new MBA, as Fast Company argued in an article last fall [11:31]
• The example of Mark’s friend who worked in a financial recruiting agency in the city of London and introduced a “person-centered mentorship program,” with great success [14:06]

PREVIOUS EPISODES

• SWM-014: Marking 10 Years of Health Research in Central Asia, with Louisa Gilbert and Angela Aifah
• SWM-013: 5 Cool Things in Fall 2014, with Dean Jeanette Takamura
• SWM-012: CSSW Alums Are Enlightened and Active Participants, with Dean Jeanette Takamura
• SWM-011: The Ebola Crisis as Seen from the Lens of International Social Work
• SWM-010: Translating Neuroscience into Policy and Practice for At-Risk Children, with Dr. Jack Shonkoff
• SWM-009: The Impact of the Great Recession on American Families and Social Services, with Filmmaker Harry Gantz
• SMW-008: Social Work as Social Enterprise, with Alumnus Matt Omelagah
• SWM-007: Social Work and the DSM-5, with Michael First and Janet Williams (2/2)
• SWM-006: Social Work and the DSM-5, with Michael First and Janet Williams (1/2)
• SWM-005: The Tenure Process, with Craig Schwalbe and Elwin Wu
• SWM-004: Dialectical Behavior Therapy in Clinical Social Work, with Tony DuBose
• SWM-003: The Presumed Incompetence of Faculty Women of Color, with Professor Carmen Gonzalez
• SWM-002: Orchid vs Dandelion Parenting in the Wake of the Great Recession, with Professor Irv Garfinkel
• SWM-001: The Trials and Tribulations of the Trayvon Martin Case, with Professor Ron Mincy