Edwin C. Nevis

Edwin C. Nevis was president and founder of the Gestalt International Study Center and author of five books, including Organizational consulting: A Gestalt Approach and Intentional Revolutions: A Seven-Point Strategy for Transforming Organizations. He worked in the MIT Sloan School of Management for seventeen years and, while teaching organization psychology in a management program in Shanghai, China in 1981, he observed individuals there and found that their hierarchy of needs differed from Maslow's hierarchy of needs. From this, he formulated a Chinese hierarchy -- Nevis's hierarchy of needs -- showing the cultural relativity of the Maslow framework based on American culture and suggesting different need hierarchies for different cultures classified according to an individualism-collectivism dimension and an ego-social dimension.

Short Biography

Edwin Nevis was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on May 20, 1926. He helped found the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland in 1956, where he remained as President until 1973, and as an active faculty member until 2001. He recently passed away on May 20,2011 his 85th birthday. The cause of death was lymphoma. Edwin C. Nevis was president and founder of the Gestalt International Study Center and author of five books, including Organizational consulting: A Gestalt Approach and Intentional Revolutions: A Seven-Point Strategy for Transforming Organizations. He worked in the MIT Sloan School of Management for seventeen years and, while teaching organization psychology in a management program in Shanghai, China in 1981, he observed individuals there and found that their hierarchy of needs differed from Maslow's hierarchy of needs. From this, he formulated a Chinese hierarchy -- Nevis's hierarchy of needs -- showing the cultural relativity of the Maslow framework based on American culture and suggesting different need hierarchies for different cultures classified according to an individualism-collectivism dimension and an ego-social dimension.

Family and Education

He graduated from New York City College, received a Master's Degree from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from Western Reserve University. Nevis was a student of Fritz and Laura Perls and Isadore From. He was married to Sonia March on Feb. 1, 1948

Awards

Edwin C. Nevis was awarded the Organization Development Network’s Lifetime Achievement Award .

Edwins Work

The Brooklyn native helped create the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland in 1956 and served as its president until 1973 and as an instructor until 2001. In the late 1970s, the Wellfleet program began to take shape in the Nevis home in Wellfleet and local motels, said David Tunney, executive director of the South Wellfleet center.Gestalt theory is based on the idea of an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts. Nevis' practices rested on theories of how people take in and organize information, and how they use it in relating to others. The Gestalt theory originated in scientific research on human perception and was first applied to psychology.In 1987, Nevis published his signature book, "Organizational Consulting: A Gestalt Approach." He taught at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge for 17 years and served as director of the school's program for senior executives, an MIT spokeswoman said Tuesday."Edwin literally wrote the book on the way to work in organizations," consultant Rick Maurer of Alexandria, Va., said

Gestalt and about the Gestalt Internation Study Center

Gestalt is a psychology term which means "unified whole". It refers to theories of visual perception developed by German psychologists in the 1920s. These theories attempt to describe how people tend to organize visual elements into groups or unified wholes when certain principles are applied. These principles are similarity, continuation, closure, proximity, figure and ground.

Unlike most Gestalt institutions, who deal only with therapy, GISC works with couples, groups and organizations. It is an approach that is experiential rather than theoretical. “Our approach is hands-on,” Edwin says. “The goal is to create tools that will enrich our participants’ lives with greater self awareness, interpersonal and professional skills.”

Edwin’s approach is built on a set of principles that begin with self awareness. “It’s a question of how one interacts with the world,” he explains. How you are perceived by others. The impact your behavior has on others. Then there is what we call skillful dialogue. It’s how you interact with others in a skillful way. For example, dealing with difficult conversations such as performance reviews. And then there’s the ability to receive information from others. You need to receive information from others and hear what they saying … not just shout them out. It all leads to the ability to influence others.”

These principles are part of a body of work that is rooted in years of experience dating back to 1956 when Edwin co-founded the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. While serving as president and a member of the faculty, he also co-created the well known Organization and System Development Program and the OSD International Program. But his fascination with Gestalt psychology and group dynamics actually dates back to his early college studies in New York City.

It was while there that he was first introduced to Gestalt by a legendary group of expatriate German teachers who had migrated to New York City at the dawn of World War II. Today, Edwin is the second oldest living practitioner who studied under the originators of the movement. These included such legendary pioneers as Fritz and Laura Perls, Isadore From and Paul Goodman. “We were out to change the world,” he remembers. “There were lots of free flowing ideas being bounced around. I guess it was just a question of being in the right place at the right time.”

Notes

Bookfinder lists five books written by Edwin C. Nevis including:

• Gestalt Therapy: Perspectives and Applications
• How Organizations Learn: An Integrated Strategy for Building Learning Capability
• Intentional Revolutions: A Seven-Point Strategy for Transforming Organizations
• Organizational Consulting: A Gestalt Approach
• Organisationsberatung. EHP-Organisation

References

Nevis, Edwin. "death". Nevis. Retrieved 23 July 2011. Nevis, Edwin. "Gestalt". Gestalt. Retrieved 23 July 2011.

Nevis, Edwin. "work". Edwin Nevis. Retrieved 23 July 2011.

Nevis, Edwin. "award" (PDF). award. Retrieved 23 July 2011.

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