Interview with Michael Sturm

W. Michael Sturm was a math and physics student at American International College in Springfield, Massachusetts in the 1960's, searching, like so many college students and recent graduates, for his niche in life.

He found it - or at least the springboard to it - when he made a puzzling observation about some members of his fraternity. "A few of them harbored some deep prejudices - some even aimed at their own ethnicity - and I found that kind of behavior very interesting to say the least," Sturm recalls. "It led me to conduct research and testing to identify individuals who had authoritarian traits."

His initiation into the fascinating, often disturbing and always evolving study of human behavior eventually led to publishing a lead article on authoritarian behavior in the American Journal of Social Psychology with co-author Richard Sprinthal.

It also proved to be a launching pad to a career that has spanned nearly 40 years. From the East Coast to the West, Mike has embarked on a long and often winding path through the fields of education, mental health, business development and management consulting.

While his experiences in these fields were often entirely different, the 63-year-old Massachusetts native finds that his initial fascination with what makes human beings think the way they do has been a guidepost along the way.

"I've found without really giving it much thought that all the experiences I've had have been leading somewhere. It's been serendipitous really. I haven't been fiddling around," Sturm says in his understated manner. "This is a real path with a real destination."

And over half of his career on this path has been spent developing the tools that form the heart and soul of his products. Mike's 25 years of research and testing on well over 10,000 subjects have enabled him to create an assessment and related applications that are beneficial in virtually every conceivable business and personal situation.

Much of his research has incorporated the work of great inventors and thinkers of the past. The assessment was developed using the Thurstone method of word test development, and there's been a nod to work by Piaget, Weschler, Epstein and others along the way.

Over the years, Mike's study of the model of the human brain has extended from a stimulus-response model to that of a computer model, to a hologram model, and finally, to a quantum/information model based on energy and energy flow.

Ultimately, Mike says, his system's Success/Satisfaction Cycle is what sets it apart from others. Simply put, other tests and assessments "emphasize being stuck," he says, while his system helps people "get their energy to flow."

Following the energy flow in the average human is like following the flow of a stream. In places where it is blocked, the flow stops. In places where it is clear, it moves rapidly and strongly. Acupuncturists, Sturm says, have been tapping into energy flow for centuries, utilizing an individual's own energy to cure illnesses and overcome physical and mental setbacks. The subject of energy flow is a foreign concept to most Westerners.

He says his system is "part Gestalt (Mike studied at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland), part Piaget (Jean Piaget is the author of Epistemological Studies and Assessments for children and young adults) and part energy flow."

Over his career, Sturm has conducted workshops for teachers and educators in Maine, New York, Massachusetts and elsewhere. He has also managed and trained executives and consultants in Massachusetts, Florida and California, working with such illustrious companies as Allied Telesyn, IBM, Digital, Wang, Sheraton International and dozens of others.

All those experiences have taught him the simple fact that people are generally unaware of what drives their impulses, what forces rise up to shape the direction of their thinking and actions time and time again. Only when they are given some insight, can they work to draw on their innate strengths and avoid their inherent weaknesses.

"I didn't develop this to fix people. I developed this to set them free," Mike Sturm concludes. "We are using scientific methods and data to help individuals release their energy and become more self-sustaining."