What drives my employees?

Do you know your motivations as a leader? And do you know the motivations of your team members?
What excites them? Do you know what makes their eyes light up?
As you know, our success, happiness, and behavior are influenced by many aspects. Some of it is conscious and an even larger part is unconscious. And if you as a leader want to get to know yourself better and get to know your team better, it helps immensely to know each other’s motivations. Motivations show why you do what you do and what drives you.

Recently, I had Ruben over. Ruben is a management consultant at a leading ICT company. Ruben had worked on a project with a client for a long time with great pleasure. The client also had a unique library, and Ruben was able to regularly use it to his great delight.
Unfortunately, this project was completed for him. Ruben seemed unable to find his footing afterwards and was looking for a project that would captivate him again. He often visited the general manager and asked various questions. Questions about his follow-up projects, questions about the company’s strategy, questions about innovation opportunities. I was asked to find out with Ruben what truly motivated him and how and where he could best be utilized.
I conducted a motivation analysis with Ruben. The insight that followed was wonderful. Ruben’s highest motivation is an intellectual drive. This means he wants to research and gather information. He loves solving complex theoretical puzzles. He always wants to know the ins and outs of everything. This is exactly what he did at his previous client.
With the insights gained, we specifically looked for challenging intellectual projects for him. Additionally, people in the organization now understand Ruben better, knowing why he likes to know so much.

Motivations give wings

Besides expressing your own ‘why’ and knowing your main motivations, it will help you tremendously if you learn to know the motivations of your people. This can sometimes be harder to discover, but asking questions can get you a long way. “In what activities can you really ‘lose’ yourself, forgetting the time and getting absorbed in the moment?” is one such question.
The combined measurement of behavior and motivations gives you and your people insight into the what and the why. If you know the motivations of your people, you know more about what is important to them, so you can align them with your higher purpose (your ‘why’) and your objectives.
People’s motivations provide clarity and insight into why they do things, unlike behavior which indicates what people are likely to do.

Do you want to know exactly? Motivations can be measured, as I described in the example above, and provide more information about:

• what motivates employees
• what gives your employees energy
• why someone sometimes takes immediate action and
• why in other cases they do not take action
• the level of engagement
• the likelihood of long-term success.

Motivations are as they are, they are not good or bad, but they do tell more about why someone can experience more or less satisfaction or engagement in a work environment.

Eduard Spranger (behavioral scientist) classified six essential motivations after years of observation. These six determine the why of our actions.
The two motivations that are strongest for you, your dominant motivations, will drive you to action:

1. Intellectual
2. Economic
3. Aesthetic
4. Social
5. Individual
6. Idealistic

1. People with a high intellectual drive – like Ruben – like to acquire knowledge and go for facts.
2. Those with an economic drive find financial freedom important and often think in terms of “quid pro quo”.
3. The aesthetes among us are driven by beauty and symmetry. Things must be right for them; appearances matter too.
4. The social drive indicates that the person likes to help others.
5. People with an individual drive like to chart their own course (and often that of others) and have a strong need for independence and freedom.
6. Finally, people with an idealistic drive have strong principles. They measure others’ actions against their own norms and values.

Do you recognize your dominant motivations? Do you recognize the motivations of your employees?

A great example to illustrate motivations in relation to behavior concerns a client of mine, the director of an airport. Behaviorally, he is strongly focused on facts and procedures, which is crucial in his role. However, his drive is aesthetic. How is that recognizable? A brochure, a presentation, a business plan: it must look well-presented, colorful, and original. And it does.

Do you want to know more about motivations or conduct an analysis?
Contact me at 0343 – 476743 or leave your comments below this blog post.