Motivating Behaviour

What is this dimension analysing, and why does it matter?

The distinction is sharp, and worth repeating in every session: Motivating Drivers explain why we act. Motivating Behaviour explains how we are driven to act. One is the underlying value; this one is the observable pattern of engagement.

The five behaviours describe five different answers to “what kind of work makes this person switch on”:

Why it matters:

• It is the most direct management lever in the report. Most motivation problems are not motivation problems, they are a mismatch between the work available and the behaviour that drives the person. Fix the work, and the motivation returns without a conversation about attitude.
• It predicts demotivation precisely. Each behaviour has a specific thing that switches it off, and those are listed. Knowing what drains a person is more actionable than knowing what energises them.
• It explains why identical roles produce different outcomes. Two capable people in the same job, one thriving and one flat, usually differ here rather than in capability.
• Multiple behaviours need context. Where a respondent has several, the useful question is not which is strongest but in which situations each one applies.

How do I read the chart?

The navy bars, Natural Behaviour. How strongly each type of activity drives this person. A single dominant bar means a narrow, highly predictable motivation profile, easy to manage, easy to get badly wrong. Several bars in the same band means someone who can be motivated through more than one route, and who needs the context question asked.

The orange bars, Disempowerment. The same five scored for when talents are unavailable. Compare each to the navy bar above it.

The talent table shows which of the respondent’s primary talents drive (navy plus) or suppress (orange minus) each behaviour, the mechanism behind the bar.

Classic

Driven by achieving, progressing, and getting things done.

How it shows up

• Strong work ethic, visible and consistent.
• Driven to move forward and accomplish something concrete.
• A hard time relaxing; discomfort in situations where thinking or planning is the whole objective.
• Takes on too much responsibility and wears themselves down.
• Measures the day by tasks completed.

This is the most productive motivating behaviour. Combined with one other, this person will often be the most productive employee in the team.

Strengths

• Sustained, reliable output that does not depend on supervision or inspiration.
• Sets the tempo for everyone around them.
• Will do the unglamorous work that has to happen.
• Genuine surge capacity when a deadline compresses.
• Straightforward to manage on delivery, they do not need convincing to work.

How to apply the strengths

1. Take roles with clear, continuous, visible deliverables.
2. Make sure the goals are aligned and correct before applying the engine, this profile’s productivity is only as valuable as its direction.
3. Volunteer for delivery-critical periods; recover deliberately afterwards.
4. Ask for the priority list rather than assuming.
   Achieving is your default; achieving the right thing requires someone to tell you what it is.

Working with them

• Give them the goal and get out of the way.
• Do not put them in extended planning meetings without a task attached.
• Align priorities explicitly and often, they will not check.
• Watch the load. They will not tell you it is too much.

Influencing

Driven by affecting, persuading and directing people.

How it shows up

• Acts when there is a person to convince, move or develop.
• Thrives where they have access to people and can climb the implicit power hierarchy.
• Reads the informal structure of an organisation quickly and accurately.
• Energised by negotiation, pitching, leading and difficult conversations.
• Visibly flat in work with no human counterpart.

Strengths

• Moves things that only move through people, alignment, buy-in, difficult stakeholders.
• Strong in commercial, leadership and change contexts.
• Comfortable with confrontation where it serves the outcome.
• Builds the informal influence that formal authority cannot supply.
• Raises the ambition of a room.

How to apply the strengths

1. Take the stakeholder-heavy, negotiation-heavy and leadership work.
2. Own the pitch, the escalation, the internal case-building.
3. Use the political read constructively, being able to see the power structure is a service when it is used to unblock things rather than to position yourself.
4. Ask for access.
   A role with responsibility but no room to influence will not hold this profile.

Working with them

• Give them people to work with and something to move.
• Do not put them in long stretches of solo technical work.
• Be direct when you disagree, they respect it and will otherwise assume you are persuaded.
• Give them visible responsibility for outcomes involving other people.

Thinking

Driven by mentally challenging work and intellectual tasks.

How it shows up

• Acts on problems that are genuinely difficult.
• Loves working with people they consider knowledgeable.
• Benefits from being close to people who push them to execute, the desire to think, plan and go into depth can hold them back from acting.
• Demotivated by simple, primitive and repetitive tasks.
• Struggles with work that is either not intellectually challenging or has to be rushed.

Strengths

• Solves the problems that resist ordinary effort.
• Raises the intellectual standard of a team.
• Willing to sit with complexity long enough to find a real answer.
• Strong at framing, structuring and reasoning.
• Genuinely enjoys the hard part, which most people do not.

How to apply the strengths

1. Take the ambiguous, complex, high-consequence problems.
2. Seek out knowledgeable colleagues deliberately, this profile’s output improves markedly in good intellectual company.
3. Pair with someone who will push you into execution.
   Recognise this as a structural need rather than a weakness.
4. Negotiate for thinking time explicitly, and be equally explicit about the delivery date.

Working with them

• Send material in advance. Always.
• Give them the hard problem rather than the volume.
• Put them near people they respect intellectually.
• Set the deadline explicitly, they will use whatever time exists.

Specialist

Driven by becoming an expert and knowing everything about their field.

How it shows up

• Energised by depth in a defined area of interest.
• Behaves with a clear sense of professionalism; takes real pride in their knowledge.
• Wants to collaborate with people who share the interest.
• Demotivated when a manager shows no interest in their area, or does not respect their professionalism.
• Struggles without time to immerse themselves.

Strengths

• Genuine, deep expertise that an organisation cannot buy quickly.
• Standards within their domain that others cannot set.
• Reliable authority, when they say something in their field, it holds.
• Long-term commitment to an area, which compounds.
• Raises the technical credibility of the whole function.

How to apply the strengths

1. Take a defined domain and go deep in it rather than spreading across several.
2. Ask for time to immerse.
   It is a performance requirement, not a preference.
3. Find or build a community of people with the same interest, internal or external.
4. Make the expertise visible and usable to others; depth that nobody can access is undervalued by default.

Working with them

• Show interest in their subject. Specifically, and repeatedly. This is the whole management strategy.
• Respect the professional judgement inside their domain.
• Protect immersion time.
• Connect them to others in the field, internally or externally.

Human

Driven by acting together with others, helping, understanding, being present, developing people.

How it shows up

• Acts where they can help, understand and develop.
• Thrives in cooperative and inclusive environments.
• Typically focused on the psychology and human development of the people around them.
• Turned off by “superficial” goals such as money or power.
• Demotivated by inhumane, unethical or cold actions.

Strengths

• Builds the trust and cohesion a team runs on.
• Notices the person who is struggling before anyone else.
• Makes difficult conversations survivable.
• Strong retention effect on the people around them.
• Provides the ethical floor in commercial decisions.

How to apply the strengths

1. Take people-facing and development-facing responsibility formally, not as unrecognised extra work.
2. Frame the value commercially, retention, capability, engagement, so the contribution is visible in terms the organisation counts.
3. Choose organisations whose stated values match their behaviour.
   A mismatch is not survivable for this profile.
4. Set boundaries deliberately.
   Carrying other people is real work with real cost.

Working with them

• Give them people responsibility and recognise it as real work.
• Explain the reasoning behind hard commercial decisions, the reasoning is what makes them acceptable.
• Do not put them in purely transactional roles.
• Check what they are carrying. They will not mention it.

Summary

• Name the dominant behaviour and what switches it off. The demotivators land harder and more usefully than the motivators.
• If several behaviours are strong, ask the context question: in which situations does each one apply?
• Translate straight into the working week. This dimension answers “what should be on my calendar” better than any other in the report.
• Check the orange bars. Where the dominant route is blocked, the energy relocates, usually somewhere unhelpful, and usually invisible to the person.
• Keep the drivers/behaviour distinction explicit. Drivers are why; behaviour is how. Respondents conflate them constantly, and the two dimensions are read together.