Understanding motivation is crucial to genuine engagement at work, building successful teams, and achieving personal and professional fulfillment. It can also be hard to understand exactly what’s happening when interacting with people whose motivations don’t precisely align with yours.
We have an assessment for that. The 12 Driving Forces® assessment reveals the ‘why’ behind behavior through six keywords. Once you know your top Drivers, it’s time to explore the different and unexpected ways you can connect and collaborate with others, leveraging your differences for the best possible outcome.
Keep your top Driver in mind, then see how you can connect with people with different Drivers in unexpected ways.
People with an Instinctive Driver use past experience, intuition, and real-time research to solve an immediate need.
People with a Harmonious Driver create balance in their surroundings while embracing the experience.
This combination might seem counterintuitive at first, but it’s that contrast that makes it so effective. People with an Instinctive Driver will solve immediate needs by trusting their intuition and drawing on past knowledge, thereby preventing those with a Harmonious Driver from becoming overly focused on creating the perfect experience.
At the same time, people with a Harmonious Driver will focus on the experience, ensuring it remains balanced and pleasant. When working in tandem, Harmonious and Instinctive Drivers can help projects stay on track while still being a good experience for all involved.
Speak up and explain your reasoning! A person with an Instinctive Driver might initiate a task or project without having all the necessary information or without showing their work. In contrast, a person with a Harmonious Driver might focus on an element of the project that seems obvious to them but not to others, such as aesthetics. By explaining yourselves clearly, you can move forward towards the best outcome.
People with a Resourceful Driver find ways to maximize productivity and focus on getting a return for their time, talent, or resources invested.
People with a Collaborative Driver contribute to the success of the team, group, or organization’s mission.
People with a Resourceful Driver tend to focus on efficiency and return on investment. This can help keep projects on track by focusing on the core problem, rather than slowing down for processes or people. That’s where a Collaborative Driver comes in. A person with a Collaborative Drivers can manage team comfort and cohesion and balance the no-nonsense approach of their Resourceful peer.
These Drivers will have the best possible outcome when they fully understand one another. People with a Collaborative Driver can combat this by explaining how supporting the goal through teamwork contributes to the greater overall mission, while people with a Resourceful Driver can emphasize the benefit their efficient approach brings to the team to get everyone on board.
People with a Commanding Driver believe in controlling their own destiny while advancing their status and position.
People with an Altruistic Driver prefer to respond to people in need and thrive while working to benefit others.
These types of Drivers benefit from learning from each other. People with a Commanding Driver can benefit from coordinating their advancement in service of others, which helps elevate their position on a team while benefiting the overall picture.
People with an Altruistic Driver can borrow some Commanding drive. They tend to put others above themselves, which leads to resentment, exhaustion, and burnout. Considering themself alongside that service will lead to balance and betterment of everyone involved.
A person with a Commanding Driver can become frustrated with tying their destiny to others, while a person with an Altruistic Driver might agree to help their Commanding teammate without considering what they want in exchange. This can lead to frustration and resentment all around, so make sure to communicate clearly and express your needs at every step of collaboration.
People with an Intellectual Driver acquire knowledge, discover, and find opportunities to learn.
People with a Selfless Driver invest all of their resources and time into completing tasks, regardless of constraints.
When you want a project done thoroughly, call on these Drivers. Selfless individuals throw themselves into their work, dedicating resources and time to ensure it is done thoroughly, while people with an Intellectual Driver love to dig into research and take time to learn everything they can about a subject.
These two will be extensive, well-documented, and fully dedicated to completing the task at hand and learning along the way.
These Drivers complement each other well, but that cohesion can turn into hesitance and incompletion without the proper guardrails.
People with Selfless and Intellectual Drivers can slow each other down and get stuck in the project without focusing on the outcome. Combat this by clearly outlining deadlines and checking in frequently to make sure everything stays on track.
People with a Receptive Driver challenge the status quo and find new ways to complete routine tasks.
People with an Objective Driver create functionality to produce tangible outcomes in their surroundings.
These Drivers combined are an innovation powerhouse! They complement each other with their willingness to consider function over form. Neither type is interested in aesthetics or tradition; you won’t ever hear, “Well, that’s how we’ve always done it” or “We need to focus on form over function” from this duo.
The person with an Objective Driver ensures decisions are rooted in function-focused, practical outcomes, while the person with a Receptive Driver brings openness, new ideas, and flexibility to their work. This partnership blends both logic and practicality.
These Drivers might let their lack of concern about setting a status quo and the user experience get in the way of productivity. Structure is useful sometimes; work together to determine what framework is necessary and what can be improved upon. Focusing on their experiences with each other can improve the experience of the project overall, without stressing either Driver.
People with a Structured Driver work diligently to advance causes they believe in, while honoring beliefs and traditions.
People with an Intentional Driver assist others with a specific goal in mind, focusing on purposeful, strategic relationships and future benefits.
While people with Structured Drivers are motivated by order, defined systems for living and past processes, people with Intentional Drivers are motivated by purpose, meaning, and deliberate action when helping others.
Working together, these Drivers create goals that matter with a reliable path to achieve them and a purposeful outcome. Intentional Drivers ensure the system has meaning by assisting the right people, while Structured Drivers ensure the meaning has a system in place.
These Drivers might butt heads during decision-making, because people with Structured Drivers are more concerned with ‘how’ the system will be followed, while people with Intentional Drivers are focused on ‘why’ we are assisting others. Don’t stall out decision-making with over-analysis!
Understanding the meaning behind the motivation of those around you can only strengthen your relationships and collaboration with one another.
Ready to harness the power of the 12 Driving Forces on your team? Get the info you need now.