Here are the slides from our webinar
Tag: Four Drive Model Page 3 of 4
What happens when each of the Four Drives is fully engaged? Passion.
Passion is a very powerful and emotional motivator. You may have heard of the organization called, Kiva, if not, it is a nonprofit organization that connects mico lenders to those who need mirco loans in developing countries around the world. Matt and Jessica Flannery had a concept in mind to bring together small business owners in developing countries with people around the world that would be willing to invest and help their business flourish. This was a new concept that had never been tried before so it was groundbreaking and probably a bit scary. But they were probably motivated by more than just the thought of doing something good for the world. They had passion.
Turning a dream into reality can take a lot of hard work, perseverance, and no holds bar passion. Let’s take a look at what happens when the Four Drive Model is fully engaged to fulfill a dream.
Drive to Acquire & Achieve: The Kiva founders had a clear goal, to link business owners in developing countries with micro lenders across the world. Having a clear goal on what you want to achieve is critical because it describes the end result. In addition, the more specific the goal is the better, adding dates and measures of success are shown to have an increase in goal fulfillment.
Drive Bond & Belong: This drive is engaged because of the incredible opportunity to have human beings help each other out in service of something bigger. This is the Drive to Bond & Belong at its finest. Individuals who do not know each other are helping one another out where they can for not only financial support but emotional support as well. The sharing of stories of where the money is coming from and what it allowed the business owner to do are incredible bonding moments.
Drive Comprehend & Challenge: To create a brand new, never seen before business concept definitely engages learning and growth opportunities. Similar to the pioneers that went West in search of gold, to explore new territory in the arena of giving and receiving would be scary but exhilarating all at the same time. I am guessing when things got tough or it was hard to see the end, the founder’s initial goal was able to help get them back on the right track and keep moving forward.
Drive Define & Defend: This was an opportunity to define a new way of helping and servicing a population that had great potential. The ripple effect is incredible and as the first donation came in to help the business owner something took place. This exchange was not only monetary but it was emotional it was a connection that formed across continents. The business owners and micro lenders formed a tribe, a grouping of individuals bound together by something bigger then themselves that they would defend if ever confronted by anyone.
Passion, when engaged fully has each of the Four Drives fueling the fire. It also allows one to help move the passion forward from conception to implementation by giving a framework for breaking down the different areas of motivation and drive.
Never underestimate the motivating fuel of passion. From a stem of a dream, the fuel of passion, something new is brought into the world.
Susan
If you know someone that might benefit from this article pay it forward and pass it along.
Why do Some People Climb Mountains, While Others Run?
Simple Tips to Help You Increase Employee Motivation
When: March 16, 2010
Time: 11:00 am CST
Duration: 60 minutes
Pre-Registration: Not required
To Attend: Click the URL below on 3/16/10 at 11:00 am CST to join the special presenter’s mode for the meeting.
UPDATED Link: http://proclaim.netbriefings.com/v/?rf=239tj&mid=100062
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In this 60 minute webinar, Kurt Nelson, will share insights from working with motivation for the past 18 years. You will learn practical ideas on what you can do as a manager to overcome motivation challenges, increase productivity, and learn about a cool new tool that has everyone a buzz, the Four Drive Model. The Webinar is FREE and open to the public.
What’s the buzz all about? Join us on 3/16/10 at 11:00 am CST to find out!
To Attend: Please click the URL below on 3/16/10 at 11:00 am CST to join the special presenter’s mode for the meeting. Pre-registration is not required.
UPDATED LINK: http://proclaim.netbriefings.com/v/?rf=239tj&mid=100062
Join us for this look into motivating employees and increasing productivity!
If you know someone that might benefit from this Webinar please share this with them.
You may have caught a glimpse of the Winter Olympic Games on television this week as Vancouver hosts the world’s best athletes. The Olympics are an amazing competition full of tradition, athleticism, teamwork, determination, and perseverance. The athletes are interviewed, marketed, and packaged for the viewers like a good action movie complete with personal tragedies, heroes, villains, and great nail biting endings.
What impresses me the most is the human spirit and how the athletes handle the pressure and the honor of being an Olympian.
Where does the motivation come from…
- to be the best in the world at something?
- to sacrifice?
- to train?
- to raise money to fund an Olympic dream?
- to represent an entire country?
- to know that in an instant a dream will be fulfilled or come crashing to the ground?
The Olympic athlete is the Four Drive Model personified in human form. The motivational drives that fuel the athletes are internal drives that pick them up when they fall down, push them to train just one more hour, or to face their fears in front of millions of people. When is the last time you failed in front of millions?
It is a courageous act to be an Olympic athlete and compete against the world’s best. As I watch the Winter Olympic Games I am in awe of the dedication and passion the athletes demonstrate to the world. It is a gift to catch a glimpse of a dream realized through a competitive sport born out of an idea to be the best in the world.
Susan
If you know someone that might benefit from this article pay it forward and pass it along.
I recently came across a new television show called, “The Buried Life.” The premise is reminiscent of the bucket list concept where the question that is asked is, “What do you want to do before you die?” The four gentlemen that created the concept and the show came up with a list of 100 things that they wanted to do before they died. They have been traveling across North America since 2006 trying to complete their list. The other part of their mission is to not only cross items off of their list but to help others cross items off of their list by asking them the same question, “What do you want to do before you die?”
Awhile back I wrote an article on death as a motivator and the four guys from, “The Buried Life,” are taking action on living life vs. waiting to die. The video below is a snapshot of what is at the heart of their motivation to squeeze the littlest moments out of life, to help a stranger, to listen to other peoples’ stories, and to have a lot of fun in the process. They embody the Four Drive Model in action, the Drive to Acquire & Achieve, the Drive to Bond & Belong, the Drive to Comprehend & Challenge, and the Drive to Define & Defend.
Here is how their mission breakdowns in Four Drive Model style:
The Drive to Acquire & Achieve: They have a list of 100 items that they want to complete in addition to helping others achieve their dreams. In the process they will need to acquire certain items to complete their list maybe it is a big purple bus utilized as their transportation from city to city or money to help purchase a computer for a 5th grade class.
The Drive to Bond & Belong: The foundation of, “The Buried Life,” is to bond and belong to something bigger, helping one another out along the way. To listen to the stories and dreams of strangers, to participate actively in life, and to inspire others to make their dreams come true.
The Drive to Comprehend & Challenge: This is no doubt a challenge to cross off the list of 100 random items. In the process they learn and grow because they are pushing their comfort zones and trying to figure out how to accomplish the next item on the list or how to raise money when they are themselves broke.
The Drive to Define & Defend: They are defining who they are and what items they want to do before they die and in the process they have taken a stand on how they want to spend their time each day. They are forming a tribe of like minded individuals across North America who are inspired to help them and would defend this idea to anyone who threatens its existence.
Motivating behavior can be found everywhere; in this case it resides in the dreams of four guys traveling across North America in a purple bus.
So, “What do you want to do before you die?”
Susan
If you know someone that might benefit from this article pay it forward and pass it along.
Yesterday, Kurt and I, (along with our good friend John Hall) facilitated two experiential teambuilding events, Blind Management and Build Your Own Course with 50 enthusiastic participants. It was wonderful to watch the different motivational drives in action.
Here are some of the ways the motivational drives showed up:
Drive to Acquire & Achieve:
- Teams worked together to not only acquire the perfect materials to create their own putt-putt course but they also wanted to achieve success by creating an innovative 3 hole course
Drive to Bond & Belong:
- The teambuilding events allowed the participants to work with individuals they did not know very well in activities that were specifically designed to help create an experience that fostered bonding. By working together the individuals started to become a “team”. This is an incredibly important component that the participants can utilize back at the office – to utilize their new network of colleagues.
Drive to Comprehend & Challenge:
- The activities provided unique Challenges where the participants had to work together to both understand the challenge and complete it successfully. For example, when creating a putt-putt course from scratch and with limited materials, the team needed to come together to answer questions that provided them points to purchase materials, design the ultimate course, build their hole, and then make sure the overall design worked.
Drive to Defend & Define:
- The teams believed in their courses and many felt the urge to submit complaints and challenge the judges scoring results. They had Defined that their putt-putt design was better than everyone else’s and they were passionate about enrolling others to their cause.
If you have an upcoming teambuilding event I encourage you to see how the Four Motivational Drives show up amongst your teams.
What are the dominate Motivational Drivers?
We would love to hear from you, share your comments below.
Susan
The first drive in the Four Drive Model of Employee Motivation is the drive to Acquire & Achieve. This is typically the drive that most organizations focus on when they are trying to find a lever to influence employee motivation.
However, companies often get too caught up in the financial aspects of this drive (i.e., how much of a raise can we give, what is our targeted incentive/bonus payout, etc…).
The following are three quick tips to help you think about how to impact this drive and increase employee motivation.
1. It’s not just about the money. It is so much more…This drive also includes the drive to achieve. Achievement takes on a number of different forms. Think about this in terms of grades – there is no monetary component to this, yet we are driven to try to get an A. In organizations, recognition is a very powerful motivator because it recognizes individuals or group achievement (kind of like a report card). Organizations can tap into the drive to achieve by focusing on ensuring that recognition is done correctly (e.g., timely, relevant, and appropriate to the effort/result).
Achievement is also about setting realistic goals that can be achieved. Short-term milestones are elements to use to help keep this drive up. One way to think about this is to think about the need to reinforce achievement on at minimum every 5 weeks. If you don’t have a milestones set up that fall within that time frame, you will tend to lose people. Make sure that you celebrate those milestones as well. One thing that we are trying to get better at The Lantern Group is celebrating when a project or milestone is done. We get so caught up in the next project or next event that we don’t take the time to stop and congratulate ourselves on a job well done.
2. Add Some Perks. While we tend to focus on the big items like pay and bonuses with this drive, some of the more powerful levers that we get to pull are smaller “perks” such as office space, titles, parking spots, flexibility to work from home and other things that help satisfy the Achieve drive.
In addition, there are a number of small perks that also tie into the Acquire side of the equation, such as pizza Fridays, movie days, lunch seminars, discounts on classes, days off, foosball or pool in the office, employee of the month/quarter/year… You will notice that a number of these also contribute to the other three drives of Bond & Belong, Challenge & Comprehend, and Define & Defendsee also Four Drive Model
3. Improve your Total Rewards Communication. Too many times we’ve worked with companies that offer fantastic total rewards – not just their base salary, but their benefits, bonus programs, culture and recognition opportunities; however, no one at the company knows about these programs! This is because they are outlined in a legal terms in a five different 50 page HR documents. It is vital that you market what you are providing to people in a way that will capture their attention and convey the big picture.That means that you have to overcome silos within the organization and market your Total Rewards as a comprehensive program that highlights the offerings from across the organization.
Also, make sure that your Total Reward communications are not just a one-time effort at the beginning of the year, but instead a campaign that highlights various aspects of your offering throughout the year and keeps people engaged and charged up.
While the concept behind these ideas is simple, the implementation of them isn’t always as easy. If you need help, please give us a call. We can help you work through the issues and improve your employee’s motivation!
Kurt
Each person on the planet has their own unique ideas, interests, talents, skills, and motivators. Even twins who share similar DNA have different opinions, interests, and motivators. So if we understand this, why do so many organizations have one set of motivators to try and change the behavior of the masses?
Does anyone else see anything wrong with this picture?
Our society is moving toward more and more customization. Have you noticed the increase in choices you have every day, from customizing your morning mocha to creating your own webpage. So why is it that many organizations continue to do things the old way? You might hear the old adages: “change is hard, we do not have the budget for such customization this year, (insert your own phrase here), etc.” Motivation is not just paying people more or offering them more perks and bonuses. Has anyone seen or taken an MBA course on how to motivate your employees that entails more than reviewing Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs? I believe that managers in this new economy and beyond need a different set of skills in order to harness the potential of knowledge workers.
Most managers understand that part of their job is to motivate and engage their employees. Some of the typical avenues might be: one on one status meetings, periodic outings for lunch or coffee, or maybe sitting in on project meetings to see how things are going. These three instances are an example that there is ample opportunity and time to customize an employee’s motivation. So why does it not happen on a regular basis?
When customizing an employee’s motivation a manager needs to be skilled at understanding the employee’s four drives; Acquire and Achieve, Bond and Belong, Challenge and Comprehend, and Defend and Define. Once they understand their employee’s individual four drives the next step is to discover what the employee is not saying about what motivates and drives them. Many times when you ask someone, “What Motivates You?” they will probably give you an answer fairly quickly – but by digging and reflecting a little bit deeper into their answer you may discover something else entirely. There is more to motivating employees than just utilizing one model and tools.
The four drive model is a good start but a manager also needs to understand reflective questioning techniques, asking open ended questions, utilizing gap analysis, and paying attention to body language, etc. Managers need to customize their motivational methods based on these insights.
For instance, Employee A really likes to be seen as an expert – so provide opportunities for that person to shine and be recognized as the expert (i.e., lead a brown bag lunch, ask them to help present at a Senior Leadership meeting about something they know well). Employee B wants to feel part of a close knit group so create avenues for that to happen (i.e., hold small team lunches with two or three people, set up small work teams to address some particular issue). Employee C has the drive to Acquire so the manager must focus that person on what they can do to earn more (i.e., review the incentive or recognition program with them, work with them on what they need to do to get a raise). The important part is to understand how each person is motivated and to tap into that motivation. This isn’t easy.
As I stated in the beginning of this post, every person on the planet is unique. Managers have an incredible opportunity to develop and grow their employees but it will take adopting and learning some new skills and a genuine time commitment.
Employees are more than just their paycheck; they are each contributing their time, skills, knowledge, and talents to an organization. I believe they deserve our time and attention, what about you?
Last night I watched the new season of the television show The Amazing Race. I have been a fan of the show since the beginning and I enjoy watching the team dynamics as the show progresses from Day 1 to the finale. The overall concept is teams of 2 people travel around the world encountering challenges and roadblocks along the way. The end reward is $1,000,000 to the team that wins.
As I watched the different teams interact I noticed that the teams each year can be categorized into different groups. The same types of teams end-up being casted on the show. There are the athletes, newly engaged couple, related couple, oddballs, brainy, older, rocky relationship, etc. I am sure the casting is done primarily to mix up the groups so there is tension, good competition, and some laughter in between the madness of racing around the world.
The other thing I noticed is the Four Drive model of motivation working within the team dynamics.
Acquire and Achieve: Clearly the teams are competing to win a prize, a smacking $1,000,000. Not a small sum of money and one that kicks up the competitive gears when things tart getting tough. In addition, achieving the success of winning the Amazing Race has a sense of accomplishment and notoriety in and of itself. It is also interesting to watch the individual challenges and the faces of individuals after they are successful – one can actually see the sense of achievement being felt after completing a challenge well.
Bond and Belong: The teams of 2 people are inherently bonded as they have an established relationship prior to going on the show. The relationships are tested through the various challenges and obstacles met along the competition. Many of the contestants have chosen to go on the show to test their relationship to see if it will withstand the pressure of such a rigorous competition. Some make it through and are stronger because of the experience while others crash and burn without any sign of recovery. The other piece is the contestants have a sense of belonging to a group of people that have done the Amazing Race before them. It is a shared experience not only with their current competitors but with the ones that have competed before them. A small group of the world’s population and they share an experience that brings them together.
Challenge and Comprehend: The Amazing Race is set up to challenge the contestants mentally and physically. The various roadblocks along the way can be exhausting on top of the fact that they have just traveled half way around the world with little or no sleep. Each day the teams are faced with numerous challenges from the mundane (catching a bus) to the extreme (moving heavy mud around or herding ducks). This is pushing the mental and physical capabilities of the contestants at every corner. In addition, add in the piece of understanding the norms and behaviors of a different culture it is amazing that the contestants make it out of the airports.
Defend and Define: This drive comes out full force in a competition for $1,000,000. I have seen teams lie, cheat, and manipulate their way to the finish line while others have defined themselves in a different way. Some teams try and stick to their values of being nice, helping out other teams, and working with an alliance. The teams that take the nice route end-up having a few speed bumps along the way but in the end they learn a lot about what pushes them to their breaking point. How they define who they are as team and how they defend it is fun to watch.
I encourage you to work with the Four Drive model as you watch your favorite television shows and within your day-to-day work environment. You might be surprised to find some of the same ‘characters’ present in your workplace utilizing the four drives to motivate them to the finish line.
Susan
This is a very interesting video (albeit a little long) about the rise of behavioral economics and its impact on the economic and political world . I find this topic fascinating as it helps in understanding some motivational impacts and also the limit of some motivational theories (including the Four Drive Model). We can all learn from the insights here.
I want to state that while I agree with some of the comments I disagree wholeheartedly with some others. In particular, I tend to agree with the ideas brought up by Leigh Caldwell and Mike Savage, and pretty much dismiss the conclusions made by Emre Ozendoren. The idea that by nudging behavior in a way that is deemed more appropriate is in some way totalitarian is utterly preposterous. It is indeed, in my mind, dismissing the idea that we have choice. What Emre is missing is that we are already constantly nudged. The fact that changing the nudge to be something that is going to be more beneficial for society or for individuals is not invasive – it is just a different nudge than the one that is currently going on.
Also, I believe there is a little bit of sophistry going on when the presenters talk about the behavioral economists calling people “irrational.” The “irrational” component discussed by most behavioral economists does not propose that we are mad or a little cracked, but refers to the fact that we do not always behave in a classic economists’ rational manner. In other words, emotions come into play and we don’t always optimize our economic well being. The fact that some of the speakers in this are trying to position the behavioral economists viewpoint as stating people are mad is a little misleading.
All in all – this video raises some good thoughts and sheds some light, I believe, on the juncture of classic economics with the newer thoughts around behavioral economics. Watch and enjoy!
PS – sorry for the big words – I think the accents got me thinking in a very academic manner…
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