Motivation & Movement

The late David McClelland identified 3 basic motives that drive people through performance: Achievement, Affliation,  and Power. I have added Avoidance as an additional major motive system.  In our own research and inquiry we have also discovered 4 "movements": Toward, Against, With and Away From. It may be that these "preferences" are hard-wired and living leaders seek to understand these movements and to dance in accordance with this understanding.  The temperments as described by the Keirsey Temperment Sorter II  have been added to the grid in the corresponding quadrants.   These additions are circumstantial at best but provide clues to the types of behavior that may arise from the use of these preferences.

MOTIVATION

MOVEMENT

In this paradigm, we can derive a multitude of meaning from the situational forces and motives that drive us all at times and the movement we make as a result.  Each of us will have preferences for these motivations and movements at certain times and the effective coach will recognize these preferences through the behavior of the client/subordinate and seek to understand these motivations and movements and what they mean and how they can be factored into the coaching interaction.

While this is indeed an attempt to pigeon-hole people into preferential behavior, it goes without saying that this can only be a brief glimpse into the complexity of human behavior and needs to be treated as such.  NO ONE explanation of behavior can stand without a multitude of  supporting and causal effects.  After all the human personality is a complex adaptive system (CAS).

In the spirit and recognition of that disclaimer, our natural tendency to provide simple answers to complexity must be held in check when attempting to understand behavior based on this paradigm.  Much of the literature can fill in the gaps regarding behavior and preference and the mere recognition and deferral to those issues is critically important for each individual coach to explore.