Predictive Index®: Teaching Managers How To Motivate
How can leaders motivate people to accomplish goals and meet important deadlines or even look lively if they do not understand what it is that their people are motivated by? Without a good idea of what drives a persons’ behavior, predicting how they will respond to incentives might as well be a shot in the dark. If managers were expected to motivate people this way it would be difficult to influence them to do anything that they didn’t want to do (for instance following out dated company policies.) The trouble is magnified because some managers are blatantly unaware of the need to motivate and energize their people, while others simply don’t have the slightest idea of how to go about doing it. Even for the managers who understand the need to motivate and energize their people, doing so is a very “hit and miss” process without specific information about an individual’s motivational needs. It is imperative that successful leaders of people understand the answer to the question: what unique needs do these people have? The reason for this is simple; if people are expected to produce at their full potential, they must believe that satisfying their needs (their motivators) is possible and probable. Remember that motivated people are productive people, and often achieve higher than expected success, as opposed to unmotivated people who simply go through the motions. As a manager it is important that you also keep in mind that what motivates you is not necessarily what motivates all of your employees, or any of them for that matter. In fact it is more likely that you will have an entirely different set of needs that motivate you then they do, simply because you have different personalities and different roles. So while you read this it may seem like as a manager you have an almost impossible task in front you, and sometimes it sure feels that way. Luckily there is a way that’s proven to give you full insight into what motivates people, how to manage people to maximize productivity and how to minimize communication barriers (by providing a universal language to compare working style, management styles, and motivational factors.) And it’s not a farfetched dreamer idea of a utopian workplace, it’s an evidence based personality predictor.
The trick to getting the most out of your talent to understand their individual drivers, in plain terms it means knowing which carrot to wave in their face to get them to perform with passion and enthusiasm. This can only be achieved through a detailed analysis of their personality, and not just any personality assessment will do. To uncover this information about a person requires an in depth look at all aspects of their being, not just the visage that they wear to work. To unleash a person’s full potential, a manager needs to understand a persons’ basic motivating drives, the drivers a person thinks should motivate them in their current work environment (such as company goals), and the combination of the two; which is the personality that they exhibit in the work place. Once a manager understands these three aspects of an employee’s personality, they can predict how the employee will react to stimuli. Knowing this allows a leader to motivate each member of their team by satisfying their specific individual needs which leads to much more motivated workers. Not only that, but once a manager is able to predict what response they will get from their team members in different situations, they can use this information to be the best manager of their people. With a predictable team, any manager can plan ahead and make adjustments tailored to his team’s personality styles to generate maximum productivity. Leaders can literally predict how they should manage and motivate their teams to be as successful as possible.
This information is made available exclusively through a human capital analytics tools called Predictive Index®, a behavioral assessment that uses a free-choice method of choosing from a checklist of personality describing adjectives to evaluate an employee’s personality traits. The Predictive Index then generates a fully personalized summary of that employees personality, insight into their potential, what motivates them, how they prefer to communicate, how they should be managed, how they would do in a specific roles, and how they will respond to organizational culture as well as much, much more. Using the Predictive Index® is the single best way to evaluate your human capital and utilize this information to its full potential to maximize your talents abilities.
Predictive SuccessTM is the Canadian licensee of PIWorldWide, and helps organizations align their people with their business strategies through insight, education and coaching. Visit them at: http://www.predictivesuccess.com
