Motivational Differences that Make a Difference

Recently one of my colleagues asked me to review a couple of Motivational Maps with them. They were coaching a couple of international European footballers nearing the end of their careers; and the Maps of course are ideal for helping understand the direction in which one might go, for to be satisfied and happy with a new career the motivators must be aligned and satisfied.

The two footballers were from the same European country and probably knew of each other, as they are top players in the top division, but they played at different clubs. Neither was aware that they were being coached by the same person. So there it was: two Maps in front of me and what did I think? What did I see in the Maps? And strangely what I saw initially surprised me. Both maps seemed so similar. For example, both players had money and control well done their list of motivators, although both scored their money satisfaction very high, meaning that money was no issue for them. Both had the Star motivator bottom of the pile, which surprised me as being an international player inevitably leads to a certain degree of fame as well as fortune. But presumably this was something they accepted and did not actively seek.

But it was when we got to the top three motivators that things got really interesting. Again, they both seemed so similar. Player A had Belonging, Security and Making a Difference as his top three, and Player B had Belonging, Creativity and Making a Difference as his. In other words, these two entirely separate players shared their top and third motivators, and only the second motivator was different: Security versus Creativity. Given as well how similar the rest of the profile was, then one can easily conclude that the same career formulae could apply to both. One could assume that but one would be dead wrong!

For as I probed with my colleague – the coach – into what these two profiles meant an astonishing fact emerged, which the Maps themselves were revealing. I said that Player B had a much higher risk and change profile than player A. Indeed Player A’s profile with two Relationship motivators as first and second was going to be a lot trickier to develop into a new career because the whole thrust of the profile was defensive (we call Security orientation the Defender in our system) whereas Player B had two Growth motivators in the top three that would offset the need to belong (belonging of course resists change). So Player B would more actively seek to create opportunities for themselves and move on.

My colleague, the coach, at this point sounded quite amazed. ‘That’s interesting,’ she said, and what followed I could not know, ‘because Player A plays as a defender in his team, whereas Player B is an attacker’! In short, Player A has to block other’s initiatives whereas Player B has to create openings – that’s what they do in football, and presumably have been doing since they started playing at six years’ old!

How incredible: the Motivational Map had picked out not just some aspect of advising them in future and the relative ease or difficultly therein, but had identified a core component and difference in their current roles. Both footballers, yes, but one plays defence and one plays attack – and the Maps can see the difference in the desire and the want. As a profiling tool for recruitment, therefore, I think Motivational Maps is pre-eminent and the recruitment world is slowly going to catch up with the potential of this incredible tool.