Moving Motivators

We all encounter many different situations and events during our professional journey. They can be good things, sometimes funny things, but they can also be situations that throw us off balance. Each situation affects us in some way, even if we don't see it.

Using the Moving Motivators exercise, you can learn about your team's internal motivators and understand how people will respond to organizational change when the time comes.

Moving Motivators were developed by Jurgen Appelo (aythor of Management 3.0 ) and are designed to help us think about motivation and how it affects organizational change.

The exercise Moving Motivators is based on ten internal motivators, which Juergen borrowed from the work of Daniel Pink, Stephen Reiss and Edward Desi.

There is a lot of literature on motivation and how to influence it. Most of the sources agree that, roughly speaking, there are two types of motivation:

• External motivation is the need to do something to get results: external rewards like pay, bonuses, or shares.
• Internal motivation is the desire to do something because of interest in the topic or enjoyment of the task itself. Intrinsic motivators are not related to a specific reward but to our emotions and what drives us personally.

Moving Motivators focuses on a person's intrinsic motivation and offers a set of 10 cards that you can download or buy in print.

The Moving Motivators use the following ten internal motivators:

• Curiosity - I have many topics to explore and think about.
• Honor - I am proud of how my values are reflected in my work.
• Acceptance - The people around me approve of me and what I do.
• Mastery - My work challenges my knowledge and skills but remains within my abilities.
• Power- I can influence what happens around me.
• Freedom - My work and responsibilities are independent of others.
• Relatedness - I have good relationships with the people I work with.
• Order - There are enough rules and procedures to maintain stability.
• Goal - My purpose in life is reflected in what I do.
• Status - I am comfortable with my position, and the people I work with recognize it.

Moving Motivators can be used in 1:1 meetings and group work.

Either way, the first step is to figure out what motivates a person.

Please ask the participant(s) to place the cards in order left (least important) and right (most important).

Discuss how the change affects your motivators.

For example: If you learn a new skill or make new friends, how will that affect what motivates you? Most likely, it will increase some motivators and decrease others.

Move the cards up for a positive change and down for a negative one, and then see if you have more cards, up or down. This is a great way to help you make decisions.

Talk to your teammates about what motivators are least and most important to them. This will give you a better idea of what motivates people and allow you to strengthen relationships and increase collaboration.

Use Moving Motivators to reflect on and evaluate your life decisions. When most of your essential motivators go down or when the least important ones go up, it may be time to analyze the situation

Use Moving Motivators with a team to:

• Determine what drives people.
• Evaluate each team member's level of satisfaction.
• Find out what people care about.
• Predict the impact of change.
• Discuss recent changes.

Moving Motivators is a way to unlock your team's internal motivators so you can plan for change and work together to find solutions that will positively impact your team.

Better knowledge of your team helps you manage more effectively. Knowing what drives your team members enables you to allocate projects and responsibilities accordingly.