What motivates people?

What motivates people? Motivation plays an important role in understanding behaviour, both in ourselves and in the people around us. Why does everyone respond differently to the same situation? Why is it very difficult to work with some people, while with others everything seems to fall into place?

The answers often lie in differences in what motivates us. As a result, the same situation can be interpreted in different ways. Talents also vary from person to person. The key is to learn how to recognise them, use them, and understand in which environment they are most likely to thrive. Gaining insight into what motivates people is an important step in understanding both your own behaviour and that of others, and in making adjustments where needed.

What exactly does motivation mean? According to the Dutch dictionary Van Dale, a driving force is something that leads a person to take a certain action. It is essentially a synonym for motive. What matters is that no one has just one motivation. We want different things at the same time, and that is what makes us such complex human beings.

We distinguish seven motivations, represented by the following colours: green, yellow, red, orange, turquoise, blue and purple. Each colour represents a different motivation. Every person has all seven colours to a greater or lesser extent. It is the lens through which you see the world. There is no right or wrong combination, and when circumstances change, the combination of motivations can change as well.

Based on Graves’ theory of motivation, My Motivation Insights has developed an instrument that shows your personal motivation. The outcome of the questionnaire is translated into a colour profile. This shows the order in which you would normally be inclined to use different motivations, and to what extent. This order is a good predictor of behaviour in different situations and is generally very recognisable. We call this the Acceptance Profile (above the black line).

Your profile also shows which motivations create the strongest resistance. You tend to notice the negative aspects of these motivations more strongly. The longer the bar below the line, the more your brain filters out the negative sides of that colour. These are the elements that irritate you. You are left with a negative feeling when others behave in this way. If you sometimes show this behaviour yourself, you are likely to dislike that in yourself as well. We call this the Rejection Profile (below the black line).

The amount of energy that remains overall for each motivation is shown in the Energy Balance, indicated for each colour by the white horizontal lines: above the black line, they indicate a positive contribution to energy; below the black line, a negative contribution.

Because your motivations are influenced by your environment, and are therefore a combination of who you are and the environment you are in, your profile may look different in your personal life than it does at work. My Motivation Insights can show, for each environment, what gives you energy, both in your personal life and in the workplace.