Competent but not motivated

Two colleagues. The same education. The same experience. The same role. And yet they respond completely differently to the same situation. One wants to act immediately. The other wants to think first. One calls that “getting on with it”. The other calls it “rushing in”. Both are right. And that is precisely where the problem begins.

As a coach, trainer or HR professional you recognise this. Daily. It is the most common problem that lands on your desk. And the answer is surprisingly simple: we do not see what drives the other person.

The judgement above the waterline
Picture an iceberg. What you see above the water, the behaviour, the reactions, the statements, is only a small part of someone's personality. Below the surface are the hidden drivers. Those drivers steer everything you see above the water.

The problem? We judge each other on that visible behaviour. A colleague who hammers on rules and structure? We find them rigid. Someone who is constantly launching new ideas? We find them restless. And the colleague who wants to think everything through before taking action? We find them slow.

But those are judgements made from your own drivers. Someone with a strong red driver, think action, speed and decisiveness, is irritated by the ‘blue’ colleague who wants to put everything down neatly first. And that ‘blue’ colleague in turn does not understand why their ‘red’ colleague goes about things so impulsively. Neither of them is wrong. They are simply driven by different things.

Being able without wanting
In organisations a great deal of attention is paid to competencies and capacities. When there is a vacancy, the emphasis falls automatically on the necessary skills. Logically so, because whoever wants to achieve good performance has to possess the right competencies.

But wanting is at least as important as being able. A strong competency never compensates for a lack of motivation. An employee may be a strong communicator, but if their drivers do not fit a role that revolves around connection and collaboration, they will never truly excel in it.

This is exactly what you see happening as a coach or trainer. People who are perfectly suited on paper, but who do not get into their flow. Who do their work because they have to, not because they want to. The difference lies in the drivers. When an activity connects with what someone really wants deep down, it costs hardly any energy. Time flies. The performance comes almost by itself.

The blind spot
As a coach you work with people who are stuck. As a trainer you stand in front of groups who need to work together better. As an HR professional you look for explanations for absence, turnover and stalled teams. And in all those cases you look at behaviour. At what you can see.

But what if you could look below the waterline? What if you could see exactly which drivers someone has, what gives them energy and what costs them energy? Then the whole conversation shifts. From “he is difficult” to “he is driven by different things than I am.” From frustration to understanding. From getting stuck to breaking through.

That is not a vague idea. That is what a drivers analysis does. MyDrives makes the iceberg below the water visible. In colours that people recognise and understand immediately.

From judgement to insight
Miscommunication, friction and stalled collaboration are not unavoidable side effects of working with people. They are the consequence of a single blind spot: we do not see what drives the other person. And you, as a professional, can remove that blind spot.

The question is not whether your coachees, teams and organisations need this. You answer that question anew every day. The question is: which instrument do you give them to make the invisible visible?

With the complete methodology MyDrives, MyHabits and MyMatch you map not only drivers, but also habitual patterns and the match between person and role. That is how you turn insight into real impact.