It is good to know why you do what you do

Why do people do what they do? How can it be that an employee with less experience is more successful than a colleague with more experience in the same role? And the latter may even have had a better education and be paid a higher salary. Why does one person go to work whistling while another experiences it as a leaden burden? How can it be that one person is always stressed and another rarely? To get answers to all these questions it is important first to gain insight into the question: why do people do anything at all? There are roughly three possibilities.

1. Because others do it

In everyday language we call this herd behaviour, although the term has a negative ring to it. Every individual displays this behaviour to a greater or lesser degree. Sometimes consciously, sometimes less consciously. Perhaps you do not want to be a spoilsport and order a dessert too when the others at the table order one. And when everyone in a hall starts clapping, you often clap along unconsciously. How many people, for that matter, started smoking or drinking because the group did? Many people conform to the behaviour within a group because it offers safety and security.

2. Because we have to

It applies to everyone, certainly in business situations, that we sometimes simply have to do something. Because your manager gives you an assignment, for example. You may then have difficulty with the way they ask you to do something. Perhaps your priorities lie elsewhere at that moment, or you do not see the point of the assignment. It equally happens that you have to do something you do not enjoy in the first place. But when you weigh up the consequences, it is sometimes quite sensible to set your objections aside and carry out the assignment anyway.

3. And the most important one: because you want to yourself

When you undertake an activity that fits your drivers well, that is to say something you really want deep down, your intrinsic motivation, then such an activity costs you virtually no energy. In fact: it gives you energy. You feel the positive energy flowing through your body and you are happy. Because you have reached a state in which time flies and in which you manage to deliver above-average performance. The Hungarian professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes this phenomenon with the concept of ’flow’. He researched and demonstrated that performance, enjoyment and feelings of happiness increase in people who, in a state of flow, carry out work they feel genuinely intrinsically drawn to. The central question here is: what do I want as a person?

MyDrives analysis

MyDrives analyses people's hidden drivers. This is done on the basis of a questionnaire that every employee completes themselves. Answering the questions takes about half an hour. The answers are then processed, after which employees receive a tailored report. That gives you, as an individual and also as a manager, crystal clear insight into how you can get the best out of yourself or bring your colleagues into their strength.