Blogs
Without a click, customers blindly skip you
Sure. Your outward presentation can help win over a customer. They will probably prefer a suit salesman to a salesman in a drab T-shirt. However, in certain industries you should not attach too much importance to this.
The word ‘colleague’ begins with ‘co’ for a reason
Ask a random person what a colleague is. Nine times out of ten, you will be told that it is someone with whom you work for the same company. The emphasis in that case is on working together (samen werken in Dutch, written separately) rather than collaborating (samenwerken in Dutch, written together).
What color will the White House be?
The U.S. presidential election is coming up. Tuesday, November 5 is the day. Who gets to live in the White House for the next four years? Will it be Donald Trump or Kamala Harris? The latest exit polls point to a neck-and-neck race. Which presidential candidate would you dare stick your neck out for?
A panda does not bark and a personality does not bluff
Every human being has his or her own personality. So does every animal. You must not cheat with that personality, or you will fall through the cracks. Take this recent example from China. A zoo in the southern province of Guangdong could not get real pandas.
Discover how you respond under high stress
Relax. You don't have to get upset immediately when the word “stress” is mentioned. Because stress doesn't always have to work against you. It can help you stay alert, sharpen your concentration and challenge you to come up with innovative angles.
A positive mindset makes a difference of night and day
The idea that your mindset can determine your world seems almost too good to be true. Yet it is. You really don't have to be a rudderless ship floating around frustrated on a sea of situations that arise every day.
Team development: on your own you can perform great, but only together can you excel
As part of the overall MyDrives MyHabits MyMatch methodology, MyDrives' seven-color theory offers insight by identifying how people perform better by leveraging their drives.
Deep insights into MyDrives profiles with ChatGPT
Today is the last day of the world's biggest tech show CES. There you can marvel at a host of new AI applications that are making consumer products more intelligent.
It is good if you know why you are doing something
Why do people do what they do? How is it that an employee with less experience is more successful than a colleague with more experience in the same position?
Here’s how to become an even better and more effective leader
From a formal meeting to an informal coffee meeting: each meeting requires a manager to provide a different kind of leadership. There is no one-size-fits-all approach for every situation.
You build the best teams on these three pillars
Team building workshops are a great way to build the best teams by improving collaboration, communication and productivity.
To get off to a good start, you have to stop doing things half-heartedly
When employers' and employees' interests are separate, people do things half-heartedly, meaning there's no cohesion.
Why the use of good methodology is increasing at prodigious speed
'People absolutely do not want to be told to listen to a coach by their employer, do they?' I overheard this comment while I was visiting my family. My answer was simple: 'Anyone who just talks and expects the other person to listen to their advice isn't really a coach.
Compliment employees who make the most mistakes
’Move fast and break things’ was Facebook's internal motto for years. Why did the organization encourage its employees to work quickly without worrying about making mistakes? And how is making mistakes considered in the MyDrives seven colours?
Here’s how to help your team to become the best versions of themselves
You just put talented employees together and success follows in hot pursuit. As a supervisor or manager, you know this is wishful thinking. But what do you actually need to do to assemble a good team that performs better than just 'well'?
Here’s how you can get up to five times more out of yourself
Personal growth: you want that too, right? Follow these five steps to achieve this. They'll ensure more effective cooperation and communication in your team.
How can lobsters grow, even in their hard shells?
Lobsters are soft creatures who live in a hard shell. That shell cannot expand. So how does the lobster manage to grow? It works like this: when a lobster grows...
The maximum deployment of all drives led to Max’s world title
This is the day on which Max Verstappen receives the World Cup at the FIA Prize Giving Ceremony in Paris. He earned that award on the basis of his individual talent. But still...
If you want to move forward, you must know when to pause
Please answer the following question: ‘Together, a hockey stick and ball cost €1.10. The hockey stick costs €1 more than the ball. How many cents does the ball therefore cost?’ After Professor Shane Frederick posed these and similar questions to students at universities such as MIT and Harvard, he made a striking conclusion.
The role of colours in organizations
Wherever people work together, a culture naturally emerges. We adapt to each other, mostly unconsciously, resulting in a fixed and recognizable pattern. Which is a good thing, otherwise working together would be a very messy business.
The truth always has a colour
An old teacher goes for a morning stroll with his pupils. After a while, the sun breaks through the clouds. Dewdrops are visible everywhere. The teacher gathers his pupils around a large droplet that is catching the sunlight, and asks 'What colour is this droplet?' 'Red,' answers the first pupil. 'Orange,' responds the second pupil. 'Yellow,' says the third. And so it goes on, each pupil naming another colour until the last pupil, who insists that they can see the colour purple. They are astonished that everybody can see a different colour.
MyDrives MyHabits MyMatch in relation to three of the world’s best management books
Stephen Covey sold more than fifteen million copies of his book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. After this, he realized once again that trust is the basis of successful organizations and individuals.
More effective behaviour and improved collaboration
At the bottom of the iceberg, your personal drives or intrinsic motivation answer the question: what do I want? These underlying drives guide the visible behaviour at the top of the iceberg. This is where the question ‘what do I do?’ is answered. Because of the specific behaviour that individuals and teams exhibit, collaboration is either smooth or difficult.
Insight into drives: improving academic performance
Why will one student settle for a pass while another wants only the best? How come one student enjoys solving maths problems while another can’t wait for the next practical lesson? Why does that one student play up in my class, but none of the other teachers mention the same behaviour in theirs?
It’s all about can, want, and do
By looking at what a person wants, can do, and actually does, we gain a more complete picture of that person, enabling you, as an individual or organization, to make better decisions and take concrete steps. Since the start of the last century, countless models have been developed for better understanding people's behaviour. These are a few of the more famous ones: The Big Five is a theory based on five personality traits...
The Tuckman model and the link with the MyDrives colour theory
Two questions are central to the Tuckman model: where are you now as a team, and where do you want to be in the near future? To answer these questions, the model uses four phases: forming, storming, norming, and performing. In the forming phase, there's a neat little team of employees, and a manager, and communication mostly takes place with the manager, who gives directions.
About the Tuckman model, the new MyDrives game, and selecting the best candidates
At the annual MyDrives consultants’ meeting, Marc Stijfs – together with Jos Crijns, the founder of MyDrives MyHabits and MyMatch – cites the example of the British Men’s Rowing Eight, one of the subjects at the previous meeting for MyDrives consultants in Thorn.
How to select the best applicants
How can somebody who is really good at what they do still be unhappy? How do you explain instances where somebody who graduates with distinction fails to achieve career success? And how can some people with little experience perform better than a colleague with lots of experience?
Autonomy, mastery, and meaning: these benefit every employee
Years ago, I read ‘Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us’ by Daniel Pink. When I came across the book again, during our office refurbishment, I realized how timeless its content is.
MyDrives consultants go on a virtual boat trip in Thorn
Where better to start a boat trip than on Waterstraat? Here, on Thursday, 15 March, at Kasteelhoeve De Grote Hegge in Thorn, a meeting is taking place for around thirty MyDrives consultants from all parts of the country.
Don’t get caught out by the cobra effect
The cobra effect is created when a solution exacerbates the original problem. Why ‘the cobra effect’? The name has its origins in India, when the British government of the day was concerned about the large number of poisonous cobras in the city of Delhi.
A mismatch is bad for employee and employer
The MyMatch method clearly indicates which type of personality, with its associated drives, is the best fit for a particular role. But what are the consequences for an employee and their employer if there is a mismatch?
Team building session using colour analysis: 7 common mistakes
Imagine that, as an HR or departmental manager, you are instructed by your line manager to organize a team meeting, for everyone to get an insight into each other's personality, strengths, and weaknesses.
The Blockchain Blog
A year ago, I read an article about Ethereum. I thought to myself: here we go again, another digital currency to add to bitcoin, dash, monero et al. Up to that point, I'd shown little interest in digital currency – also known as cryptocurrencies.
Laid back MyDrives meeting about stress
Date: Thursday, 16 March 2017. Location: the Hotel Management School in Maastricht. In this natural and relaxed environment, some thirty or so MyDrives consultants from around the country have gathered for a MyDrives meeting. The topic is stress.
How stress got me down
Everyone has to deal with stress at one time or another. That isn’t always a bad thing. On the contrary: a bit of healthy stress is a good thing. You need a degree of tension to kick you into action. That's why lots of students leave it until the last minute to revise.
Go ahead and do it
(but read this article about ownership and drives first) A year ago, I sent the final version of my first management book ‘De aard van jouw beestje’ (The nature of your beast) to the printer. A few weeks later, there I was with a stack of copies in my hands.
MyDrives in action: MyDrives on the (ice hockey) pitch
On the last day of August 2016, the MyDrives team found itself in Tilburg, running an interactive MyDrives workshop for the Destil Trappers. For anyone who hasn’t heard of this ice hockey club: because they're too good for the Dutch competition.
What an employee wants is more important than what they can do
How can somebody who is really good at what they do still be unhappy? Why isn't an enviable degree a guarantee of success? How can somebody with less experience perform better than somebody with years of experience under their belt?
Organizational culture is not set in stone
Culture is a word that is often bandied about when I give workshops on individual drives and behaviour. Wherever people work together, a culture naturally emerges. We adapt to each other, mostly unconsciously, resulting in a fixed and recognizable pattern.