Motivation Inventory      
*Reference:      
*Name:      
*Organisation:      
*Date:
     
*Email:      
*Telephone:      
This inventory is designed to help you to get in touch with your own patterns of motivation in a job and, by thinking about yourself, to get greater clarity on what matters for the people who you work with. The results will only be of value if you are scrupulously honest in your responses and complete the inventory on the basis of what you know is important to you, not what you feel you would like to be important. Neither must you attempt to give the right answer - there isn't one! After all, no-one is likely to know you as well as you know yourself.    
The results will give you a way to think about and understand your primary sources of motivation at work, and the patterns between them, through a framework which will also help you to understand others better.    
  Instructions      
  There are 21 statements in random order:      
    Left to Allocate    
  Allocate 6 points to the ONE statement of over-riding importance to you    
  Allocate 4 points to the FIVE statements of very high importance to you    
  Allocate 3 points to the FIVE statements of high importance to you    
  Allocate 2 points to the FIVE statements of moderate importance to you    
  Allocate 1 point to the FIVE statements of no importance to you    
1 Knowing what is going on; a liking for certainty; job security
   
2 Using own initiative; dislike of bureaucracy and red tape; operating independently; deciding own course of action
   
3 Knowing own capability to do job based on previous experience; own match of knowledge and skills
   
4 Helping people achieve their goals; listening to them; providing close support as well as time and attention
   
5 Achieving tangible results; connecting with a future perspective; problem solving; output rather than input focused
   
6 Having close relationships; being part of a team; working interdependently with others and being liked and respected by them
   
7 Persuading, communicating, developing; convincing people towards a course of action
   
8 Having enjoyment, fun and variety; not repetitive work; travel; location
   
9 Being stretched; liking energy and hard work and competitive situations; responding to pressure and deadlines; being active and challenged
   
10 Meeting and working with a wide range of people including the public
   
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11 Operating to guidelines and systems; organising and planning; meeting  standards; creating  order, procedure and systems
   
12 Having space to get on with things without distraction from other people
   
13 Leading others; taking and accepting responsibility for decisions; making a difference; doing what is necessary to ensure company success; representing others
   
14 Being well rewarded financially; having good perks and status; glamour
   
15 Dealing with difficult interpersonal situations; resolving conflict; responding to different  individual needs
   
16 Having control over others; being able to direct own team and control work and events; making big decisions; being regarded as the source of authority
   
17 Generating ideas; producing something new; finding new ways
   
18 Helping the company's wider society and the community; doing something worthwhile; making the world a better place to be
   
19 Working moderate hours; not dealing with unpleasant or difficult situations; keeping clear of anxiety and stress; avoiding failure
   
20 Being well regarded and appreciated; feeling good about self and work; self development
   
21 Having a liking for detail and analysis; using skills and knowledge; enjoying specific tasks, intellectual challenge; focusing on the job in hand
   
    Left to Allocate    
  Allocate 6 points to the ONE statement of over-riding importance to you    
  Allocate 4 points to the FIVE statements of very high importance to you    
  Allocate 3 points to the FIVE statements of high importance to you    
  Allocate 2 points to the FIVE statements of moderate importance to you    
  Allocate 1 point to the FIVE statements of no importance to you    
       
     
Copyright © Dr Derek Biddle and Ali Stewart & Co           www.iconislearning.com
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Motivation Inventory
Interpretation and Review
In a perfect world there would be a perfect correlation between the characteristics and requirements of a particular job and the motivation profile of the person doing it. It is rare in practice for an absolutely exact fit to occur; on the other hand unless there is a sufficient fit the job is unlikely to be performed well, and also the person doing it is unlikely to be motivated and fulfilled and may even experience inappropriate stress. For example, in simple terms, someone who relishes Structure and predictability may not also relish using Initiative & Independence and vice versa, while obviously someone with high Gregariousness needs is unlikely to respond well to Solitude. Again, technical experts often have a Task Focus as opposed to Goal Orientation, preferring to exercise their learned expertise rather than entering a completely new territory.
It is for this reason that an individual’s ‘scores’ cannot be classified as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Whether they are such depends on a match with a particular job. The following however should serve to give some guidelines in understanding yourself more, and others, in the context of motivation.
The first thing to do is to compare the overall balance between People, Achievement and Enjoyment. Liberated Leaders tend to have both high Achievement and People motivation scores (High Challenge for Achievement, High Support for People). Some Enjoyment is required to enable people not to become overly stressed or to develop tunnel vision.
Now start to explore the various factors within each general category. For example, it will soon be seen that the expression that ‘he or she is a people person’ is meaningless; the person may have a strong orientation towards others, but is it to influence them or be liked, to dominate or support, to just be with people or to have deeper relationships with them?  In the world of work, having high People motivation is usually not enough by itself, it needs to be coupled with Achievement to secure movement, otherwise it just becomes a social or friendship group with no task focus.
This can be illustrated by looking at the profile for a successful leader, who will be goal rather than task focused, has reasonably high Responsibility needs (but not high Power & Authority ones), welcomes being able to use Initiative and actively wants Challenge. They will want to influence people, be comfortable with working with a range of them, will have a team orientation without being submerged by the team, and will want to support team members, but not to the degree that they lose sight of the achievement part of the equation.
There are other equations. For example, the technical expert is likely to relish Challenge, applied with a Task Focus where a prized skill can be used (Suitability) within a Structure. Another example would be the combination of high Structure and low Independence needs, which tend to result in difficulty with being flexible and solving problems, or people with high Challenge and low Suitability who sometimes bite off more than they can chew. Equally, people who do not want to be distracted by others (Solitude) concentrating on the mixture of tasks without much need for variety, can be worth their weight in gold in one context, and fearfully inappropriate in another.
This is where it is well worth understanding the different sources of People, Achievement and Enjoyment motivation. There is all the difference in the world, for example, between Task Focus and Goal Orientation; both are important forms of Achievement motivation, but they differ in kind.
There is too the point that, like behaviour, problems can occur if there is too much or too little of a motivation source. Being overly high on Initiative & Independence can mean that the person is difficult to manage, while being very low can result in dependence. Ignoring a team member’s need for support can result in high stress, too much support can smother. As well as this, there are no perfect people - what there are are relative strengths and weaknesses for a particular job.
What will have been noticed is that many of these motivation factors, and the rewards that come with them, are intrinsic ones. They come from within the person, they are part and parcel of him or her, and the satisfaction of the need brings the reward – eg Challenge. They are more to do with what people put into the job – possibly, of course their manager encourages, facilitates and recognises this, largely through knowing the motivation pattern of the person. Other rewards are extrinsic, the stimulus is provided to the person, such as with Tangible Rewards and Variety, and are more to do with what people ‘get out’ of the job.
In this connection, if the motivation pattern is one of low People and Achievement motivation, and extremely high Enjoyment requirements – such as high pay, much glamour and status, fun, variety and travel – with little challenge and hard work, the expectation may be a little unrealistic, particularly in today’s world (“I’ve been trying to find a job like that for years”). It is sometimes a characteristic of people who are strongly dissatisfied with their jobs, or series of jobs.
One of the advantages of frameworks such as the Motivation Inventory is that they enable you to think more clearly about not only yourself, but the people you work with. Within your group there will be similarity as well as much difference; being perceptive about the differences will help in adjusting your approach, style and even rewards to different people. It is a case of different strokes for different folks, while monitoring your situational consistency.
It is important, too, not to let your own profile, or prejudices even, blind you to the difference in others. Because you are one person, with a particular set of primary sources of motivation, it does not mean that those who differ from you are wrong, but just different, often with the richness that this can bring. Above all, to understand others, the first person who must be understood is you.
 
Copyright © Dr Derek Biddle and Ali Stewart & Co             www.iconislearning.com
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Motivation Inventory        
SCORE SHEET        
Name: Organisation:        
Date:                      
  People     Achievement     Enjoyment          
7 INFLUENCE
Persuading, communicating, developing; convincing people towards a course of action
21 TASK FOCUS
Having a liking for detail and analysis; using skills and knowledge; enjoying specific tasks, intellectual challenge;
focusing on the job in hand
3 SUITABILITY
Comfort in knowing capability to do job based on previous experience; perceived match of knowledge and skills
       
4 NURTURE
Helping people achieve their goals; listening to them; providing close support as well as time and attention
5 GOAL ORIENTATION
Working to targets; a future perspective to achieving tangible results; output rather than input focused; problem solving; satisfying customers and providing good service; achieving business results 
11 STRUCTURE
Operating to guidelines and systems; organising and planning;  meeting  standards; creating  order, procedure and systems
       
10 GREGARIOUSNESS
Meeting and working with a wide range of people including the  public
16 POWER AND AUTHORITY
Having control over others; being able to direct them and control work and events; making big decisions; being regarded as the source of authority
1 SECURITY
Job security; knowing what is going on;
a liking for certainty
       
12 SOLITUDE
Having space to get on with things without contact or distraction from other people
13 RESPONSIBILITY
Leading others; taking and accepting responsibility for decisions; making a difference; doing what is necessary to ensure company success;
representing others
14 TANGIBLE REWARD
Money; status; glamour; perks
       
6 AFFILIATION
Having close relationships; being part of a team; working interdependently with others and being liked and respected by them
2 INITIATIVE AND INDEPENDENCE
Using own initiative; dislike of bureaucracy and red tape; operating independently; deciding own course of action
8 VARIETY AND FUN
Enjoyment and fun; difference; travel; location; not repetitive or being bored
       
18 DEDICATION
Helping the company's wider society and the community; doing something worthwhile; making the world a better place to be
17
CREATIVITY
Generating ideas; producing something  new; finding new ways
20 RECOGNITION
Being well regarded and appreciated; feeling good about self and work; self development
       
15 RELATING
Responding to different individual needs; dealing with difficult interpersonal situations; trusting and being trusted; resolving conflict
9 CHALLENGE
Being stretched; liking energy and hard work and competitive situations; responding to pressure and deadlines; being active and challenged
19 COMFORT
Working moderate hours; not dealing with unpleasant or difficult situations;  keeping clear of anxiety and stress; avoiding failure
       
  Total People   Total Achievement   Total Enjoyment        
Copyright © Dr Derek Biddle and Ali Stewart & Co                                 www.iconislearning.com   
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