What Drives You?

One of my former colleagues, James Maskery, recently posted on Facebook a trailer video for Brené Brown’s talk called “Atlas of the Heart” revolving around knowing oneself and, in turn, being able to know one another better. I was immediately reminded of a seminar I participating in at Cisco.

I had the pleasure a few months back to go through a seminar at work around a concept called Instinctive Drives. The premise of the program is that based on a thorough questionnaire, their system determines your likelihood of using or avoiding four key behavioral traits:

• Verify (8)
  Driven to get it right. Talent to solve complex problems. Needs clarity of purpose, and feedback.
• Authenticate (6)
  Driven to make things real. Talent for clarity. Needs open, direct communication and to see tangible results.
• Complete (5)
  Neither driven to use or avoid this instinct. At different times behavior may reflect either direction.
• Improvise (2)
  Driven to make it certain. Talent for identifying risks. Needs substance and logic, and to eliminate pressure.

After going through the detailed questionnaire you are given an “ID” number corresponding to these four traits. Mine is 8652, and you can cut to the chase and view my profile here.

So What?

The numbers represent, as shown on the chart, your tendencies in these areas when confronted with really any situation. I am highly likely to use my “Verify” instinct. Instinctive Drives says that 8s in this instinct are driven to get it right, have the talent to solve complex problems, need clarity of purpose, and need feedback. I would say that’s a pretty spot-on description of how I approach things.

On the other end of the spectrum is my 2 in “Improvise.” Values from 1 – 5 indicate ones likelihood to avoid the instinct. As a 2 in this space, I am driven to make it certain, have a talent for identifying risks, need substance and logic, and I need to eliminate pressure. Again, hard to argue with those descriptions.

One could argue that these are pretty generic descriptions and I get that. But I think there is value in knowing your tendencies, at least those with particularly higher (us) or lower (avoid) values. And, I find it interesting to identify these so that if my instincts are one particular way that I don’t like, I know what to work on. They have an entire section of their website dedicated to their Research as well as other resources.

Using This Information

I think the power of Instinctive Drives is less about the identification of your ID – though that’s the foundation – and more about how to apply this knowledge. The Instinctive Drives profile system generates 3 very powerful fill-in-the-blank lists based on ones ID: 1. I am at my best when… 2. How to best collaborate with me… 3. When having feedback or development conversations with me… Imagine how much more effective teams can be if they know how they tend to behave themselves and know how teammates are instinctively driven? These are the lists ID generated for me, but you are also encouraged to add your own bullets to the lists:

I am at my best when…

1. I am responsible for building something of significant importance;
2. I have a crystal clear understanding of the purpose or goal;
3. I am solving complex and challenging problems where I am able to think things through carefully;
4. I am in an open and honest environment, surrounded by other capable, hard-working people;
5. I have a clear picture of where I am heading and feel things are under control.

How to best collaborate with me…

1. Outline the purpose and expectations of my role and deliverables;
2. Keep communications direct and specific and address the real issues;
3. Request my input and advice at an early stage and share your own thinking;
4. Give me ownership, agree on check-in points, and provide feedback;
5. Give me time to think things through, evaluate risks, and discuss concerns;
6. Don’t oversell: Give me evidence and discuss practical details.

When having feedback or development conversations with me…

1. Recognize my specific input/value-add to strategic priorities/achieving results;
2. Be specific and succinct, and come prepared with relevant examples and data;
3. Be open/direct about concerns, giving me time to share “my side of the story;”
4. Involve me in working out the go-forward strategy/priorities/to-dos;
5. Give me time to think things through and circle back with concerns or questions.

Collaboration is Key

Do you see now why I think this is so powerful? We spend so much time in meetings at work…imagine if I’m meeting with my Senior Director on some topic and I know her ID is 7427.

She and I are similar in our instinct to Verify and Authenticate in situations. But, she is more likely to avoid the “Complete” instinct (2) and is very likely to “Improvise” (7). How is it helpful to know this? In working with her for about a month, I already see that my tendency to be detailed and “Complete” doesn’t appeal to her…she wants the bullet list for the points I’m trying to make. Perhaps the biggest difference is in the “Improvise” instinct. She is a high user of this instinct and I am more likely to avoid it. This is the point and how it is powerful: Knowing how to collaborate with others based on your collective instincts. And yes, you can even download the full collaboration report for people in the program to really help understand how to collaborate. Here’s mine.

I have gotten to where I list my ID in my email signature and look up new colleagues who I will be working extensively with to help me understand how we can collaborate most effectively.

If your company is interested in investing in its people and how they can be more productive with their interactions, I highly recommend taking the whole team through a consultative engagement with ID coaches. It really is enlightening. They provide even more insight into your ID value and you go through exercises with teammates on practical applications. The platform also provides instinct-specific videos for your profile. There’s even a mobile app (because of course there is) for both iOS and Android to always have it handy. Of course you don’t have to do a full engagement and you can go through the questionnaire on your own to better understand your own instinctive drives.