Motivation Personality Types
May 1, 2008 – 6:57 amI work at a manufacturing firm, and we have a large number of people in manufacturing operations as well as in sales. It’s interesting that these two groups take dramatically different approaches to their jobs when it comes to motivation.
The sales folks are much more “Rah Rah!” all the time, and perform best when they have big wins right out of the gates. At the beginning of each year they meet together, listen to a motivational speaker, and talk about all the great products they have to sell and all the huge customer opportunities they have. I even had one sales person say that “we should have more clapping in these meetings” (he was referring to a meeting held by the operations folks)!
The “operations” people are mostly engineering-type folks and are responsible for making the products. Their manufacturing performance is monitored in excruciating detail, and they are kept to an annual budget that is broken down into hundreds of buckets. Everything from hours of overtime to input material waste percentages are planned by product by plant for the entire year in advance.
As opposed to our sales force, our operations teams prefer to start the year under difficult terms and then work to improve as the year progresses. If they started off each year ahead of budget it is likely that they would ease up a little bit and potentially perform less efficiently. By starting off “behind”, they are motivated to improve and take every step necessary to hit their budget (which determines their bonus). Two years ago I heard of an Operations Division Vice President that wanted his budget dollars allocated this way, so that our internal financial reports would show that his division was “behind” in the first half of the year (so they could have an easier second half of the year).
Which motivation method works best for you? Do you prefer to be “ahead” right from the start or do you prefer being the underdog initially when stretching to complete a goal? I’m definitely in the sales camp. I like being “ahead”, whether it’s ahead on my budget, on a goal to lose weight, or with my grades when I was in college. Once I was ahead I found it easy to stay ahead, and I worked even more diligently to maintain my “ahead” status. [note that I’m neither in “sales” or “operations” in my company]. This also shows through based on the results of my StrengthsFinder profile (I’m an Achiever ).
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