Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Motivation

Bryn Hughes presented a fascinating insight into the work of David McClelland the whole area of motivation. If you ever get a chance to hear Bryn talk I strongly urge you to hear him.

This evening Bryn discussed how peoples needs, or motivations, can generally be classed as either achievement, affiliation, or power. Studies have shown that the majority of people have one of these areas as their primary motivation. If you were on the course this evening, have a look at the new polls on the right - which motivation most resonates with you, and maybe more contentiously, which motivation would you ascribe to your wife/fiancee/best friend/general-significant-other? (remember voting on the poll is strictly anonymous!)

6 comments:

Athol said...

Very interesting esopecially when looking at how you "do" things against how others around you approach the problems.

It also begs the question of how do we make sure we find the right people for the job and not just accumulate clones of ourselves and bash them into the round hole!

/A

East Manchester Family Church said...

enjoyed the talk and like Athol was very keen to see how we can make sure we find the right job for each person. We would be an even more exciting and fulfilling church to belong to if we could have reasonable success in this area

Unknown said...

The notion that each 'type' has a neutral value is interesting, I wonder if,in reality, I impose my own value on them and consequently have a hierarchy in my mind....which has the potential to 'devalue' people and leave them with no sense of 'belonging'.......can I manage my own 'type' to ensure that it doesn't have a negative impact on those I am trying to serve?....should it be liberating to accept that I am a certain 'type'...or does it give me an excuse not to try to change? oooooh...I could rattle on about this forever....I will still be chewing this particular bit of fat well into next week!....All this without touching on the implications for church life of Bryn's comments on Maslow's hierarchy of needs...

Jane Graves said...

I'm continuing to grapple with the implications of motivation for me personally. I found Bryn's lecture very relevant for where I am right now.
It'll take me a while to process that, and then I will start thinking about the implications for the church!

Anonymous said...

Like others, I found Bryn's talk fascinating. Especially his take on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. This gave me a fresh insight, on this subject because in the secular world the pinacle is 'self fulfillment' or 'self actualisation' - Maslow's word not mine! which seems very much a world view, as Jesus taught us to die to self and live for Him. However Bryn used the word 'enabling'. This makes much better sense to me and I have come to the conclusion after hearing Wednesday's talk that when we give people jobs and roles to do - and think about their particular motivation drives - that there is also an element of self development - that will enable others to become even more skilled at serving God. I also agree with Athol - the hardest thing is to make sure we are not surpressing or squeezing people into holes which don't fit and that we are being inclusive and making sure everyone is given a chance to develop in their area - that will serve the Kingdom - what a challenge!!

Paul Graves said...

I love Elaine's comment about projecting your own type onto other people. Makes we wonder how often we try to motivate people assuming they want the same as we do, and not recognise that they may be wired differently to us. Or maybe not understand someone's frustrations when they have everything that would make *us* happy. Encourages us again to see that God has made us as individuals and we respond best when treated as individuals.