For decades, the Myers-Briggs personality test has been the most common method for identifying personality and predicting performance. But the problem with this test and many others is that it doesn’t predict performance.
It predicts your attributes and what you like to do, but it tells you very little about whether you’re good at it or how to improve.
There is a much more effective way to do it. And much easier.
It’s all about how you get motivated
There is a better way of grouping people and predicting performance. It is based on what motivates them. The motivating factors are:
- Promotion focus: A person with this focus is motivated by winning.
- Prevention focus: A person with this focus is motivated by not losing.
Scientists have long discovered that people have a dominant motivating focus, and how they are treated can affect their performance.
For example, if you ask promotion-focused soccer players to “not miss more than three penalties in a penalty shootout,” they will do worse than if you ask them to “score at least three penalties in a penalty shootout.”
Prevention-focused soccer players would respond the exact opposite way.
How can you tell what type you are, and what can you do to improve your performance?
- Identify the primary motivational focus.
- Create a motivational fit.
- Seeking feedback
Let’s break down each of these steps.
Identify the primary motivational focus.
Most people have a focus on promotion and prevention at various times. But everyone has a dominant focus that they default to in most situations. (Note: a few people seem to wear both hats equally often and well.)
Promotion Focused People
- Work quickly.
- Consider lots of alternatives.
- Are great brainstormers.
- Open to new opportunities.
- Are optimists.
- Plan for only best-case scenarios.
- Seek positive feedback and lose steam without it.
- Feel depressed when things go wrong.
Prevention Focused People
- Work slowly and deliberately.
- Tend to be accurate.
- Are prepared for the worst.
- Stress out over deadlines.
- Like the tried-and-true ways of doing things.
- Are uncomfortable with praise.
- Feel worried when things go wrong.
Most will be able to identify their primary focus immediately. Doing so will help you pinpoint your strengths and work to reduce your weaknesses.
Create a motivational fit
Once you have identified your motivational focus, your next step is to put yourself in a situation that will maximize your performance.
The Right Role Models First, you need to choose the right role models.
If you are promotion-focused, your mentors and heroes should be similar to you. Focused on winning and providing positive reinforcement.
If you are prevention-focused, your mentors and heroes should emphasize rules and standards and protect the status quo.
The Right Goals
Next, you should change how you think about your goals.
Promotion-focused people are motivated by what will happen and how it will happen. Prevent-focused people are motivated by stopping negative things from happening.
How you frame goals for yourself will boost your productivity and performance.
Seeking Feedback
Improving performance is about feedback. The general rule of thumb is that to improve performance, you should provide positive feedback. But that is not always the case.
Promotion-focused people seek and respond to praise and positive feedback. They tend to increase their effort as a response to positive reinforcement from their leaders.
Prevention-focused people respond well to criticism and the possibility of failure.
Depending on your motivational focus, you will need a different type of feedback. It is highly likely that you already know this deep inside, and framing this into words has reinforced your intuitive conclusions.
Today’s Action Steps
If you are seeking to better understand yourself and improve your performance, take these steps today.
- Reflect on your past performances.
- Identify your motivational focus.
- Review your most immediate goals.
- Rewrite them to match your primary focus.
- Go and do them.
You will notice your performance and motivation increase dramatically.
Also, if you’re a team leader, you can apply these to your team. Match the style of tasks you set to each team member’s motivational focus.
Outro
Productivity and performance are not mysterious anymore. All it takes is to identify what motivates you and the frame work thinking and your work around it.
The results will surprise you.
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And that’s all for this week.
See you next Monday.
P.S. I’d love to hear what challenges you are facing in your business. What can I write about to help you personally?
Reply back to this email to let me know.