Todd Henry - The motivation code: Discover the Hidden Forces That Drive Your Best Work

One day, out of the blue, I received an email from my friend Rod Penner, who was a twenty-year veteran of a world-famous management consulting firm. I knew hed left the organization years before, but wasnt certain what hed been doing since.

Id like you to take a motivation assessment Ive been working on.

As someone steeped in corporate training, research into collaboration and creativity, and all things trendy in business, I was nonplussed at the idea of having another set of letters to attach to myself. (Im an INTPyou?) However, upon further urging by Rod, I decided to give it a go.

The next day, I breezed through the Motivation Code (MCODE) assessment that Rod and his team had developed, hit enter, and awaited Rods response. Hed promised that hed go over the results with me personally so I could better understand the work hed dedicated the last several years of his life to. An email arrived with a report containing my results, and Rod and I scheduled time to discuss it.

I wasnt prepared for what happened next.

On our call, Rod explained to me the reasoning behind every life decision Ive made, the areas where I struggle to find the drive needed to excel, and the common through-line connecting the high points of my personal and professional life. He offered a blueprint for understanding why certain tasks were exhilarating to me and why some were simple drudgery. Why I made certain decisions in my life other people have said were crazy. Why Ive succeeded in some leadership roles and struggled in others. And, well, just about everything else Ive ever lacked words to explain. In short, it was like Rod had been reading some secret transmission between my gut and my brain that determined my choices.

I was blown away.

Rod had identified my Motivation Code, or the themes that drive deep satisfaction and engagement in my life and work, and the potential shadow sides of those motivations that explained many of the unproductive tendencies in my life.

I realized that Rod and the team he was working with were on to something much bigger than just a nice new framework to make people feel a little more engaged at the office. They had unlocked something deep and primal thatonce understoodcould radically change how people approach their work each day.

Later I learned that the Motivation Code assessment was the result of the work of an entire team of brilliant PhDs, researchers, and consultants. It was also founded upon decades of qualitative research on motivation, and over 100,000 interviews with executives, salespeople, teachers, clergy, artists, and people from nearly all walks of life about moments when they felt deeply gratified with an achievement. In fact, their research dates back to the early 1960s and is sourced in the work of Arthur Miller Jr., the founder of a company called SIMA. had taken Millers work even further by developing a story-driven assessment that utilizes psychometric methods to determine motivational themes. Their key discovery is that if we can understand the commonalities within achievement stories that stick with us for decades, then we can unlock the unique code that drives behavior, life satisfaction, and excellent work.

This work on practical motivation is cutting-edge and takes to a new level what weve traditionally understood to be true about what drives human behavior and engagement. Rather than relying upon the traditional categories of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, the Motivation Code framework recognizesas leading psychologists and researchers have shown us in recent decadesthat these types of motivation are not fully discrete, but instead interact with and modify one another. Motivation Code captures the unique and precise way that each individual is driven to achieve a specific kind of result. As you will see, understanding it has a number of practical benefits, from deeper engagement to better productivity to improved relationships.

In the following chapters, you will discover a concise and effective explanation of what drives you. If you commit to the process described in this book, you will gain deep understanding of the why behind your actions and decisions and acquire tactical insights for how to find greater satisfaction in your life and in your work.

This book will also change how you see the people on your team and how you organize and lead them through their work responsibilities. As I will share later, engaged teams are much more productive and collaborative, and significantly more likely to stick together through difficult seasons. Once you have insight into the motivations of your team members, you can guide them with much more precision because you will understand what makes them tick. You will also be better equipped to retain top talent because you will understand what really drives them, and know in which roles and team environments they are most likely to thrive. If you learn to speak directly to their unique motivations, youll gain both their attention and their trust.

So, in short, this book will help you and those you lead to be more fulfilled and more productive, and to bring your unique contribution to the world every day.

One quick note: readers will notice that the authors occasionally use personal pronouns. Where I is used, it refers to me, Todd Henry. Where we is used, this refers to all four authors, myself included.