If someone is motivated to consider alternatives or options, the Rumi's quote may seem right to them.

On the other hand, if one is motivated by establishing and following procedures, then the quote may not be something with which they connect.

Interestingly, the language we use to communicate with and influence an individual with each of these patterns matters a lot.

If, for example, one uses "alternatives" or "options" language with someone who has a strong "procedures" motivational pattern, you may encounter resistance or a strong counter-argument for your idea or proposal.

The opposite would be true for using "procedures" language" with someone who has a strong "alternatives" pattern.

What's the point? Actually there are two:

It's neither simple nor easy. If it were, everyone would be instantly successful.

Live on. Learn on.

When reviewing the competencies and characteristics that define effective leadership, we typically find "agility" in the top ten.

What Do We Mean by Agility in Leadership?

Gary Laney, in his LinkedIn post on the Top 10, shows "Adaptable" as #9. Here is the definition he provided:

"To be agile is to be quick and alert. To be adaptable is to be willing and able to change. Therefore, speed, willingness, and capability to change are the key. Together, they form a powerful leadership superpower. As your work and environment change on an increasingly rapid basis, you need to be open to shifting, getting feedback, and beginning again."

Notice the use of the words "willing" and "willingness" in the definition. Those words suggest an element of "want to" (motivation) in agility.

Lombardo and Eichinger of the Lominger Institute developed a well-known competency framework. Here are two competencies that are related to leadership agility:

Learning on the Fly: Learns quickly when facing new problems; a relentless and versatile learner; open to change; analyzes both successes and failures for clues to improvement; experiments and will try anything to find solutions; enjoys the challenge of unfamiliar tasks; quickly grasps the essence and the underlying structure of anything.

Strategic Agility: Sees ahead clearly; can anticipate future consequences and trends accurately; has broad knowledge and perspective; is future oriented; can articulately paint credible pictures and visions of possibilities and likelihoods; can create competitive and breakthrough strategies and plans.

Note that there are elements of their definitions which are not competencies: "open to change," "enjoys the challenge of unfamiliar tasks," and "is future oriented." These are what we classify as characteristics. So there is something more than competencies involved.

A crucial component of what else is involved is motivation.

This takes us to the saying:

Some want to, but can't.

Some can, but don't want to.

Being effective takes both "want to" and "can".

We're focused on the "want to" portion of agility here. Unless the motivation is in place to want to adapt and change quickly – whether its strategy or execution – an individual's competency may ultimately be in vain.

The iWAM and Motivational Agility

Because we do organizational and leadership development and not just assessment, we get to know the organizational context in which people work as well as the individuals themselves.

This exposure provides us with a larger perspective than just an assessment would provide. Over the years we've not only assessed managers and leaders (motivation and behaviors), but also worked with them. As a result we began to link the motivational and attitudinal patterns in the iWAM to complex behaviors like agility.

Here's our overview of the patterns that may be linked to agility and how one might score on the respective scale.

This is, of course, not an all-or-none situation. The individual's context and role may influence both the score and what is appropriate. For example, someone in quality control may be less agile than someone in research and development.

So What?

Ah, the crucial question: so what?

If your organization is focused on competencies and the key elements of performance which includes a behavior such as agility, they may be overlooking  a critical piece of information related to what the individuals "want to do"; that is, their motivation.

While it is true that someone will do something they can do (ability) but don't want to do (motivation), they are not likely to do it for an extended period of time. That period may be a day, week, month, or longer, but only until the individual finds an option to the present role and requirements. It's not sustainable behavior.

This might be something to consider as you map the future of leadership in your organization. There are two questions:

1. What motivators are important to a leader's agility?
2. How do we know if they have this motivation?

Mostly they care about what you can do. Then, they might want to know if you've ever done it.  We're not even sure that they pursue the question of whether you've done it well if you claimed to have done it.

Why does it matter?

Some people want to do things they can't do.

Some people can do things they don't want to do.

Some people can't do things and don't care to do them if they could.

And, some people can do things they want to do.

When hiring and retaining talent, our goal is the latter group:
the-want-to-and-can-do-group.

We'll affirm at the outset that competency or ability is a necessary condition for performing successfully. The saying "You can't do what  you can't do" applies.

What's the Point?

Competency alone is usually not enough. Competency is not a sufficient condition to guarantee performance.

While organizations set out to hire the best people, their actions in recruiting and hiring don't always result in achieving their goals.

To the extent that organizations short-cut the hiring process, leave out critical components, or use out-of-date or invalid tools, they increase the probability that they will end up with suboptimum performers in the role they are filling or end up losing a person who is mismatched with a position after making a significant investment.

Challenges With the Tools We Use in Hiring

While any of the following has the potential to provide valid, useful information for the hiring process, we'll point out some potential downsides of a few.

Resume

The resume is the most common tool prepared by job seekers and reviewed by potential employers (or search firms). Online social media may have become the first source, but ultimately the resume becomes the devil-with-the-details.

For well over a decade, the internet has provided tips and examples of how to prepare resumes. In addition, there is a large pool of consultants, recently joined by AI, who/which will prepare resumes for an individual or, at the very least, advise one on how to format and word the resume for maximum impact.

While the potential employer is provided with a database in a resume, there is no longer an indication of the applicant's ability to write clearly, to make something presentable (formatting), or to provide an indication of preferences for elements like big picture vs. attention to detail. Most important, the resume doesn't usually tell you (a) how well a job was done or (b) why they're not doing it anymore.

References

When was the last time you listed a reference who was likely to talk about why it would not be a good idea to hire you?

The pool of references listed in a resume or provided in an application is likely to consist of people who will say good things about the candidate.

Further, even references who are inclined by values to be transparent are cautious in today's litigious environment.  So while many references are likely to present the upside of the candidate's contributions as an employee or colleague, they may avoid or step carefully around the candidate's potential liabilities.

That choice is understandable, but again, does not help hiring managers who are trying to get an accurate picture of a potential candidate in whom they are going to invest thousands of dollars as well as potentially their organization's reputation.

Interviews

The most frequent tool in screening is the job interview. Even that has lost some of its power in the pandemic since many interviews are now indeed virtual (pun intended).

Interviews, like the other tools, can be valid and useful, but not just because you do them. For example, it is important to standardize the questions, so that when you conduct multiple interviews, you have some consistency in the data gathered. (Otherwise, you may get ratings based on how much they liked or connected with the individual.) Second, the kinds of questions you ask make a difference. If you Google the topic of interview questions, you will pages of recommendations of questions to ask. You get no data on the validity of those questions in finding the best candidate.

During the pandemic, we often had reduced choices about in-person versus virtual interviews. The virtual interview caused us to lose crucial information. For example, a colleague/friend is an expert in micro-expressions. Micro-expressions are an incredibly powerful tool for determining what's going on inside the person that may be different than what's being said (the outside). I, for example, liked to watch not only general expressions, but also what the candidate did with their hands or whether their leg jiggled or bounced in response to certain hard or unexpected questions in an interview.

Finally, I'm reminded of a discussion with a professional group about hiring when one of the senior members of the group said, "My biggest limitation in the hiring process is that I keep looking for people like me and that's not necessarily what we need." That statement represents an example that all of us may manifest to some extent. We tend to evaluate people we like positively (Halo Effect?). That can lead us to recommend or hire people for reasons that are unrelated to what is required for success in a role. Or, the opposite is that we can evaluate someone's potential negatively because there was something about them we didn't like (Horn Effect).

What About Abilities?

Interestingly, organizations to not seem to be consistent in whether they assess abilities. This is the can-do aspect of performance. (We'll get to the want-to later.)

Having "done it" does not equate to "having done it well". We had an experience in the last few years when a relative was not chosen for a position. Instead, the organization hired an individual who had experience in this context on his resume. That person turned out to be a very poor performer and after a year was removed from the position. The relative is now in the position, who had several demonstrated experiences and the qualifications for the job (but had never worked in this particular context) was subsequently hired and appears to be doing well.

We may now come to the double-bind challenge of hiring. What if the person hired in the previous paragraph was asked to leave his prior position? And, when the previous employer was called, if they had said that, would he have been hired by this company? Probably not. So, the hiring company either didn't contact the previous employer or they did, got the true story, and hired they guy anyway. Or, they didn't get the true story (see "References" above) and decided to do the hire assuming that what they were told was accurate.

Organizations that use something akin to the "In-Box" exercise or other simulations to test abilities will have information that is helpful in making a decision. Or, an assessment like the Highlands Ability Battery can be useful in assessing certain abilities.

We repeat: Having done it does not imply that it was done well.

The Question of Values

Values are not abilities, emotions, or motivation, but they may impact each of those characteristics of individuals.

How often are they assessed either in interviews or with instruments in the hiring process? Almost never.

Yet, values can be extremely powerful in driving behavior because they represent one of the criteria (norms or guiding principles) an individual uses in evaluating choices and making decisions.

Is ethical behavior important to your organization? What about how policy (diversity-equity-inclusion) is executed?

Ignoring the importance of values in the screening and hiring process means that your organization could be missing another piece of the extremely complex human puzzle.

Emotions and Emotional Intelligence

The academic debate continues about the importance of emotions and emotional intelligence in evaluating performance. The continuing debate provides professors plenty of grist for the publication mill. It does not, however, provide the solid ground we need to make definitive judgments.

At the same time, anyone who claims emotions are not important has either not been paying attention or has been looking at life through different lenses that some of the rest of us. In the past, we have cited examples of professional athletes and coaches who behaved inappropriately for their role and eventually impacted performance.

Most recently, we witnessed Will Smith administering a slap to Chris Rock at the Academy Award ceremony. That was probably as good an example as we could cite of how The Performance Model plays out. There was a stimulus, Smith processed the context, his value set came into play, both of which impacted his emotional state, and he executed his ability to climb steps, walk across the stage, and administer a slap. (Will has apparently spent considerable time and energy trying to deal with the consequences of his behavior.)

What About Motivation?

We now come to the last aspect of the elements in the hiring process. It is related to what the individual is motivated to do.

This turns out to be a powerful variable in predicting performance especially when you know the motivational patterns that are typical of high performers in a role.

Further, context is important. For example, suppose you have a neighbor you've known for a few year and really like the person. You know the individual is smart and seems to be successful in their current role. There's an opening in your organization and you think this individual would be a good fit and recommend that they apply.

Context is important. The context of neighbor/social setting is not the same as work. It is possible that this individual could be motivated quite differently in the context of work. In fact, over the years, we've had specific examples of that very fact. We often refer to the individual as a "Jekyll-Hyde"; that is, two very different people in two different contexts. In all of these cases, the individual's colleagues agreed with the assessment.

Given the power of this variable and the importance of context, we recommend that an organization include the assessment of motivation and attitude in the recruiting and screening processes.

In fact, it has been shown that if you know that certain motivational patterns are important and if you language your recruiting ads consistent with those patterns, you are more likely to get an applicant pool that is consistent with the kind of individual you are seeking.

Further, if you do not have a tool like the Inventory for Work Attitude and Motivation (iWAM) available, there are interview questions in the Language and Behavior Profile which will provide some of the same kinds of information. Both tools, by the way, require training and certification for use.

Finally, the iWAM contains a set of eight (8) "Job Interest Filters" scales which provide an indication of what the individual likes to have or work with in a job. Knowledge of these factors is helpful in determining the extent to which a position's requirements align with an individual's desires and, to the extent they do, can be used in helping "sell" the position to the individual.

How important is that in this employment market?

Where From Here?

If you have questions about or comments on the above, send me a note to carl@iWAMInstitute.com.

The Inventory for Work Attitude and Motivation (iWAM) contains four scales that measure our motivation related to rules or norms.

Indifference and Compliance

The "Indifference" scale in the iWAM measures the extent to which rules are important to us. A low score (low indifference) indicates that rules are important. The U.S. Standard Group range is near the bottom of the scale and well over 90% of iWAM respondents score within the standard group. That means rules are important to most individuals who complete the iWAM test.

Another scale, "Compliance", measures the extent to which the individual is motivated to follow the rules or enforce the policies in the work context. Individuals who score in the mid- to high range are likely to be motivated to align their behavior with the expectations (rules) of the context. Individuals who score at the low end of the standard group may be motivated to "bend" rules or find ways around rules with which they don't agree. Finally, individuals who score below the standard group may be motivated to "march to their own drummer" rather than to follow the rules in the context.

Assertiveness and Tolerance

This scale measures the extent to which the individual is motivated to have others follow their rules. A high score on "Assertiveness" indicates a desire to have others follow my rules. This could be the t-shirt for someone high on Assertiveness.

A low or very low score on this scale indicates little or no motivation to have others follow the individual's rules. Hold this thought while we summarize Tolerance.

The Tolerance scale provides an indication of the extent to which the individual is motivated to work with others who have different rules than they have. We found, for example, low scores among leaders in contexts where there is a high demand for following rules (e.g., nuclear settings, high-risk environments) which means there also tend to be high scores on the Compliance scale. High scores indicate a motivation to work with a wide range of people, many of whom might have very different rules than the individual has.

So what?

First, we emphasize that there is no one right way to lead, manage, or behave. Effective behavior is dependent upon the organization, the situation, the role you play, and who you are.

We can, however, make some hypotheses or draw some tentative conclusions about possibilities based on several thousand iWAM interpretations and our research.

Here are some possibilities:

• High Assertiveness and low Tolerance may result in a more controlling leadership style or behavior than the opposite pattern. Leaders or managers with these patterns may appear more rigid (less agile) and harder to influence than opposite counterparts.
• Consultants in the organizational development or human resource business tend to be low in Assertiveness and high in Tolerance. That is, they have less desire or motivation to have others follow their rules and are motivated to work with a broad range of people who have different rules than they do.

That leads us to conclude that the former (high Assertiveness/low Tolerance) may not be as effective as they could be in managing the human environment. At the same time, individuals with the "consultant" patterns (low Assertiveness/high Tolerance) may not be motivated to manage others or may struggle managing individuals who need a lot of direction or who "wander off the ranch".

What to Do?

Since there's no one right way, we use the data and our experience to project (a) the likely behavior and (b) the fit of this behavior for the requirements of the role in the context.

For example, there are settings in which we might want a leader with high Assertiveness/low Tolerance (nuclear power plant) and others in which we want a leader with low Assertiveness/high Tolerance (leading a "skunk works" or R&D team).

At the same time, there may be settings in which we want a consultant who is higher on Assertiveness and lower on Tolerance (Quality intervention or setting up a nuclear waste processing procedure) versus one with the opposite (low Assertiveness/high Tolerance) where the client is highly diverse and ultimately needs to find its own way.

As always, the iWAM provides an amazing amount of information that can be quite useful in determining both what is required in a context and the extent to which an individual is likely to meet those motivational and attitudinal requirements.

As those of you familiar with the language of influence know, how one frames a message has a great deal to do with how the message is interpreted and subsequently received.

A recent Dilbert cartoon by Scott Adams presented a perfect example in three panels. Here it is.

In the Inventory for Work Attitude and Motivation (iWAM) the pointy-haired boss's behavior would be related to the "Goal-Orientation" and "Problem Solving" patterns.

[Note: it is possible that behavior is related to another pattern, in this case "Achievement", or to the interaction between or among patterns. In this case, however, the Goal/Problem basis for the boss's behavior is a real possibility.]

While Adams' works are intended to be humorous, they also often depict real life.

For example, we often cite the example of a senior executive who seems to have an aversion to problems. Once we discovered the behavior and tried framing problems in terms of goals, we found we could have a discussion about the situation without it turning into an argument.

Some who are not familiar with the language of influence might argue that this is a case of a "distinction without a difference". While we've considered that possibility, we deem it more likely that becoming familiar with the role and power of language would provide an alternative view.

Of course, an actress, can portray any emotion required for a scene. Here's a shot of Bea Arthur (well-known for her role in "Golden Girls") and a statement about non-verbal behavior.

The Inventory for Work Attitude and Motivation (iWAM) has two scales related to communication. One called "Affective Communication" provides an indication of how much non-verbal information an individual might provide in the course of communicating.

The non-verbal communication might take the form of facial expressions, hand gestures, body language, or voice tone.

When doing the orientation interview prior to administering assessments, we make notes about some possible motivational patterns based on the individual's answers to questions and the non-verbal behavior exhibited.

Then, we check our notes against the iWAM results.  We rarely have a conflict between our notes on high or low affective communication scores for individuals and the notes we made during the interview.

As the publisher, jobEQ, notes, there are potential assets and potential liabilities in every pattern based on context, role, and situation. In the case of a person who is high in Affective Communication, the potential asset is that, assuming she or he pays attention to the non-verbal behavior, the receiving party will get a clear indication of the emotions accompanying the words. This can be an element of authenticity for the sender.

On the downside, the display of emotions can sometimes reveal feelings or emotions that the sender would rather keep private. (See the Bea Arthur graphic again.) Making the emotions public can sometimes get in the way of effective communication or even the relationship.

For those who score low, the potential asset is that it may be easier to conceal emotions behind the message. The potential liability is that one might come across as unfeeling like the character Mr. Spock in Star Trek.

In either case, all this becomes more difficult to sort out day-to-day in the midst of a pandemic with so many wearing masks. The eyes alone don't always tell the whole story.

The Inventory for Work Attitude and Motivation (iWAM) contains a set of companion patterns that give you an indication of how much contact an individual wants with others in the context of work.

The patterns are:

• Group Orientation: The higher the score, the more contact the individual likes to have with others.
• Individual Orientation: The higher the score, the more the individual prefers to work alone; that is, to have little contact with others.

Stephen Pastis provides today's example of what is likely to be low Group Orientation in Rat.

What Are Some Implications of the Patterns?

We will often describe the behavior of a high Group Orientation / low Individual Orientation individual as "out-and-about". That is, he or she will often be found visiting co-workers or having someone in her or his office. Contact is motivating.

The high Individual Orientation individual may often prefer to work with the door closed and may find someone coming in or sticking his or her head in the door as annoying. While the individual may have good interpersonal skills, extensive contact in the workplace in a day or week may be de-motivating and de-energizing.

In Pastis's cartoon, Goat is probably high on Group and Rat high on Individual. Each character is acting consistently with the respective pattern.

What are your patterns and how do they play out in the workplace?

Frequently, behavior is a product of motivation driven by the interaction between or among multiple motivational and attitudinal patterns (MAPs) in the iWAM.

One of our prime educational resources, Scott Adams, sent Dilbert to teach this class.

In this case, Dilbert's low Read (convinced by reading) pattern comes to the forefront.

Then his low Group Orientation and perhaps low Affiliation consummate the "deep dive".

If you haven't tried the iWAM, you might be amazed at the insights gained from it.

Or, if you have taken it and want a "deeper dive", there might be additional insights available.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a real-life laboratory, one we could not have imagined a year ago.

The shelter-in-place movement has isolated millions of people with their families and sometimes with themselves.

So what?

Well, a large percentage of the isolated people are working remotely from their homes. If they have family, then there is some level of social contact. If not, then most of their social contact is via phone or screen-share application.

And your point is?

Not everyone responds to this lack-of-contact context in the same way.

Dilbert and Wally find a common bond in the loss (lack) of social contact.

Individual Orientation/Group Orientation

The iWAM has a set of companion patterns entitled Individual Orientation and Group Orientation.

Individual Orientation is an indication of the extent to which you are motivated by working alone. The higher your score, the more you might want to work with your door closed (if you have one) and find interaction with people, when you're "trying to get work done", to be de-motivating.

Group Orientation provides an insight into the your desire for social contact. That is, the higher the score, the more you want to interact with people while at work.

These two scales might provide some insight into a major motivational factor in people who are forced to work by themselves for long periods of time. A person who scores high in Group Orientation and low in Individual Orientation may well find the lack of in-person contact demotivating.

On the other hand, someone who is low in Group Orientation and high in Individual Orientation may turn out to be like Dilbert and Wally.

For someone who scores low in both, the work environment is probably not a major factor in their motivation. For someone who scores high in both, it may be easier to shift from one context to the other.

An Example

One example of a mismatch in contact motivation came up in a college course I taught a few years ago. The college incorporated the iWAM as one aspect of the course. The students were all full-time, working adults.

We were debriefing the scores as a class and talking about the Individual/Group Orientation patterns when, following an interpretation and the implications of high and low scores, a young guy raised his hand. He  scored very low on Group and very high on Individual Orientation.

He proceeded to tell the class that he was close to resigning from his job because they had rearranged the work area. It seems the manager drank the one-size-fits-all Kool-Aid concerning open workplaces and the value of social contact. The result was that this student now worked in an open area with three other people. The four desks were arranged in a square so that everyone faced everyone else. He was now "trapped" in a group of chatty colleagues.

He hated it and was ready to quit the job to escape. Based on our experience, he would not have been clear in an exit interview about why he was really leaving.

Using iWAM Information

The fact that motivational and attitudinal patterns are a significant variable in performance is not on a lot of managers' radar and since we tend to interact with people as though they were like us, it may not occur to a high-Group manager that some of her or his direct reports are just the opposite. In that case, the manager may both interact with the person and/or structure work in ways that either lessen motivation or actually demotivate the individual. The opposite would be true of a low Group/high Individual manager.

For example, when orienting managers to the use of the iWAM, we suggest that if you have a direct report or are dealing with a colleague who is high Individual Orientation and low in Shared Responsibility it might not be wise to assign them to a task force or a committee. If the individual happens to be a subject matter expert (SME) and the expertise is needed on the committee or task force, then ask the individual: "Since your expertise is crucial to the work of this group, would you like to be a member or have the group call on you when your knowledge is needed?"

You are more likely to get a positive response to the latter alternative.

Research Opportunities

It occurs to us that this would be a good time for professors and graduate students to study the relationship between the independent variables of Individual/Group Orientation (and some others) and dependent variables such as productivity and job satisfaction.

In consulting with individuals in a variety of settings over the last few months, we have encountered some who are delighted with the isolation and some who are close to "crawling the walls". For the latter, who have a lot of phone and screen-share time with colleagues, it seems to be the lack of actual human contact that is demotivating.

Although we've not seen the reasearch, someone a month or so ago indicated that some data suggest that productivity actually increased during the first month or two of remote work. These results, if true, are counter to the prevailing assumption that people would be less productive if not in the organization's physical workplace.

It's possible, if we were collecting data, that we'd find that those who prefer to work alone (high Individual Orientation) might be more productive and those who are high Group Orientation/low Individual Orientation might be less productive if the phone/screen contact media are not sufficient to fulfill the need.

In any case, it's something to consider as we lead on!

Over 10 years ago, The Institute in cooperation with jobEQ published the iWAM Resource Guide. It was the first reference document that explained not only what high and low scores on the iWAM scales mean, but also identified potential assets and liabilities of each as well as jobs or careers to which strong or weak patterns might connect.

The 2020 revision has the following improvements:

• There is an expanded introductory section that explains various aspects of the iWAM report such as the difference between "absolute" and "relative percent" scores.

• There are updated definitions and explanations in all categories based on what we've learned about the iWAM in the last 10 years

• The respective pages dedicated to each iWAM scale have been reformatted to make it easier to use.

The updated iWAM Resource Guide will be available in July.

Using the iWAM Resource Guide

Many certified professionals and client organizations package the Resource Guide with the iWAM report (in hard copy or electronically). This provides the individual taking the test with a reference document that proves useful in checking their iWAM results at a future time.

The iWAM Resource Guide is available to the public from The Institute or can be purchased on a single copy or bulk basis by certified professionals.

For more information about the iWAM Resource Guide, using it with clients, or purchasing it, contact The Institute (carl@iWAMinstitute.com).