What is your motivation direction and what triggers you into action? Do you move Towards an objective or Away From problems to be solved or prevented? Do you avoid unpleasant situations or do you know what you want and go for it?

Are you good at identifying all of the potential drawbacks of a plan or do you dive in and find out about the problems later?

The direction of your motivation is simply - do you move Towards good things or Away From bad things?

It's important to remember that your motivation may change in different contexts, for example you may have an Away From pattern at work and a Toward pattern in your relationships.

Understanding this about yourself and your team members at work is critical to great communication and team work. People with an Away From motivation can often be seen as overly critical and negative whilst those with a strong Toward motivation can seen as naive by others because they don't consider potential problems with a project or a plan. In any project or team both types have an important role to play in the overall success of a project and the business as a whole.

Toward

If you have a toward pattern in a given context, you are focused on your goals and think in terms of goals to be achieved. You are motivated to have, get, achieve and attain and you get excited by your goals. If you have a toward pattern you may have trouble identifying problems with a goal and not take potential obstacles into account.

Away-from

If you have a away-from pattern your motivation is triggered by solving problems and you will notice what needs to be avoided and got rid of. If you have this pattern you are likely to be energised by deadlines and threats (i.e. the stick as opposed to the carrot). You will be good at troubleshooting, solving problems and pinpointing possible obstacles during planning. Away from people have some difficulties managing priorities because whatever is wrong will attract much of their attention

Think about how you can use this information to understand yourself and your team better.

To discover your true motivations and your ideal work, join us on this 2-day fun,creative and inspiring Career Transitions Workshop

Working relationships with bosses, colleagues and clients is often a great source of stress and negative emotion. From research and working with clients, it seems a lot of unhappiness is caused by a unsupportive boss, a 'difficult' colleague or an unreasonably demanding client. So what can we, as individuals do to relieve this stress and learn to communicate well with those around us?

One of the things I always bring to mind when I feel frustration or anger building with someone is one of the presuppositions of NLP that says "Everyone is doing the best they can with the resources they have". Most people don't set out to be deliberately 'difficult' or 'overly demanding' and they are usually reacting to the responsibilities and demands made on them in both their personal and professional life. Being able to just accept a person for who they are goes a long way towards a more peaceful relationship between you, and a less stressful life for you. Being able to 'step into their shoes' and see things from their perspective also helps you to understand more about their behaviour and understand that what we might perceive as dominating, controlling, bossy or unreasonable, often comes from a place of fear and insecurity. If you were feeling these kind of feelings and emotions, how would you want others to respond to you, what would you need in order to feel more secure and build trust with those around you? I have created a report which explains step-by-step how to use a great technique called Perceptual Positioning and you can download a copy for free here.

To discover your ideal work, join us on this 2-day fun, creative and inspiring Career Transitions Workshop

The meaning of communication is the response we get

I was recently asked to prepare a communications workshop for a group of 50 people - primarily to address the problems stemming from the way in which different teams and departments communicate with each other. This is partly due to the pressures of time and the modern-day method of emailing rushed and poorly thought-through responses, rather than taking the time to speak directly with the person or persons involved. But also, it helps to realise that initially we have to take personal responsiblity for the way we communicate, and understand that by changing the way we speak or write to others (or even our body language), that we can in fact change the response we get from the recipient. We can learn to be more persuasive, more understanding, more inspirational and impactful and ultimately become a great communicator. When you think about someone you really admire for their great communication skills or their ability to inspire and pursuade others, what is it that they do; what qualities do they have that make them a great communicator and what values do you think they hold? More later  .......................

Have a great day.

Are you looking for a career change but not sure which direction to take?

To discover your ideal work, join us on this 2-day fun, creative and inspiring Career Transitions Workshop