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Employee Motivation Tips: Their DISC Behavior Style

By Guy Harris

In previous posts, I have written about a model for understanding what motivates behavior and three clues you can use to find what motivates another person.

Today, I'll share some quick insights about what motivates people based on their DISC behavioral style.

A person who has outgoing and task-oriented (Dominant) traits is often motivated by:

  • Solving problems
  • Conquering challenging situations
  • Getting results

And they will often prefer to work at a fast pace with a focus on quick results and direct action.

A person who has outgoing and people-oriented (Inspiring) traits is often motivated by:

  • The opportunity to interact with others
  • Public recognition
  • Varied activities

And they will often prefer to work at a fast pace with a focus on doing things in a fun way that does not require high attention to detail.

A person who has reserved and people-oriented (Supp0rtive) traits is often motivated by:

  • Teamwork
  • The opportunity to help others
  • Feeling appreciated for their contribution

And they will often prefer to work at a steady pace with a focus on doing the work process in a way that minimizes risk and strengthens relationships.

A person who has reserved and task-oriented (Cautious) traits is often motivated by:

  • Structuring or organizing things
  • Researching or searching for information
  • Finding the “right” solution for a problem

And they will often prefer to work alone with a focus on details and proper structure.

As you work to apply this information in your personal and professional life, remember that people have varying degrees of all of these traits in their behavioral style blends and that you are likely to observe at least two of the four styles to a significant degree in most people.

The information in this post is only intended to give you a basic framework for understanding what might motivate another person. It is not intended as a complete and exhaustive description of how the DISC model might reveal motivational patterns and preferences.

This article is from the Motivation series. Use the links below to read more from this series.

  • The 5 Be's of Motivation
  • The Positive Runs Out
  • A Simple Model for Understanding What Drives Behavior
  • You Cannot Punish People into Good Behavior
  • Three Clues You Can Use to Find What Motivates Another Person
  • Employee Motivation Tips: Their Personal Life
  • Employee Motivation Tips: Their DISC Behavior Style

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Filed Under: Leadership Skills, Parenting Tagged With: behavioral style, DISC Model, disc style, employee motivation, human behavior, influence, Leadership Skills, parenting skills, understanding people

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  1. What Motivates You vs. What Motivates Me | The Search for Effective Leadership says:
    November 22, 2011 at 1:58 am

    […] a blog post today on The Recovering Engineer, motivation types were discussed. One prevalent model for motivation is the DISC model. In this […]

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