In this article I will share my thoughts on the management drives experience and the resulting MD assessment and my individual profile.
I noticed the Management Drives Experience on the LinkedIn feed of Arne Essers, HR Adviseur at Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek and Team Coach at Punt Komma Coaching.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Brief introduction to Management Drives
“Drives are motivators that predict how a team or person uses their knowledge, skills and competences. The theory of Management Drives is based on the studies of Clare W. Graves (1914-1986) and is already automated at an early stage. Graves based his theory on Jung and Maslow. Our six colors each have their own meaning at organization and team level and for someone’s personal leadership.”
This section from the Management Drives webpage more or less gives the overview of why drives are important and how drives relate on different levels. The advantage of the Management Drives theory is that the six colors provide a common language between individuals or within teams do understand the drives. The colors have their own meaning on individual, team or organizational level.
During my traineeship at Microsoft had an MBTI Assessment, Big Five Personality Assessment, Willem Glaudemans Talentenspel v2.0, Gallup Strengthsfinder 2.0 and a couple of other tests. 🙂 These helped me to become more self aware and use the results to further develop myself both professionally and personally. However non of these assessments really focus on the internal drivers and beliefs of someone (although MBTI is also based on the theory of Jung).
Management Drives – Individual Profile Remo Knops
I can best provide an overview of my individual Management Drives profile based on the screenshots from the MD App for Google Android. Simply because it provides a structured way of covering the individual profile details as well as doing a brief review of the Management Drives App.
The Management Drives Assessment consists of about 20 questions where you can distribute points over the answers per question. After you have completed the questions and scoring your individual profile is ready. For me the focus and primary drives are Green, Yellow and Blue. In other words the focus and order is my primary operating mode.
- Green drive – People Manager
- Yellow drive – Visionary
- Blue drive – Organizer
Each of the drives has an easy to understand and recognizable set of bullets with a description of the specific drive. However the MD App provides more cool options and helpful content for personal development. Feel free to read the descriptions of my primary drives from the screenshots.
MD App for Google Android
“When you completed a Management Drives questionnaire you are able to get access to your profile and connect to others who also have a MD profile.”
You simply install the app from the Google Play Store and perform the initial sign-in with your Management Drives account details. On the default (home) screen you can select the following tiles:
- Profile
- Connections
- Teams
- Settings
- Method
- Tips
When you want to deep dive into your profile details, the MD App for Google Android has the following breakdown. I will go through the main categories and discuss the most important profile facts in separate sections below (illustrated with a couple of screenshots).
- Logic
- Summary
- Focus
- Logic
- Strength
- Tension
- Pitfall
- Rejection
- Rejection
- Pitfall
- Energy Balance
- Energizing
- Energy Draining
- Mindset
- Summary
- Potential Strength
- Tips
Logic Tab
- Summary
- Focus
- Logic
- Strength
- Tension
- Pitfall
The logic tab normally opens in the summary page, where you can see the management drives matrix with its unique colors. The bigger the circle, the more dominant is the internal drive. So for me green (people manager), yellow (visionary) and blue (organizer) are the top three (from large to small). This exactly the order you can see in the focus page. 🙂
Furthermore you can see both in the summary and the logic page that I have a high R-score (relevancy score). Which is helpful in managing stress, but could also become counter-productive if someone or myself can’t communicate the relevancy.
Above you can see a screenshot of the logic page, which lists all drives in the correct order from high to low. The purple patriarch leadership style is focused on building trust (people management within a group). Personally I expected more of the orange entrepreneur leadership style given my past and interests. However I see the orange and red drives more as outcomes or results from building a solid team, connecting the correct innovative ideas and organizing for success (so the results will come).
The strengths are based upon the primary drives by connecting with people. Tension can exist when the yellow and blue drives are not in balance. So the drive for seeking new ideas and the blue drive for organizing and structuring are fighting with each other. The pitfall can be neglecting my own needs, when the people manager leadership style is so dominant.
Rejection Tab
- Rejection
- Pitfall
The MD App states that I have a distinct rejection profile, as you can see in the screenshot above. However it must be seen in the proper context, since having work experience with Microsoft I certainly see the value of rules, structures and goals. However not at the costs of people and their well-being in relation to the outcomes and results.
The pitfall page basically describes all the disadvantages of the blue, orange and red drives. Every drive can become a pitfall when you overuse them. Personally I can acknowledge these disadvantages, accept them (partly) and let it go.
All in all not much news in the rejection tab.
Energy Balance Tab
- Energizing
- Energy Draining
The energy balance tab has two pages: energizing and energy draining. Of course the energizing pages is build up of behavior from your dominant leadership styles ,while the energy draining descriptions can be derived from my rejection and disadvantages from particular drives.
So power games, cocky behavior and bragging, routine work and rigidity and conservatism simply cost me some energy.
Mindset Tab
- Summary
- Potential Strength
- Tips
The mindset tab gives your under pressure or in-stress behavior. You need to read the pie-chart from 15:00 (counter clock wise). So for me the under-pressure order of drives is organizer (blue), entrepreneur (orange), people manager (green), visionary (yellow), etc.
So under pressure I will structure and organize for results (keeping lists and checking the progress), focus on the team spirit and wellbeing in difficult times. This mindset tab is an insightful one and for me the most valuable together with the logic tab.
Concluding thoughts and wrap-up
The Management Drives Experiences was a small Zoom Meeting with 6 participants and Management Drives consultant, Marieke Teela.
The background and reason to join the experience of all 6 participants was different, which resulted in a good and broad discussion with lots of practical insights. However the heavy lifting of explaining the management drives approach was done by Marieke Teela. I’ve also done had a drives discussion with Arne Essers. Thanks for that.
Management Drives has given me an extra view on who I am and what drives me. Believes and drives more or less produce action and results. So I can advise everyone interested to participate in the Management Drives Experience and take the assessment when needed.
The advantage of the Management Drives theory is that the six colors provide a common language between individuals or within teams do understand the drives. The colors have their own meaning on individual, team or organizational level. In another article I will focus on the team and organization advantages of management drives.
So head over to the Management Drives Experience page and register to reserve your spot.
