Your gifts
If you know anything about our team, you know that we love assessments. DISC, StrengthsFinder, Four Tendencies, Love Languages, Apology Languages, BOSI, Myers-Briggs… We’ve taken them all. I love incorporating assessments into our team development because not only do we gain more personal insight and self-awareness with each one we take, but we also get to learn more about each other.
A few weeks ago, Monique, our Chief of Growth, was introduced to an assessment we’d never heard of called the Motivation Code, or MCODE for short. Monique’s husband’s company had each of their team members and spouses take it, and Monique gained so much from what she learned about herself that she suggested our leadership team take it too.
A brand-new-to-us assessment?! Sign us up!
The MCODE helps you understand what motivates you by identifying the themes that drive your fulfillment and bring you energy as a human and leader. The idea is that you are most effective and passionate when you are working within your motivations.
When I got my results, I felt that they were spot-on (as is usually the case with the assessments I take). According to the MCODE, my top five out of 27 possible motivational themes are: Be Unique, Achieve Potential, Make An Impact, Overcome, and Experience The Ideal. The assessment breaks down the motivations into categories, and three of my five motivations fall under “Visionary”—the only three motivations in that category.
You’d think that this would make me feel good, seeing as how I am the Chief of Vision of our organization. However, the more I read my results and reflected on them, the more I started to question my motivations and wonder if they were hurting me more than they were helping me. I began to feel as if maybe my motivations were “too much” for the team and that perhaps they were hurting us.
Here’s what I mean:
Be Unique: In everything I do, I want to go against the grain. If the world says do it “this way,” I want to do it “that way.” Did my approach slow us down? Did my wanting to make everything unique make it challenging for our team to get things done?
Achieve Potential: I always see possibilities and what could be. Once I achieve something, I’m looking at what’s next. I’m constantly thinking about how to do things bigger and better. What did this mean for the way I set goals for our organization? If you read my blog post from last week, you know that I recently had to lower our financial goals for this quarter because I set them way too high. This is an example of me seeing potential and wanting to go for it.
Make An Impact: I want to make the biggest difference possible. I’m always thinking about depth and scale. How can we reach more people? How can we go deeper? That also means that I never feel like I’ve truly achieved success because I always know that the impact can be greater. What did that mindset mean for our team? Did they lack pride in our accomplishments?
Overcome: If there’s a difficult situation, put me in. I love confronting challenges and overcoming major obstacles that seem impossible. Sometimes I intentionally put myself and our organization in situations where the odds are stacked against us because I love the idea of working together to overcome them. How did it feel for the team to be on the other side of that?
Experience The Ideal: I want to bring my ideas and the values that are important to me to life. I want to walk my talk, and I am relentless when it comes to championing what I believe in. What did that mean when the team disagreed with me? Had there ever been a time when they were afraid to speak up because my beliefs were so overpowering?
Thankfully, I didn’t have to sit with these thoughts for long because I had a session with my coach soon after I took the assessment. I shared my insecurities with him and asked if he thought I needed to tone myself down. I asked if he thought my motivations were harming the team.
He shared a story with me about how someone once told him that he often got distracted by shiny objects. For many years, this feedback got into his head and made him feel like he should go after fewer new ideas and projects. Then, one day, he realized that chasing shiny objects was what made him him. He was passionate about trying new things, and it gave him so much fulfillment. And a lot of those shiny objects had worked out. Some had even become uber successful. So he learned that this quality of his wasn’t something he needed to tone down—it was actually something he needed to lean into. He needed to own it and rock it.
Of course that was the goal. Gee, isn’t it funny that a person who has made her life’s work about authentic and human leadership is thinking she needs to tone herself down and be someone she’s not?
Here’s what my coach helped me realize: My five motivations come naturally to me. When I don’t have control of them, they can negatively impact the team, so I need to be disciplined and intentional with how I use them. I need to collaborate with people who have gifts that are different than mine. The goal isn’t to dim my light or be someone else; the goal is to play up my amazing qualities. And yes, I just described my qualities as amazing because that is what they are. And yours are too. They are amazing because they are our gifts. Our superpowers. The things that make us unique and special. The things that make it so that there is no other human on earth exactly like us.
I wrote this in case you have ever doubted yourself like I doubted myself last week. I want you to know that you already have what you need within you. You don’t need to be someone else or be half of who you are. You’re no good when you do that anyway.
I’m reading a book called Think Like A Monk, and there’s a line that really spoke to me: “Our limitations make space for the gifts of other people.” Might I also add: and their limitations make space for our gifts.
The point isn’t to be like anyone else. It’s to be you. And when you can do that, not only do you give yourself the chance to use your gifts, but you give others the chance to use theirs.
Hugs through the screen,
Kristen
PS: Have you heard of my LIVE show every Wednesday at 11 a.m. ET? Think of it as real talk. I share the challenges I’m navigating as a leader and I also take questions from you! You can register here: https://bit.ly/3kWe2kT. It’s the same link each week. Hope to see you there!
