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Getting to a person’s motives is very powerful. If you know what drives a person, you can target messages, and thus increase your chances of influencing them.

You have a choice of using the framework provided by Abraham Maslow on Metamotivation, or you can use Daniel Pink’s framework. I find the Jonah Complex a good starting point to do my analysis.

The point is to ask interesting questions that will reveal hidden motives, which can then be used to influence. The mission of the Strategy Execution Institute® is to develop competencies. Inspired by this idea, I composed the following haiku-like poem for one of my favorite bosses:

“And thus…
after reading Maslow’s teaching,
and being diagnosed with Jonah’s complex,
the turkey scampered up tree,
for he had in his mind,
become a squirrel.”