Essential Motivators™
Friction and misunderstandings in work relationships are constant drains on efficiency and cause frustration and problems. When individuals better understand themselves, they can bring their best skills and talents to their work, and collaborate more impactfully and enjoyably with others.
Essential Motivators™ provides a framework to help learners identify their core psychological needs, values, talents, and behaviors to better understand themselves and others, be more effective, and appreciate different perspectives.
Essential Motivators teaches an easy-to-apply system of four patterns—Air, Earth, Fire, and Water—that helps people become more comfortable with themselves and more collaborative and effective with others.
To identify their Essential Motivators pattern, learners are guided through a process of self-discovery. In this process, they:
- Discover their superpower—who they are at their core and their special skills
- Understand themselves at a deeper level and how their core needs influence them
- Learn to accept others for who they are and what they need
- Work more effectively with others, improve communication, and resolve conflict
Delivery Options to Meet Your Needs
Essential Motivators can be delivered in person, as virtual sessions, as part of a learning journey, or in a self-directed online or moderated online version, so your learners can identify their core needs wherever they are and whenever they have time.
One-Day Instructor-Led Course
Essential Motivators is a one-day in-person session that is based on an easy-to-understand theory of temperament that will help participants better understand themselves and others and learn to value and appreciate different perspectives.
Pre-Work: LAUNCH—Participants engage in a self-study eLearning module and fill in an interactive worksheet (about 25 minutes to complete).
LEARN & PRACTICE—Participants come together for one 8-hour in-person session, including 45 minutes for lunch and four 10-minute breaks. The instructor-led training features interactive group exercises, testimonial videos, and motion graphic videos to teach how Essential Motivators is a lens through which we identify our patterns of core psychological needs, values, talents, and behaviors.
Learners dive deep into the four patterns: Fire, Earth, Air, and Water. Each pattern has different core needs, values, talents, and behaviors, which are explored through discussions on:
- Discovering your superpower—who you are at your core—so you can develop and grow.
- Understanding yourself at a deeper level and learning how your core needs influence your motivation, career satisfaction, communication, and problem-solving.
- Discovering your unique stressors and shadows and learning how to manage them.
- Shifting your perspective and accepting others for who they are and what they need, even if they are different from you.
Post-Work: APPLY—Revisit the learning portal and access tools, videos, and digital assets that will help participants work more empathetically and effectively with individuals, teams, managers, and executive leaders.
This design is a six-week online learning journey with weekly 60-minute live virtual sessions that include interactive discussions and breakout sessions. The course is a rich, easy-to-understand theory of temperament that will help participants better understand themselves and others and learn to value and appreciate different perspectives. This design provides key concepts, models, discussion questions, practice, and application over a six-week multifaceted learning experience.
Week 1: Getting Started - Discover the nature of the Essential Motivators patterns and how we express them through our core needs, values, talents, and behaviors.
Week 2: Understanding Self - Learn about the four Essential Motivators patterns: Fire, Earth, Air, and Water.
Week 3: Clarifying the Patterns - Explore the patterns further through the dimensions of language, roles, and attention.
Week 4: Stressors and Stereotypes - Discover how stress manifests for each pattern and how to reduce stress in oneself and others. Explore the stereotype side of each pattern that can influence the perception of others.
Week 5: Understanding Others - Discover how people's shadow pattern—the pattern least like themselves—can affect how they react to others. Identify others within each of the four patterns.
Week 6: Putting It into Practice - Shift perspective and accept others for who they are and what they need, even if they are different from oneself.
Online Overview with Debrief
This design includes a 35-minute online overview to teach the core content, which will help participants identify their pattern of core psychological needs, values, talents, and behaviors to better understand themselves and others, be more effective, and appreciate different perspectives.
Digital Assets
Set of micro-activities, including videos, interactions, and worksheets, that can be accessed in moments of need to support ongoing learning, performance support, reinforcement, and custom learning journeys.
When employees feel their needs have been met, they report a 30% higher capacity to focus, a nearly 50% higher level of engagement, and a 63% greater likelihood to stay at the company.1
1. Harvard Business Review, The Power of Meeting Your Employees’ Needs.
Understand Different Perspectives To Fuel Deeper Collaboration
The Essential Motivators framework was developed by author and expert Linda Berens, who has over forty years of experience in teaching people to recognize their strengths, transcend their weaknesses, and work together better.
Increase Effectiveness
Organisational effectiveness rises as people learn how to recognise others' core needs and work more collaboratively and synergistically.
Improve Employee Engagement
Helps people learn how their core needs influence their motivation, career satisfaction, communication, and problem-solving.
Boost Empathy
Increases appreciation for diversity and inclusion as people shift perspectives and learn to accept others for who they are.
Deepen Collaboration
Strengthens relationships and understanding of each other’s perspectives, building empathy and trust.
Essential Motivators can be delivered in person, virtually, or as a self-directed online course. Contact us today to learn how we can help your leaders learn the skills they need to be more effective communicators.
