What’s driving your behavior? Ever wonder why some leaders are so effective, yet others struggle? Helping people to understand what’s behind their choices and actions can improve their sense of satisfaction and their overall effectiveness.
Use the picture story exercise [motive assessment] to:
- raise your leaders’ and professionals’ understanding of what drives them
- help them anticipate the impact of their behavior on others
- help them manage their choices and actions more effectively
- include valuable feedback within the assessment, coaching and development of high performing leaders and contributors.
Why choose the Hay Group picture story exercise (PSE)?
The PSE looks beyond actions and intent, revealing the motives that drive individuals’ behaviors. It provides a uniquely insightful benchmark from which to build self-awareness and capability. It helps leaders and professionals understand – and extend – the circumstances when they are at their best.
The picture story exercise was developed by renowned Harvard psychologist David C. McClelland. It is backed by more than 50 years of ongoing research, and by Hay Group’s expert capability in motive coding and feedback sharing. It examines an individual’s social motives: three non-conscious concerns or needs that shape our behaviors. These are the needs to:
- meet or exceed personal standards of excellence (achievement)
- maintain close personal relationships (affiliation)
- have an impact or influence on others (power).
The PSE can be used in conjunction with the personal values questionnaire (PVQ), which explores how we more consciously value each of these concepts, and how these values also affect our actions and choices. Both exercises are used by hundreds of organizations around the world as benchmark tools for assessing, coaching and developing high performing leaders and professional contributors. The PVQ can be self-administered. The PSE generates powerful feedback, and can only be administered by an accredited Hay Group consultant.
