Every person has talents, intelligence, social abilities and skills. The one is smarter, more convenient the other, another more socially adept. Management Drives helps to answer the question why the talents and abilities of a person may or may not be clearly revealed. It is a good start if someone has a good resume and excellent assessment results. But if you will be working with him, what is he really going to do? And what does that mean for the group someone belongs?
Management Drives helps to interpret the drives of people, groups and organizations. Drives are the link between what you can (or think you can) and what you’re really going to do. Drives give direction to your abilities, but don’t say anything about the quality.
We distinguish the following six drives:
People are driven by a unique combination of drives. First, some drives are attractive to us, some we reject. An Orange driven account manager will feel that rules should be applied flexibly, while his colleague from the BackOffice will feel (Blue) that there are no exceptions to all rules and they should always be applied. If the account manager rejects Blue, then the attempt by his colleagues for following the rules and regulations will lead to irritation. The combination of attractive and reprehensible drives for each person, group and organization is as unique as a fingerprint.
In the middle of last century the drives were charted by the American psychologist Dr Clare W. Graves. He asked people aged 18 to 61 years, their perception of a psychologically mature person. It soon became clear that all responses could be accommodated in a very limited number of categories. From this extensive and elegant research Dr. Graves expressed drives. Don Beck and Chris Cowan worked the legacy of Dr. Graves further in their book Spiral Dynamics. Cor Keijser and Stephan van der Vat have developed Graves' drives in their book: Management Drives Fieldbook.
