Marlys Hanson INC.

Shane’s Achievements:
Read carefully the following description of life/work achievements selected by Shane as activities that she both enjoyed doing and felt she did well.  As you read, make notes of the recurring themes or patterns in the achievement stories.  Then compare your notes with the “answers” presented below.

Childhood:  Collecting worms - I read about everything I could get my hands on — interested in invertebrates — always looking for different types of worms, etc. — fascinated to see particular organisms — always looking for new types — excited to find — fascinated with finding unusual types — did experiments — make cuts in worm, grew two heads, two tails.

Age 22-25:  Conducted an extensive research project for a class — “Physiological Changes in Limpets in Response to Escape Eliciting Substances” — worked on project two months beyond course despite lack of cooperation from professors — very interesting — fascinating complex of behavior— figured out some kind of experiment — animals showed these very interesting responses — some were quite absurd — nobody really looked at the physiology of this thing — fascinated by the whole subject — presence of the extract results in increase in heart rate and respiration.

Age 31-35:  Discovered two mechanisms involved in response to simulated “jet lag” in monkeys.  Discovered during analysis of data ⁽¹⁾ looked for something that was cohesive — discovered different pattern in data of one monkey — pursued it to point where I got this presentation — take data and explain — fascinating in that I had discovered this — didn’t expect to see this — really interesting.

Shane’s Motivational Pattern:  Recurring Themes in Shane’s achievement data compose her Motivational Pattern which consists of the following five categories:

1. Motivated Abilities - abilities that recur in your achievements that you never seem to tire using:  Analyzing, Observing, Experimenting

2. Subject Matter - what you are motivated to work with or through:  Science

3. Circumstances - the factors which trigger and/or sustain your motivation:  Freedom to experiment

4. Operating Relationship - how you relate to others in a work situation:  Individualist

5. Motivational Payoff - the outcome or result that you are motivated to accomplish, which, when attained, is always satisfying:  Discovery

Career Implications of Shane’s Motivational Pattern

Obviously, there are many possible themes for each of the five categories of a Motivational Pattern, and endless combinations and permutations that make up our patterns — which is why each of us must make some effort to understand the uniqueness of our own pattern,

We also need to consider the implications of our patterns for job/career decisions.  For example, let’s consider Shane’s Motivational Pattern:

Shane was working on a research project in a biomedical laboratory.  Her performance had been outstanding on her research responsibilities.  In many R &D organizations, such an employee is likely to be promoted to supervise other researchers.  Promoting the top performer to a supervisory role is a common practice in nearly every occupation/profession.  The tragedy is that the top performer may or may not be “motivated” to manage the work of others.  Here again,  “smart people” may make “dumb decisions” if they did not obtain the “evidence” that defines precisely what Shane is “motivated” to do.

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