What's Your Motive?

I received my latest edition of "Core Motive" magazine yesterday.

It's the magazine of the International Color Code Association.

The Color Code is an assessment tool that deals with your core motive.

There are four types:

• Red = Power
• Yellow = Fun
• Blue = Intimacy
• White = Peace

You can take a free assessment at http://www.colorcode.com/

It isn't a tool I use a lot, but I find it useful.

My engineer brain demands statistical validation of a tool before I rely on it (that's why DiSC is my most common tool).

At the same time, Dr. Rick Williams of CMOE shared a great metaphor when he picked up a book and held it in front of me, "Let's say that from the front is your Disc Profile. From the side is your Meyers Briggs Profile. From the bottom is your Color Code. From the side is your Wilson Social Styles. All together, you get a three dimensional portrait of a human being. Without one, the portrait is incomplete."

No one who knows me would be surprised to find out that my core motive is "Fun".

One of the reasons that I love Thailand is that a favorite word of theirs is "Sanuk", which means fun. When asked to do something, a Thai will often ask, "Is it sanuk?". That's always been my #1 question.

If it isn't fun, I won't do it.

Take the Color Code assessment and see what your motive is.

How to build Relationships in a Virtual Team? Table Topics

I found this in Sonoma, in a gift shop at the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa. I bought it immediately.

One of the challenges with distributed teams is that you never have the 'little' conversations that build rapport.

Conversations like:
"Is golf a sport?"
"A burger cannot be made of tofu."
Or "How would I look with a beard?"

A recommendation I often make to virtual teams is to ask a 'get to know you' question at the start of every staff meeting. This sounds good in practice, but eventually you run out of questions.

Well, that's no longer a problem.
TableTopics sells box sets with 135 questions for US$25.
Buy a box. My suggestion is to get the 'original version' for your team, expense it, and start using it.

I did this exercise with my peers and learned about the strangest weather that Henry, our learning partner in Taiwan, ever saw.
He went into a factory in China on a cloudy day and worked all day. When he left, something was different, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Suddenly, he noticed that everything was white and realized that this was snow! He'd never seen it before.

I've known Henry for years, but had never heard this story.

You learn just as much from how someone tells a story as from the story itself.

Get to know your teammates (you might learn something).

What do people remember? Thoughts from Singapore

This week, I'm reading "Lessons in Learning, e-Learning, and Training" by Roger C. Schank.
Roger is an expert in AI, memory, and training.

He is also a contrarian - which makes him one of the good guys in my mind.
Excellent book, filled with quotable lines.

One of my favorites:

"What do people remember? Their feelings. Fun. The behavior of others. What they don't remember are the details - they are not the important stuff of human memory".

So, how do you inject feelings into your teachings? Do you?

Or are you missing one of the best tools of memory?