Artefacts of Mechanistic Creation

Y'what? Just kidding, as usual...

BUT - what do you do when (as has happened to me twice in recent months) you get someone in a workshop who everybody guesses will have a high Musical (case 1) or high Artistic (case 2) and who is really, truly not at all happy to find they have scores for these around the 50 mark.

"This Birkman thing is just plain wrong..."

"I spend all my time playing my guitar/flutes/zithers/making cards/crafts/wrapping things beautifully" (delete as applicable)

Some of you know where this is going already. Yes, they both had Mechanical scores in the 90s. One of the most broadly applicable attributes of people with high Mechanical scores? Being "hands-on". Doing stuff personally. Enjoying the "how". (Avoiding delegation, but that is another post waiting to happen).

Half an hour after telling me this was all nonsense, High Mechanical / 50 Musical said "I've just realised; I only ever play music [and he is one of the most natural instrumentalists I have ever known - jon], I never listen to it"

Slightly quicker than that, High Mechanical / 50 Artistic said "Actually, now you mention it, I am not particularly interested in looking at what others have done - I just love doing it myself. At work, I get upset if someone suggests someone else should take on some of the "handcraft" parts of my job."

Like everything in this Blog, this is all so obvious once you have seen it. But the lesson is: when someone looks you in the eye and tells you this "Birkman thing" has failed to score them properly on this or that with regard to Areas of Interest - just look at their top two bars. The real motivator is sitting there, perhaps just a little incognito...

Areas of Interest: Musical

Just an observation - we all build up a repetoire of motivational and behavioural clues which attach to these Areas of Interest. Here's one I have noticed for High Musical.

If you get blankish looks for all the usual stuff about being in control of the soundscape and so on, try out PERFORMANCE. I have certainly found the occasional person who lights up when you ask if the notion of "performance" matters to them. Actually, I am one (although the more usual musical clues apply to me as well). So for example, with my low Persuasive and lowish Social Service AoI scores, running day-long workshops for strangers is potentially not very fulfilling. Why do I get a buzz then? Performance! Someone said to me recently (after admittedly, one of my more manic / dangerously edgy sessions with a wonderfully responsive and very multi-ethnic/national group) "Jon, that was worth coming to just as stand-up..." For me the hard days are the occasional ones where people keep their response guarded. I mean, how can you perform when you can't tell if the audience are with you or not...