Hi, Mary:)

First, thank you for always posting something that challenges us to reflect, think, and do better as leaders and as employees.   I admire your willingness to wade into the messy stuff:)

It seems the CEO in your fascinating and all to familiar story suffers from the affliction of  assumption.  He assumes that what he values, everyone values.

This is not an isolated issue.  Our personal motivations are based on our unique blend of experiences, values, and perceptions.  We know these best because we are on the inside of the motivational machine.   When we move to trying to understand the motivations that influence others, we have entered a much tougher and indistinct environment.

The real problem may be that understanding what moves another requires several things:

1)  We have to let go of the idea that what we know is all we need to know.
2)  We have to become proficient at continually asking intelligent and open-ended questions to learn more about what moves others.
3)  We have to be willing to act on our new information, rather than fall back on our "gut".  This seems counter to what neuroscience is saying about the value of our intuition, but it really is not.

When you remove your old thinking and perceptions, make honest attempts to gather and absorb accurate information, and then decide, you are usually using an almost mystical blend of objectivity and subjectivity ... way better than JUST trusting your instincts:)

Thanks as always for stimulating my thinking.

John