From a desk in Schwyz

You can read about motives in books. You can take the Reiss Motivation Profile® at home or in a workshop. So why a website, a daily post, a publicly named mission?

Because the popular language of motivation still rests on a single-drive picture — the one Reiss spent decades dismantling. "Find your purpose." "Unlock your potential." "Build resilience." Each phrase sounds harmless. Each one quietly tells the listener: the problem is you. Be more driven, more focused, more adaptable.

The sixteen-motive view says something different. The strength of your motives is not the problem. The misfit between motive profile and role is the problem. The work is not to develop you. The work is to read what is already there — accurately — and decide what to do with the fit and the misfit it shows.

That distinction is small in words and large in consequences. It changes how leaders hire, how HR teams design roles, how schools read children, how people understand their own tiredness. It also changes who is asked to carry the cost of misfit — instead of the individual carrying it alone, the role and the system become part of the conversation.

That is what this site is for.

I do not paraphrase the Value Statements from the Reiss Motivation Profile®. The IDS wording is the source — I quote it, I do not improve it. The discipline matters because motives carry cultural baggage (Power, Family, Honor, Vengeance, Independence) that the value sentence cuts through. Paraphrasing makes the cut soft. Soft is wrong.

I do not guess other people's motive profiles. Not yours, not a leader I read about, not a public figure whose behaviour looks "strong-Power" or "weak-Order" from the outside. A profile is something a person takes and reads — not something I diagnose from a distance.

I do not use current clients as examples. Confidentiality is not a marketing constraint. It is part of why mentor work is possible at all.

I do not pretend the work always lands. Some readings hit a wall — the role cannot be redesigned, the person cannot move, the system is stuck. In those cases the work shifts: from "fix the misfit" to "name the cost honestly, decide what to carry, what to put down."

That is the kind of honesty I can offer. Not a promise. A practice.

Three principles, named concretely.

Both poles count. A strong need for a motive is not a virtue. A weak need is not a deficiency. The literature on personality has been picking favourites for a century — extraversion over introversion, agreeableness over disagreeableness, "growth mindset" over its imagined opposite. The sixteen-motive view refuses this. A weak need for Order is as legitimate as a strong one. A strong need for Vengeance — "I value confrontation, competition, and winning" — is as legitimate as a weak one. What matters is not the value of the motive. It is the fit between motive and role.

Read before you intervene. Most management advice starts with the intervention — a workshop, a programme, a one-to-one frame. The reading comes after, or never. I work the other way around. The Reiss Motivation Profile® comes first. The conversation about what to do with the reading comes second. The intervention, if any, comes third.

Quote, don't improve. Value Statements are quoted from the IDS source, not improved by me. The wording is precise for a reason: cultural noise around "Power", "Family", "Vengeance" can override the reader's understanding unless the value sentence cuts through. The discipline is small. The effect on what a reader actually hears is large.

These are not values to admire. They are checks I run on the work.

The standard line is that we live in a world of constant change, and the work is to stay ahead of it. I take a different position. The fundamental questions in motive work have not changed in decades. The vocabulary and tools around them have.

The language turns over fast. "Talent management" replaces "HR" replaces "personnel administration". "Coaching" replaces "counselling" replaces "guidance". "AI agents" replace "expert systems" replace "decision support". Each new vocabulary promises a sharper view of the human in the role. Most of them deliver a flatter one.

The Reiss Motivation Profile® has not added or removed a motive since Reiss completed the research. Sixteen then, sixteen now. What has changed is the role design around them — the meetings, the tools, the rituals, the AI interfaces. My work is to read whether the new role design still leaves room for the same motive profile that the people in it actually have.

What I test before I adopt anything new:

Does it make the motive reading sharper, or does it dress the motive reading up in newer fashion?
Does it ask the person to develop new motives, or does it design the role around the motives they already have?
Does it replace a hard question with a soft answer?
If the answer to the third is yes, the tool is not innovation. It is decoration.

"Passion for positive change" — every consultant's website says this. Every mentor's website says this. Even some banks now say it. The word has been used so often it has become a faded sticker.

I prefer to say less, with more substance.

I worked for forty years on change mandates. Some of them changed real things. Many changed the brand name of what stayed the same. The difference between them was never the passion of the consultants involved. The difference was whether someone in the room could read the motive architecture of the team that would have to carry the change through — and whether the strategy had been designed with that reading in mind.

What I bring is not passion. It is a habit of reading, refined over four decades, that I now make available to leaders, HR teams, and individuals through the Reiss Motivation Profile®.

Change happens when motive profile and role design fit. Where they fit, change does not need a sales pitch. Where they do not fit, no amount of passion will close the gap.