Home › Consulting › Motivation & Company Decoded
Consulting · Motivation & Company Decoded

Every company has
an invisible DNA.

What people are driven by, and what the organisation lets them do about it. We make both readable — so you stop guessing why good ideas stall.

Motivation Decoded

From potential to performance.

Two people can do the same job well and be driven by entirely different things. One needs room to decide, the other needs the ground to be solid before they move. Neither is a weakness — but manage them the same way and you will lose one of them.

Motivation Decoded reads which of the 16 motives are strong in a person, which are weak, and what that means for how they want to be led. The combination is what makes it individual: sixteen motives produce billions of possible profiles.

16
individual motives
Billions
of possible profiles
360°
optional feedback layer
Tino, celebrating
6 of 16

Six examples. There are sixteen motives.

Everyone carries all sixteen — what differs is how strongly, and a motive only shows in behaviour once it is unusually strong or unusually weak. The interesting part is never the single motive: it is the combination of all sixteen, which is what makes a profile individual. Sixteen motives, billions of possible profiles.

Tino in boxing gloves
Physical exercise
Tap to read
Physical exercise

Needs to move to think. Sits badly through long meetings, comes back from a walk with the answer, and quietly suffers in a job that keeps them in a chair.

Tap to close
Tino in a red convertible wearing sunglasses
Status
Tap to read
Status

Wants standing to be visible. Title, seat at the table and outward signals matter more here than to the person next door — and are cheap to give when you know it matters.

Tap to close
Tino blushing amid praise
Social acceptance
Tap to read
Social acceptance

Wants approval from the people who matter to them. Genuine praise fuels them; silence gets read as criticism, even when none was meant.

Tap to close
Tino pointing the way with a checklist
Influence
Tap to read
Influence

Wants things to move. Prefers to be in the room when direction is set, but the real trigger is a decision that keeps getting postponed — nothing drains this person faster than a topic left open.

Tap to close
Tino with a steak and a glass of red wine
Food enjoyment
Tap to read
Food enjoyment

Food and drink are not fuel, they are life. And not only the eating: the thinking about it, the talking about it, the new recipe, the table set properly. A rushed sandwich at the desk costs you something here.

Tap to close
Tino with glasses, surrounded by stacks of books
Curiosity
Tap to read
Curiosity

Wants to truly understand things. Reads the whole document, asks "why" more often than is comfortable, and needs something new to chew on — otherwise the job gets boring.

Tap to close
+ 10 further motives A full profile reads all sixteen together — how they rank against each other is the finding, not any one card above.
The sweet spot

Where motive meets strength.

Motivation Decoded pairs with Strengths Decoded — strengths, gaps and abilities, including 360° feedback. When a person's motives meet their actual strengths, full potential unfolds. That overlap is where we put people, and it is usually a different place than the org chart suggests.

On the diagonal, motive and strength line up. This is where full potential unfolds.
Below it, the drive is there but the ability isn't yet. A development question, not a hiring one.
Above it, someone can do it but doesn't want to. Reliable this year, gone the next.
Motive × strength — one example profile
Strength →
1 2 3 4 5 6
Motive →
1 Curiosity × Analytical thinking
sweet spot
2 Social acceptance × Communication
sweet spot
3 Influence × Self-assurance
wants it, can't yet
4 Physical exercise × Discipline
capable, not driven
5 Status × Problem solving
wants it, can't yet
6 Food enjoyment × Adaptability
sweet spot
Where it gets used
Leadership development Team composition Conflict work Career conversations Onboarding Retention

From late 2026 the profiles live in our own platform, alongside sweet spot, skills and course history.

Innovation Climate Check

How innovative is your company, really?

Eight questions about how your organisation behaves on an ordinary Tuesday. No email, no signup — answer honestly rather than aspirationally.

Mini version: This check is a teaser, not the scientifically validated full version. It gives a first direction — the robust diagnostic runs on the complete instrument inside a project.

Four things decide whether ideas survive here.

Room to act, how failure gets discussed, how fast an idea can be tested, and how close anyone is to a real customer. Two questions each.

8 questions · about 2 minutes · nothing stored
🔓
Room to act
How much people may decide themselves
🔁
Learning culture
What happens after something goes wrong
⚡
Process speed
How fast an idea gets tested
👂
Customer contact
How close anyone is to a real user

What the full analysis adds

The check above asks you. The real work asks everyone, then compares the answers — because the gap between how leadership sees the system and how teams experience it is usually the finding.

Everyone answers, not just you

Leadership, middle management and teams — surveyed separately, then compared.

The gaps become visible

Where perception splits by level or department is usually where the friction sits.

Motives alongside structure

What drives your people, read next to what the organisation permits them to do.

A concrete plan

We leave you with the two or three changes worth making first, not a 60-page report.

Company Decoded Report · 312 responses · 5 departments
Overview By department Motives
Goal
Innovation & change readiness
58 / 100 fit
Sales R&D Ops Service IT Target Autonomy 72 81 38 45 64 high Solution orientation 78 74 55 69 58 high Rule adherence 41 35 88 76 62 balanced Clear goal communication 52 44 61 48 39 high Learning from mistakes 66 71 34 52 47 high
on target close below target works against the goal
01
Goal communication is the weakest line in the house. Cheapest lever, and it lifts every row below it.
02
Ops and Service: rigid rules, little room to act — the exact pairing that stalls change.
03
R&D already matches the target profile. Treat it as the reference model, not the exception.
Excerpt from a Company Decoded report — illustrative figures.

Curious what your teams would answer?

Bring us your result and we'll tell you what we'd look at first — in a free 30 minutes, no deck required.

+49 521 2997 373 · info@innoct.de · Meisenstraße 96, 33607 Bielefeld