“Drijfveren en gedrag” by Henk Breukink offers a profound exploration into the intrinsic motivations that drive human behavior. In this book, Breukink combines his 25 years of experience as an executive coach with his roles as an executive and non-executive, having spent most of his career at Shell and serving on supervisory boards at organizations like ING and InHolland. Disclaimer: this is not a neutral review, as I know Henk Breukink well and had the privilege to co-read his manuscript.
Breukink asserts that people lead a happy life when they align their jobs, relationships, and actions with their innate drives. These drives, more unconscious than the reasons people consciously attribute to their actions, serve as powerful energy sources directing behavior. The beauty is that this alignment also leads to organizations achieving better results. Based on solid scientific research, the book identifies three primary motives: Achievement, Affiliation, and Power, each with its own strengths and pitfalls.
The Achievement motive focuses on efficiency and results, emphasizing doing things yourself, being efficient, being content-driven, demanding to see results, being punctual. They interfere with everything, hate routines, are easily bored. It is important to note that they are not very interested in people. Their pitfalls are that they forget to communicate their achievements. They struggle to find their brakes, which can lead to stress or even burnout.
The Affiliation motive emphasizes relationships and empathy. These people are sensitive to their environments; they can read the energy in the room. They tend to give and find it harder to receive. Their pitfalls are that they easily take matters personally, which makes them vulnerable. They dislike confrontations and have to learn to set personal boundaries. They have a blind spot for results.
The Power motive, characterized by influence and charisma, is the most complicated one with four stages. Stage one is from others to self and is about contributing. Stage two is from self to self and is about being in control, impressing others, even controlling them, being independent. Being nice is perceived as a weakness by Stage two people. Beukink thinks that Donald Trump is an example. Stage three is about charisma, achieving results by influencing others, bringing the organization to a higher level. Stage four is altruistic, making the world a better place. The pitfall of this motive is forgetting to check if your inspiring story actually lands and leads to concrete actions.
Breukink argues that recognizing one’s own motivational profile, which remains stable after the age of twenty, is crucial for personal and professional growth. He critiques common self-reporting tests, advocating instead for a specific scientifically validated assessment to accurately measure the three drives. Self-reporting does not work in his view because people’s self-knowledge is poor. He notes that personal perception aligns only 20% with measured results, with women generally knowing themselves better than men.
Breukink highlights that while people can suppress their drives, they cannot eliminate them, and tapping into these latent energies can lead to more authentic behavior. Sometimes people don’t use their motives because they feel uncomfortable with them. For example, Dutch people, particularly women, often suppress their Power motive due to the Dutch egalitarian culture, exacerbated by female humility. However, this can be reactivated, allowing original energy to flow and leading to more authentic behavior. Breukink describes the relief felt by women he coached when they accepted that using their influence would benefit them.
The book delves into the dynamics of different motivational profiles within relationships and teams, stressing that no single profile is superior. Breukink underscores the necessity of aligning roles with individual profiles for optimal performance, noting that organizational culture cannot change without adjusting the motivational composition of key positions. “Drijfveren en gedrag” is a compelling read for anyone interested in the deeper psychological forces that shape leadership and organizational effectiveness.
Henk Breukink. Drijfveren & gedrag. Wat motiveert jou echt? VMN media, 2025