1. Communications strategies can promote and enhance the evolution of a shared purpose. Psychological approaches like transactional analysis and Shapetalk can help transform the ways group members communicate and interact with one another, which in turn promotes an alignment of goals, strategies, and values. Using channels of communication, leaders can inspire group members to take responsibility for their role, exercising assertiveness and engendering trust and mutual support. Similarly, leaders can use techniques like Rock’s SCARF model, which defines the five domains of social behavior such as Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness (“David Rock’s SCARF Model,” n.d.). The SCARF model, like other psycho-social approaches to communication like Cialdini’s 6 Principles of Persuasion can be implemented in ways that help individuals identify the sources of stress, discomfort, or perceived threats, and to react constructively to manifest the shared purpose, solidifying it and making it strong (“Principles of Persuasion,” n.d.).

Alternative methods of promoting communication in a shared purpose scenario include the use of a persuasion box. Like a role playing scenario, a persuasion box can shake up the static group dynamics and encourage individuals to react differently from their conditioned patterns. The leader should ideally also consider the Belbin model, which demonstrates team diversity in terms of behavioral clusters but also roles.

The Belbin roles should not be viewed as fixed, but flexible, yet each person may exhibit the traits of one or more of the roles such as the investigator, the coordinator, the specialist, and the plant. These models help to identify communications problems early, helping to create a harmonious team dynamic particularly effective for making a shared purpose goal real and strong.

2. My communications skills have improved exponentially since applying the tools and models that highlight shared purpose objectives. For example, transactional analysis has helped me to cultivate a more conscientious approach in one-on-one interactions. Assertiveness, Shapetalk, and inspiration plus channels of communication have also been instrumental...

My strengths include empathy and strong active listening, while my weaknesses include developing assertiveness without aggressiveness.
Because empathy is a strong suit, I have excelled at employee engagement. Empowering employees is a strategy that I continue to use to inspire engagement and dedication. I also appreciate using communication techniques that recognize the unique gifts and talents of each person. Tools I have used to stimulate awareness of diversity int he group include the Belbin role model.

To overcome my weaknesses with assertiveness, I have taken the persuasion boxes more seriously. This method, along with transactional analysis and Shapetalk, have allowed me to evolve my communications skills in a safe and supportive environment, but I still need to apply what I have learned to the real world. To this end, the SCARF Reward and Threat model proves critical.

The SCARF Reward and Threat model has shown me why I shut down in some situations, and why I can suddenly exhibit signs of irritability or anger in others. Understanding how I perceive threats using this model, I have been much more cognizant of how to improve my communication with colleagues and team members in a shared purpose scenario.

3. Root theories of motivation such as Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model, Frederick Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory, or Motivation-Hygiene Theory, and the Hawthorne effect are all relevant and applicable in the workplace. The needs hierarchy and the Herzberg Two-Factor theory are in fact easily relatable, as both show how people ultimately are not motivated by extrinsic rewards like salary and other financial benefits but need the intrinsic factors like a feeling of meaning and fulfillment in their work.

Different situations will require the use of different motivators, though. At first, employees may need extrinsic motivation to change their behavior. Later, those same employees will react differently to extrinsic motivators and need to switch to the intrinsic factors.

Factors also change in different teams, according to their composition but also environmental factors, as the Hawthorne effect shows.…