Biblical Business Radical: Motivating the Aesthetics on Your Team

 According to TTI Success Insights (tm), there are 6 intrinsic motivators: Theoretical (Knowledge), Utilitarian (Utility), Aesthetics (Surroundings), Social (Others), Individualistic (Power),  and Traditional (Methodologies). Some of these we’ll easily understand. We’ve heard the clichés related to them: “What’s in it for me?” “I’m okay, you’re okay.” “What have you done for me lately?”

We’ll deal with each in time. We’re going to start with Aesthetics and their surroundings. Beauty and form influence their experience. The environment has to augment the experience. You’ll see people paying attention to room setup for meetings, lighting, colors of folders, etc. They’ll look for opportunities to be creative artistically—whether it’s artwork, music or presentations. TTI describes two continuums regarding Objectivity and Harmonious. Those deep on the Objectivity spectrum will want to reorder the elements creating chaos till it all fits a unified whole. It might be a project that’s collapsing. They can see the “beauty” and usefulness of each element and want to figure out how they connect with the other elements to achieve the goal. Harmonious people look for the “beauty” in the whole and how the whole is presented to the “audience.” 

Maybe this is where we see God motivating us collectively. Not only are we attracted to the beauty in creation but we’re reminded through Paul in various scriptures (1 Corinthians most notably) that individually we’re an “element,” a part of His body and we need to remember we cannot accomplish the goal or create an attractive draw for the “other Gentiles” if we don’t work together. It’s not good to have chaos—like in Acts when the Greek widows weren’t getting fed from the shared resources or disorganized teachings from various teachers (1 Corinthians 1). Or Christ noting that the whole chaotic, if/then, now/not now of the Law is fulfilled simply when we love God and love our neighbor. And others will know we are His when we love one another.

How are we doing with this in our organizations? How well do you know your Aesthetics and how much are you inviting them in to help you create beauty from the parts towards a unified experience for your customers?