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DOING THE GATR ROCK©:

MOTIVATING YOUR CUSTOMERS AND EMPLOYEES

A Presentation for the Customers of ACNielson

by
John C. Mowen, Ph.D.

Helsinki, Finland, April 24, 2001

John Mowen holds the Noble Chair of Marketing Strategy, Oklahoma State University,
Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA, 74078. He can be reached at: johnmowen@provalue.net.
Doing the GATR ROCK©: Motivating Your Customers and Employees
Speech for ACNielson, Helsinki, Finland, April 24, 2001
John C. Mowen, Ph.D.

First, I would like to thank Päivi Kauppinen and ACNielson for inviting me to speak to

you today. This is my first trip to Finland, and I hope that it is not my last. Your country is

beautiful.
Prior to coming to Finland, I did some research on your country. On the Virtual Finland

web site, I learned a number of interesting facts. First, I discovered that the population is a little

over 5 million people, which is about the same as my home state of Oklahoma. I also found that

Nokia transformed itself from a natural resources company to the leading provider in the world
of cellular phones in less than 10 years–incredible!! Finally, I learned about the famous people

from Finland, such as Jean Sibelius and Linus Torvalds. Most importantly, I discovered that

Santa Claus comes from Finland.

But, I am here to talk about motivation, not Santa Claus. In fact, I hope to accomplish 3

goals in the next 40 minutes or so. First, I will provide you with what I believe are the 8

fundamental axioms of motivation. These axioms provide a framework for understanding how

to obtain maximum performance from employees and maximum brand commitment from

customers. In addition, the axioms identify the characteristics of the highly motivated person.

Second, I will show how the axioms can be employed to help you listen to your customers–

which is the theme of this conference. Third, I will show you how these axioms can be put to

practical use to positively influence your customers and your employees.

Before launching into my work on motivation, why do I want to link the ideas to both

employees and customers? The answer is that you cannot please your customers unless you

please your employees. Conversely, if you have not pleased your customers, you will have

unhappy employees. Motivating customers and employees go hand in hand.

 Background Information
Prior to presenting the eight axioms of motivational mastery, let me provide some

background information. In 1993, I published a book with Simon & Schuster entitled Judgment

Calls: High Stakes Decisions in a Risky World. Until the publication of this book, my career had

focused on understanding how people make decisions. In the process of writing Judgment Calls,

I interviewed all sorts of high stakes decisions makers–such as the Head of the U.S. Joint Chiefs

of Staff. What I found was that emotions and motivational needs dramatically influenced

decision making. This revelation caused me to change the direction of my career and to move

from the study of decision making to the study of motivation and personality.

For the next six years, I devoted my research life to identifying the characteristics of the

highly motivated person. Last year, I published with Kluwer Academic Press a book that

presents my theory, which is called The 3M Model of Motivation and Personality. This book

developed my theory of motivation and reported 17 research studies that tested the model.

As a professor in a business college, I wanted to communicate what I have learned to the

business community. I quickly learned, however, that the dry academic ideas did not go over

very well. Frankly, when executives heard me talk about comparators, schemas, structural

equation modeling, and so forth, they quickly went to sleep.

After recognizing this problem, I took another approach and began analyzing the ideas of

well-known motivational gurus (like Stephen Covey, Zig Ziglar and Anthony Robbins). Some

people, particularly academicians, discount the ideas and advice of people like Zig Ziglar. One

cannot, however, scoff at their success. These individuals have sold millions of books and attract

tens of thousands of people to hear their speeches. Based upon these results, there must be

something to what they are saying. As a result, I did a content analysis of the motivational

principles identified by 22 of these motivational gurus. The content analysis revealed that their

ideas can be boiled down to eight basic, fundamental axioms.

Importantly, the axioms are completely consistent with the tenets of the 3M Model.

When one gets the same answer through two very different research approaches, the confidence

in the veracity of the answer increases dramatically. Bottom line–because they are so

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fundamental, the 8 axioms provide the basic principles for motivating yourself, your employees,

and your customers.

In order to help others, and most importantly myself, remember the 8 axioms, I have

adopted the acronym GATR ROCK© as a mnemonic device. In fact, I am thinking of creating a

GATR ROCK© symbol of an alligator standing on a boulder wearing sun glasses and holding an

electric guitar. Now, I have to admit that the acronym is a little fruity. But let me ask you this.

How many of you have read the book by Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective

People? Worldwide, it sold millions of copies, and has been translated into myriad languages.

Yet, when I ask people who have read the book to list the 7 habits, they can usually only

remember 2 or 3. I guarantee that at the end of my talk, you will be able to remember GATR

ROCK© and the 8 axioms of motivational mastery.

GATR ROCK©: The Eight Axioms of Motivational Mastery

One of the current professional goals is to understand the characteristics of the highly

motivated person. So, how would you know a highly motivated person even if you encountered

him or her. One place to look is in the lists of famous people. For my talk here, I considered a

number of famous people. For example, there is our ex-President Bill Clinton. While he is

famous, Mr. Clinton’s motivational style is not what I was looking for. Then, I thought--why not

use Santa Claus. Because he is known for his heroics throughout the world, he is the perfect

exemplar. So, here goes my lighthearted exploration into GATR ROCK© and Santa as the

highly motivated person.

Santa Claus and the GATR ROCK© Axioms
Axiom 1. Set high goals. Santa’s ambitious goal is to drive a sled, pulled by 8 tiny
reindeer, all over the world, to break into homes, to consume cookies and milk at
each stop, and to place toys around countless Christmas trees for children.
Axiom 2. Take Action. Santa has little time to visit all these kids’ homes. He must act and
act fast. He cannot dilly-dally around. He must give maximum effort.
Axiom 3. Do Tasks Well. To accomplish his goal, Santa must complete a series of tasks,
including: reading a huge amount of mail, producing all of the toys, matching
the toys to the right kids, and then completing delivery by dawn.

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Axiom 4. Take Responsibility. Santa knows that no one else would attempt this massive
job, he does it every year, and he knows that he is accountable for the results. He
knows that if something goes wrong, parents will blame it on him.
Axiom 5. Cultivate Your Resources. Santa efficiently uses the 4 fundamental resources.
He takes case of his social resources–his elves and reindeer. He efficiently uses
material resources–his sled and all of the stuff necessary to produce the toys. He
effectively uses information resources to track who gets what. Finally, despite
looking overweight, he must take care of his body resources or he would not be
able to work for 24 consecutive hours.
Axiom 6. Be Optimistic. You can just hear his sanguine outlook in his jolly Ho, Ho, Ho.
Axiom 7. Seek Creativity. To produce all the different toys for millions of kids takes
incredible originality.
Axiom 8. Know Thyself and Thy Customers. Santa knows his customers. He keeps track
of whether kids are naughty or nice and is even able to give them what they want.
In sum, Santa Claus provides an exemplar of a person that has achieved motivational

mastery. I should ad that using Santa Claus as my example of motivational mastery has a

number of advantages. He will not die. He demonstrates every year his drive to succeed. And,

foremost, he will never succumb to the sins of the flesh like Bill Clinton, drunkenly drive a

Mercedes into a tree like Mike Tyson, try to pick up a prostitute like the actor–Hugh Grant, or be

charged with firing a gun in a dance club like Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs.

Let me give one final word of warning, however, about my Santa Claus analogy. I am

not saying that we should treat our customers like Mr. Claus does his. Santa does not have to

make a profit. What I am saying is that this cultural icon is one highly motivated dude.

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 GATR ROCK© and Listening to Your Customers

The theme of this conference is “Does Anybody Hear the Consumer?” Well, let me ask another question.

As managers and researchers, do we know what we are listening for?

To answer this question, I will use another strange analogy. You are probably familiar with the SETI

project. SETI stands for “Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.” For this project a group of scientists has set up

an array of radio telescopes that comb the heavens for radio signals that show signs of having originated from alien

intelligent beings. There are many communications issues that must be solved in this search for alien life forms via

radio telescopes. In particular, which of the millions of radio frequency channels do we use? Further, if we hear

something, it could be millions of years old because the senders are millions of light years away in space. By the

time we respond, the aliens may have moved or even disappeared. There is also the possibility that there are multiple

groups of aliens out there each using different radio frequencies.

Let us pretend that our customers are aliens attempting to communicate with us. Like

aliens, our customers are hard to find, difficult to communicate with, and possess needs that we

do not understand. Further, it takes time to listen, time to decipher what we receive, and time to

respond. There are different groups of customers telling us different things through different

channels. Finally, do we even know what to listen for?

As it turns out, GATR ROCK© tells us what to listen for and how to identify the

different groups of customers. To illustrate the idea, let’s imagine that we are listening to our

customers talk about preparing the large meal of the day. Each GATR ROCK© axiom is like a

channel through which we gather information.

1. Goal channel. What are our customers goals? Is it a healthy diet; a tasty, hearty meal; a

quick, easy to prepare meal, or some other end state. Probe to identify segments with

different goals.

2 Action channel. Activities are the micro-steps that must be performed in order to accomplish

tasks, such as using tools, moving from place to place, thinking, observing, and

communicating. What activities do they like or dislike doing when cooking–e.g., using tools

to dice vegetables, standing over a hot stove. Can we help reduce the effort required to

prepare the meal?

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3. Task channel. What tasks can our product help them accomplish? Some tasks include:

planning a menu, shopping for food, preparing food for cooking, and cooking the food. Can

we do some of these tasks? How can we help the consumer do the tasks better?

4. Responsibility channel. Do consumers worry about the responsibility and risk of meal

preparation. How can we reduce these risks?

5. Resource channel. What resources do they need to prepare a meal? What material (i.e.,

utensils, equipment, etc.), social, information, and body resources can we provide?

6. Optimism channel. How optimistic are consumers about the success of the meal? What can

we do to improve the mood state of our customers and their optimism for success.

7. Creativity channel. Do our customers worry about creating new and different meals? How

can we help them be more innovative in their meal preparation.

8. Knowledge of customer channel. Do we know the personality and motives of our

customers?

The assessment of consumer motives through the channels of the 8 axioms provides

guidance for conducting marketing research. Whether you employ depth interviews, focus

groups, or survey research studies, the 8 axioms provide a basis for formulating questions. Once

we have this information we can create products and services that can fulfill these needs of our

customers. In addition, it will give us information on how to communicate our products and

services to our customers.

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 GATR ROCK© and Motivating Employees

Because of their generality, the GATR ROCK© axioms can be employed as a guide for

motivating employees as well customers. The following is a short story that illustrates this

application of the axioms. The story is taken from a forthcoming book written by myself and

Keith Murnighan--a colleague at Northwestern University. The book will be published in

October by Wiley Trade Press and is titled, The Art of High Stakes Decision Making.

The Case of New York Brewpub

Put yourself in the shoes of Rob Bronson. You are 36 years old and have just received the

national entrepreneur of the year award. You and your partner have successfully opened 27 New

York Brewpubs in the last nine years. Each day you worked at the original brewpub serving

customers and making beer. It is 1995, and investment bankers are at your door, wanting you to

take your company public so that they can make you rich.

In 1986, you left a position as a senior analyst on Wall Street to pursue your dream of

successfully developing a restaurant chain. You and your partner, Paul Springfield, make a great

team. You favor a conservative approach to growth while Paul, a natural marketer, constantly

pushes you to grow faster. Your decisions so far have been phenomenally successful. Your

strategy of carefully growing by 3 pubs a year has really paid off.

Now that you have won this big award, however, the competitive environment in the

brewing industry is changing. Investment bankers are interested in other brewpubs, including

Manhattan Brewpub, Big Apple, California Brewpub, Big City Brewpub, and Simpsons. There

is a chance that each company may announce public offerings this year. You realize that within

a one-year period, there may be $300 to $400 million investment dollars flowing into brewpubs.

Now, you are faced with a classic tough call. Do you continue your strategy of avoiding

serious debt and slowly growing your company or do you go public and exponentially grow your

company as the investment bankers propose? You face a soon-to-close window of threat and

opportunity. If you continue your present strategy of slow growth, your more highly capitalized

competitors could invade your territory and potentially drive you out of business. If you follow

the investment bankers’ advice and double the number of New York Brewpubs each year for

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four consecutive years, you could potentially make several million dollars but it will also place

extreme demands on your managerial ability. Either choice could mean great success or dismal

failure. You only have a few weeks to make the decision. Once your competitors go public, you

may not get a second chance.

Rob Bronson and his partner had only a few weeks to make their decision. They worried

that if they failed to act they would fall behind the power curve. That is, their competitors would

become so well capitalized that no matter how hard they tried, or how well they made their

future decisions, they would be unable to compete effectively. To stay ahead of the curve, they

would have to make the investment. Yet, there was an incredible downside to the high growth

strategy. If the strategy failed they could lose it all. A failing scenario was easy to develop.

They knew that in order to grow, they would have to open numerous brewpubs. This would

require moving from franchising their restaurants to having them company owned. Could they

find managers that shared their vision and drive? Could they motivate them to perform at the

same levels as their franchisers who had their own money tied to the success or failure of their

restaurants?

They faced a tremendously tough call, one that presented them with a true decision dilemma.

If you were Rob Bronson, what would you do?

Well, what happened to Rob Bronson and his partner and New York Brewpubs? After

making a small public offering of stock, they paid the investment bankers and retired their debt

of $3 million. This left them with $15 million for expansion. They began opening pubs but

quickly realized that it was extremely difficult to find suitable properties in the fast growing

industry. Over the next three years, they opened as many pubs as their experience and sound

judgment indicated. By 1998, they had 67 locations.

Early in 1999, however, the industry started collapsing as competitor after competitor

entered the market. For example, in Dallas the number of brewpubs increased from 3 to 40 in

two and a half years. There was almost complete devastation for what was an emerging brewpub

industry. In early 1999, there were about 8,000 brewpubs. By 2000, the number had been cut in

half. Unfortunately, New York Brewpub was caught in the carnage. In 2000, the company went

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bankrupt. In the end, every publicly traded brewpub company either went bankrupt or was

purchased at distressed prices by another firm. Paul Springfield is now running a dining room for

a university. Rob Bronson is a consultant for small companies, counseling them on how to grow

and manage risk.

GATR ROCK© and New York Brewpub

The 8 axioms have much to say about the motivation of Rob Bronson, his partner,

and the managers of the company stores that were opened. Let’s systematically investigate the

situation from the perspective of GATR ROCK©.

 Goals. After the public offering, Rob’s goals changed. Prior to the offering, his goal was

grow the company slowly and carefully, pleasing himself. After the offering, his

goal shifted to growing fast and pleasing the investment bankers.

 Activities. After the public offering his daily activities shifted from serving customers

and managing a few individuals whom he had known for years to talking to

investors, traveling extensively, and managing a fast growing company. He

quickly realized that he did not enjoy these new activities as much as what he was

doing before.
Tasks. The tasks that he had to complete changed dramatically. For example, previously

employees in the organization had bought franchises from Rob and his partner.

Now, he had to recruit unknown individuals to work for him in company-owned

stores. Similarly, a major new task was turning out quarterly reports for investors

and meeting the earnings expectations of the investors. A key question was

whether he had the task skills required to make the undertaking successful.
Responsibility. Previously, he was accountable only to himself and his partner. Now, he was

accountable to investors and many more employees.

Resources. While Rob now had more material resources with which to work, he actually had

fewer social, information, and body resources. His social resources decreased

because he did not have personal ties to the new managers that he hired.

Information resources decreased because he was in an unfamiliar ball game of

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 managing a public company. Finally, the demands of the new job were taking a

toll on his body resources as well.

Optimism. Prior to going public, he and his partner were highly optimistic about the growth

pattern and success of their business. After going public, the work load and the

pressure of growing very fast caused optimism to fade.

Creativity. Seemingly, the ability to find novel solutions to problems decreased after going

public as well. The stress and pressure of meeting the demands of investment

bankers decreased innovativeness.

Knowledge of Self and Others. Prior to going public, brewpubs were opened in known

markets by people known to Rob. After going public, they had to go into

unknown markets with unknown people. In addition, he did not have a good

understanding of how much he would like taking a company public.

The GATR ROCK© axioms help to explain the motivational causes of the failure of the New

York Brewpub enterprise. When combined with a changing environment in which the market

was saturated with competitors, the endeavor was doomed to fail.

Knowing Your Customers and Employees

Axiom 8 tells us to know our customers and employees. This can be accomplished by

careful observation and empathy. In addition, traditional marketing research methods can be

employed to gather data on their demographic, psychographic, and personality characteristics

along with their job satisfaction or brand and company commitment. In the last 10 minutes of

my talk, I am going to present a brief overview of the 3M Model of Motivation and Personality,

and show you the results of two studies–one on customers and one on employees.

Overview of the 3M Model

The 3M Model is a meta-theory that combines elements of evolutionary psychology, control

theory, and hierarchical personality models to provide an understanding of the relationship

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among personality, motivation, and behavior. The model is derived from four basic concepts.

The Basic Principles of the 3M Model

1. Personality traits represent enduring dispositions to behave.

2. Personality traits act as reference points for guiding behavior.

3. Traits are organized into a 4-level hierarchy based upon their level of abstraction.

4. Multiple traits act together to influence behavior.

The 4- level hierarchy is a critical aspect of the 3M Model. The four levels and their

definitions are described below.

Elemental traits are the underlying dispositions to act based upon genetics and early

learning history. There are eight elemental traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness,

extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, material needs, arousal needs, and physical needs.

They can be remembered by the acronym: OCEAN MAP.

Compound traits are the enduring dispositions to act resulting from the effects of elemental

traits, learning history, and culture. Examples are: need for achievement, competitiveness,

need for activity, self-efficacy, altruism, and future time orientation.

Situational traits are the general dispositions to act within broad job situational contexts. In

the consumer domain they include: health motivation, value consciousness, and general

product innovativeness. In the employee domain, they include: job resourcefulness,

productivity orientation, and career orientation.

Surface traits are the narrowly based dispositions to act within specific behavioral contexts.

In the consumer domain, they include healthy diet lifestyles or exercise propensity and

complaint propensity. In the employee domain, they include customer orientation and

organizational citizenship.

The power of the 3M Model is that because of its hierarchical nature, it can predict behavior

much more successfully than traditional personality models. This occurs for two reasons. First,

the situational and surface traits account for the effects of the press of the situational

environment as well as the impact of more basic elemental and compound traits. Second, the

model employs multiple traits to predict and understand behavior, rather than single traits acting

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in isolation from each other.

An Application of the 3M Model to Consumer Behavior

In my research, I have employed to 3M Model to understand a variety of consumer

behaviors, including bargaining proneness, sports participation, and healthy diet lifestyles.

Appendix III provides a diagram of the motivational network of traits predictive of healthy diet

lifestyles, which is defined as the enduring disposition to reduce fat and sugar in the diet and to

eat three well-balanced meals each day. These data were obtained from a consumer panel and is

based upon the responses of about 226 men and women. Each variable was measured by four or

more items using nine-point scales. Structural equation modeling was employed to obtain the

path diagram. The motivational network is composed of all traits that are connected either

directly or indirectly with the surface trait. In this case the motivational network is composed of:

health motivation, health innovativeness, self-efficacy, need for body resources,

conscientiousness, emotional stability, extroversion, and need for arousal (negative relation).

Importantly, the motivational network can be employed to identify segments of customers.

This was done, and Appendix IV provides the results. Four clusters were identified: healthy

eaters, cautious dieters, moody dieters, and couch potatoes. The healthy eaters were particularly

noted for being high in health motivation, health innovativeness, self-efficacy, need for body

resources, conscientiousness, and emotional stability.

My research is showing that advertising messages can be built around the more basic traits

that lead to the surface traits. For example, in another study we found that people who bargain

hard for prices are highly competitive. We then created advertisements that had either high or

low competitiveness themes. Consumers who liked to bargain responded better to the ads

employing the high competitiveness message. Conversely, those who did not like to bargain

responded better to the low competitiveness message.

An Application to Employee Motivation

My colleagues Tom Brown, Jane Licata, Todd Donovan, and Eric Harris and I are using the

3M Model to investigate employee motivation. We employ the same methodology as used in the

consumer studies to develop motivational networks of traits that predict high performing

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employees. For example, we have found that the surface trait of productivity orientation predicts

the sales of real estate agents but not customer satisfaction. Interestingly, customer orientation

predicts customer satisfaction but not sales. However, both productivity orientation and

customer orientation predict self-rated performance. Furthermore, a mixed set of variables is

predictive of productivity and of customer orientation. We are now beginning to apply the

results of this research to the training and selection of employees.

Summary and Conclusions

Well, we have come a long way in the last 40 minutes. I have proposed 8 Axioms of

Motivational Mastery. The acronym, GATR ROCK© , was created to help you (and me)

remember the principles. I have suggested that the axioms provide channels through which you

can listen to your customers and your employees. I have suggested that by following GATR

ROCK©, you can motivate your employees and your customers. In addition, the principles can

be employed as a pathway to self motivation as well. Finally, I gave a very brief example of

how the 3M Model can be employed to measure the motivational network of customers and

employees.

There are two reasons why you should remember the GATR ROCK© axioms. First, I am

convinced that they are basic to understanding how to motivate your employees, your customers,

and yourself. Second, they provide a structure for thinking and living. Pilots and astronauts

have checklists of procedures for performing important tasks, like landing an aircraft. Similarly,

the 8 axioms provide a checklist for achieving motivational mastery.

In closing, let me answer one of the questions that I am frequently asked. That is, among the

8 axioms which is most important. One approach to answering is to turn to famous quotations.

For example, Thomas Edison focused on the role of effort when he said, “Genius is one percent

inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” This advice is tempered, however, by the

wisdom of Benjamin Franklin, who said, “Never confuse motion with action.” He is absolutely

correct when he cleverly suggested that just because you see lots of activity, it does not mean

that anything is happening.

Both of these quotes, and many others like them, focus on the second GATR ROCK© axiom

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“take action.” But I would like to suggest that Sir Edmund Hilary, who was the first to conquer

Mount Everest, may have had it right when he said: “Nobody climbs mountains for scientific

reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of

it.”

Hilary climbed mountains because he loved the task. When people have a passion for and a

love of completing a particular task, they become highly motivated. As a result, they will give

high effort, they will set high goals, they will take responsibility, and so forth. Thus if you select

employees who love to perform the tasks that compose their job, they will be highly motivated to

excel. Similarly, if you produce a good or service that outperforms the competition in helping

consumers complete tasks that are important to them, they will beat down your door for it.

So, what do we do in order to hear our customers and motivate our employees? We do the

GATR ROCK©.

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 Appendix I
©
GATR ROCK & Customer and Employee Motivation
John C. Mowen, Copyright 2001
Axioms Customer Implications Employee Implications
1. Set Tell customers your product/service
Challenging goals, which sets their expectations for
Goals the performance of your good or
service. Know your customers’ goals.
2. Encourage Encourage your customers to take
Action action to purchase your product by
eliminating as many action barriers as
possible. Know what actions
customers like and dislike.
3. Do Tasks Show customers how your product
Well will help them accomplish their tasks.
Show them that your product
accomplishes tasks better than the
competition.
4. Accept Accept responsibility for identifying &
Responsibility satisfying customer needs. Take
responsibility for problems.
5. Cultivate Act to protect and enhance customer
Resources resources. Create social bonds.
Protect customers’ body and material
resources. Give information needed
by customers to buy and use product.
6. Encourage Act to create positive mood state
Optimism among customers. Create belief
among customers that your product
will solve their problem.
7. Seek Design goods and services that solve
Creativity problems in an innovative way.
Always maintain creative spark in
assisting customers.
8. Know thy Understand customer motivational
Customers and needs, their problems, and their likes
Employees and dislikes.
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Provide employees with a challenging
vision for the organization. Ensure that
employees understand their customers’
goals.
Set expectations for and reward high
effort. Avoid punishing mistakes made
through proaction. Encourage
responsible risk taking and actions that
will serve customers.
Clearly define job tasks. Set standards
for task execution and train employees
to do tasks. Provide feedback. Create
flow. Require tasks to be done on time.
Train to provide task skills.
Hold employees accountable for their
performance, and empower them to
identify and solve problems ethically.
Encourage social networks among
employees. Protect employee body
resources. Give information needed to
perform job. Give material resources to
do job and to live adequately.
Encourage passion among employees
and inculcate belief that they can
succeed. Take actions to encourage
positive employee mood states.
Encourage employees to be open to new
experiences and to find creative ways to
solve problems. Hire people who
embrace innovation and change.
Promote incremental change.
Understand employee motivational
needs and match to organizational
personality.
 Appendix II
The 3M Model of Motivation and Personality1
Principles and Key Definitions

The Basic Principles of the 3M Model

1. The 3M Model provides a means of identifying the motivational needs of customers and
employees. It operationalizes the GATR ROCK© axioms so that they have utility.
2. Personality traits represent enduring dispositions to behave.
3. Personality traits act as reference points for guiding behavior.
4. Personality traits form a 4-level hierarchy based upon their level of abstraction.
5. Multiple traits combine to influence behavior through a motivational network.
6. By identifying the motivational network of traits that influence behavior, managers can
identify segments of customers, develop persuasive messages, and identify high
performing employees.

Key Definitions
Elemental traits are the underlying dispositions to act based upon genetics and early
learning history. There are eight elemental traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness,
extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, material needs, arousal needs, and physical needs.
They can be remembered by the acronym: OCEAN MAP.

Compound traits are the enduring dispositions to act resulting from the effects of elemental
traits, learning history, and culture. Examples are: need for achievement, competitiveness,
need for activity, self-efficacy, altruism, and future time orientation.

Situational traits are the general dispositions to act within broad job situational contexts. In
the consumer domain they include: health motivation, value consciousness, and general
product innovativeness. In the employee domain, they include: job resourcefulness,
productivity orientation, and career orientation. Situational traits represent the broad end-
state goals of customers and employees.

Surface traits are the narrowly based dispositions to act within specific behavioral contexts.
In the consumer domain, they include healthy diet lifestyles or exercise propensity and
complaint propensity. In the employee domain, they include customer orientation and
organizational citizenship. Surface traits are composed of the specific activities that
customers and employees perform to reach their goals.

1
John C. Mowen, The 3M Model of Motivation and Personality, Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic Press, Dordrecht, 2000.
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 Appendix III
Healthy Diet Trait Clusters
Cluster 1 Cluster 2 Cluster 3 Cluster 4
N = 77 N = 25 N = 66 N = 58
Moody Couch Cautious Dieters Healthy
Trait Dieters Potatoes Eaters
Healthy Diet 5.72b 3.05a 6.96c 7.87d
Disposition
Health Motivation 6.34b 5.05a 6.56b 7.65c

Health 3.38b 1.97a 3.13b 3.99c

Innovativeness
Self-efficacy 6.02a 6.54b 7.15c 7.95d

Introversion 4.67b 3.83a 4.06ab 4.67a

Body Needs 5.16c 3.55a 4.29b 6.71d

Arousal Needs 4.43b 3.00a 2.97a 4.63b

Emotional Instability 4.81b 2.57a 2.95a 2.71a

Conscientiousness 6.18b 4.82a 6.03b 7.27c

Note: Means with different letters are significantly different at p < .05.

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