What does your Motivation & Conflict Profile reveal?
Your motivational drivers
A comparison of your three motivational drivers — relationship, performance and principles — in normal and conflict conditions.
How you shift under pressure
Your report shows which motive rises and which falls when conflict increases.
Your normal and conflict primary
Your report identifies the motive that leads you in normal conditions and the one that takes over under conflict.
Your motivation archetype
Your report describes the motivational pattern that characterizes your negotiation style.
Your biggest shift
Your report highlights the motive that changes most when pressure rises.
Your development plan
Your report provides a development plan focused on your biggest motivational shift.
What drives you shapes what you fight for — and how you handle resistance.
Understanding your motivational drivers — and how they shift under pressure — can help you choose more deliberately when the stakes rise.
Your Motivation & Conflict Report
Motivation & Conflict Profile
Use this report as a practical guide to how you tend to negotiate in this specific area. Start with your overall pattern, then look at the scores and behaviours behind it. Pay particular attention to where your strengths may become less useful under pressure and to the development actions you can test in real negotiations.
There are no 'good' or 'bad' profiles. The value comes from understanding your natural tendencies, where they help you and where greater choice could improve your effectiveness.
This specialist assessment is part of the Elite Negotiator Index™. It is a developmental self-report tool designed to support reflection and professional development in negotiation.
Your results describe patterns in the responses you provided. They are not a clinical assessment, a measure of personal worth, or a ranking against other negotiators.
Your Profile at a Glance
In normal conditions, you are motivated primarily by Relational Value — you care about the relationship and the people involved. Under conflict, your primary driver shifts to Outcome Drive — you focus on results and winning the point. This shift is significant and deliberate: you do not abandon the relationship, but you reprioritise the outcome when the situation demands it.
Motive scores range from 35 to 48 out of 54. Under conflict, Outcome Drive rises by 10 points — the largest shift in your profile.
In normal conditions, Relational Value is your primary driver. Under conflict, Outcome Drive takes over. This is a significant, deliberate shift — you do not lose the relationship, but you reprioritise the outcome when the stakes rise.
Your biggest shift is in Outcome Drive, which rises by 10 points under conflict. This means you become significantly more results-focused when the situation becomes difficult — which can be an asset or a risk depending on how you manage it.
Principled Direction is your least-active motive in both conditions. You do not strongly prioritise process or principle as a driver in itself. Developing this would give you a third anchor for decisions in conflicts where both relationship and outcome are at stake.
When conflict puts relationship and outcome in tension, principle can be the anchor that prevents you from sacrificing one for the other. Practice asking: 'What is the fair process here?' before deciding between the relationship and the outcome. Principle is not a substitute for either — it is the third leg that keeps the decision stable.
Your Motivation & Conflict Signature™
How your three motives shift between normal and conflict conditions.
- Normal
- Conflict
| Motive | Normal | Conflict | Shift |
|---|---|---|---|
| Relational Value | 42 | 35 | -7 |
| Outcome Drive | 38 | 48 | +10 |
| Principled Direction | 35 | 40 | +5 |
How Your Pattern Works
In normal conditions, your primary motivation is the relationship. You care about the people involved, the trust you build, and the long-term impact on the relationship.
Counterparts experience you as warm, collaborative, and invested in the relationship. This builds trust and surfaces information — but it can also make you slow to push for your interests when the situation calls for it.
Under conflict, your primary motivation shifts to outcomes. You focus on results, winning the point, and achieving your goal. The relationship does not disappear, but it is no longer your primary driver.
Counterparts experience a different negotiator under conflict — one who is focused, direct, and results-driven. This can be effective, but the shift can also surprise counterparts who expected the relational negotiator they met in normal conditions.
Your normal and conflict motivations work as a two-mode system. In normal conditions, Relational Value leads — you build trust, share information, and invest in the relationship. Under conflict, Outcome Drive takes over — you focus on results, push for your position, and pursue the outcome.
The risk is the size of the shift. A 10-point rise in Outcome Drive is significant. Counterparts who met the relational negotiator in normal conditions may be surprised by the results-focused negotiator who appears under conflict. The shift can be effective, but it can also damage trust if the counterpart feels the relationship was instrumental rather than genuine.
In normal conditions, they were warm and genuinely invested in the relationship. When the conflict came, they became focused and direct — but they never stopped being fair.
The shift was significant. I wondered whether the warmth in normal conditions was real, or whether it was a strategy that disappeared when the stakes rose.
Watch-Outs and Risks
Your signature is a significant motivational shift under conflict. The watch-out is not the shift itself — adaptability is an asset. The risk is the size of the shift and the counterpart's experience of it. If the shift is too large or too sudden, counterparts may question whether your relational mode was genuine or instrumental.
| Motive | Possible Over-Use |
|---|---|
| Relational Value | Prioritising harmony to the point that you avoid necessary conflict or concede on substance to preserve the relationship. |
| Outcome Drive | Pursuing results so aggressively under pressure that you damage relationships or ignore process fairness. |
| Principled Direction | Rigid adherence to process or principles that prevents adaptation when circumstances change. |
Before applying a motivational tactic, ask:
If not, reconsider the tactic.
Your Development Plan
When you feel conflict rising, notice your motivational shift internally. Naming it — 'I am moving from relationship to outcome' — gives you the choice to manage it rather than being driven by it.
In your next conflict, before choosing between relationship and outcome, ask: 'What is the fair process here?' Principle can be the third anchor that prevents you from sacrificing one for the other.
When your motivation shifts, let the counterpart know. 'I am still committed to the relationship, but I need to focus on the outcome here.' This prevents the shift from feeling like the relationship was instrumental.
Before your next negotiation that may involve conflict, write down your three motives and which one you expect to lead. Identify what would constitute a fair process if conflict arises.
When you feel the shift to Outcome Drive, name it internally. Before pushing for the outcome, ask: 'What is the fair process here?' Notice whether principle gives you a third option beyond relationship and outcome.
Ask yourself: did naming the shift change how you managed it? Did principle give you a third anchor? Did bridging the shift for the counterpart preserve trust? If yes, you have a new practice for conflict negotiations.
When conflict puts relationship and outcome in tension, principle is the anchor that keeps the decision stable. Without it, you choose between people and results. With it, you choose a fair process that serves both.
This profile reflects your self-reported motivational drivers in normal and conflict conditions. It describes what motivates you under different conditions, not a judgment of your values or character. No motive is inherently better than another — effectiveness comes from understanding what drives you and how that changes when the situation becomes difficult.
Synthetic sample report — all scores and narratives are illustrative and do not represent any real respondent.
What Your Report Includes
- 1Your Motivational Drivers — normal and conflict primary motives
- 2Normal vs Conflict — bar chart of your three motives in both conditions
- 3How You Shift Under Pressure — per-motive changes between conditions
- 4Your Biggest Shift — the motive that changes most under conflict
- 5Your Motivation Archetype — the pattern that characterizes your style
- 6Development Plan — focused on your biggest motivational shift
Why take this if you already have the Elite Negotiator Index™?
Integrated Breadth
Elite Negotiator Index™
The Elite Negotiator Index™ shows how your motivational drivers fit into your wider negotiation profile across multiple dimensions and patterns.
Specialist Depth
Motivation & Conflict
This assessment goes deeper into your motivational patterns and provides a dedicated report focused specifically on what drives you under pressure.
The two reports complement one another. Your Elite Negotiator Index™ report does not replace the deeper Motivation & Conflict report.
Already answered? Don't answer it again.
If you have already completed relevant questions through the Elite Negotiator Index™, those answers automatically populate this Specialist Assessment. If you complete the Motivation & Conflict Profile first, those same responses automatically contribute to your Elite Negotiator Index™.
You never need to answer the same assessment question twice.
One deep dive. Part of the whole picture.
Motivation & Conflict
Elite Negotiator Index™
5 Other Specialist Assessments
Complete one specialist assessment or several. Every relevant response contributes to the connected Elite Negotiator Index™ ecosystem.
Designed for development.
The Motivation & Conflict Profile is designed to deepen self-awareness and support professional development. It is not a hiring or employee-performance test.
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