It’s a great question and one that should be asked of new members, and repeated every so often with existing members, because motivations change.
The Purpose Triangle is a way to visually see the motivation for each member of your group, and the motivation of the group as a whole.
In thinking about the why someone might be in your Forum, it usually comes down to three main reasons:
- Personal – I use this group as accountability to keep myself on track with personal goals such as fitness and relationship stuff.
- Social – I use this group as a friends group to hang out with, laugh, and go on adventures. They are my friends and I like hanging out with them.
- Career – I use this group to push my career/business forward. I want to talk about P&L statements and best hiring practices.
In thinking about these three areas, let’s label them on a triangle as seen in the attached image.
Then have each person, on their own, put a dot somewhere within the triangle to denote where they feel matches their motivation for the group. So if Tina’s motivation for the group was half personal and half career, she’d put her dot between those two areas.
Once everyone has placed their dot, then have a discussion around what each person notices using some of these questions:
- What is the overall motivation for the group?
- Is anyone an outlier?
- How do you feel about your placement compared to the group?
- Do we need to adjust our overall motivation?
- What’s changed with our group’s motivation over time?
You could also do another version of this triangle with what you’d like to get out of the group and then see how that triangle lines up with what you are getting out of the group.
You could also keep doing this triangle every year at a retreat and see how it’s evolved over time.
You could also do a triangle for each other and see how what you think your motivation is vs what other people think your motivation is.
Lots of ways to approach the activity. Enjoy!