What are Moving Motivators?
Moving Motivators are a Management 3.0 tool with ten cards on intrinsic motivators, so team members can recognise and make visible their personal drivers.
DEFINITION
Moving Motivators is a method by Jurgen Appelo from the Management 3.0 framework. It is based on ten cards representing different intrinsic motivators: Curiosity, Honor, Acceptance, Mastery, Power, Freedom, Relatedness, Order, Goal, and Status. Participants rank the cards in a personal order: What motivates me most? In a second step, they reflect on how current changes in the organisation strengthen or weaken these motivators — whether a card figuratively moves up or down because of a decision. Jurgen Appelo developed Moving Motivators as a practical application of CHAMPFROGS theory, which builds on Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory and Steven Reiss’s basic-needs research. The tool suits individual reflection, career conversations, and team exercises to make motivation visible and address it.
CONNECTIONS
Leadership
Leaders use Moving Motivators to understand what drives individual team members. Employee conversations become more concrete with the knowledge of whether someone values autonomy, mastery, or social belonging most.
Project Management
In project teams, Moving Motivators help understand who might be demotivated by new structures during change. That allows proactive engagement measures instead of reactive crisis management.
Artificial Intelligence
AI transformations often create fears about status, control, and security. Moving Motivators help make these concerns explicit and address them deliberately in change communication.
KEY POINTS
- Moving Motivators are based on ten intrinsic motivators from CHAMPFROGS theory.
- Developed by Jurgen Appelo as part of the Management 3.0 framework.
- The ranking exercise makes personal motivation visible in the team.
- The second step shows which motivators are strengthened or weakened by change.
- Suitable for individual reflection, career conversations, and team exercises.
EXAMPLE
A Scrum Master facilitates a Moving Motivators round before a reorganisation. Lea (developer) prioritises autonomy and curiosity at the top. The new team structure imposes tightly structured processes on her. Her autonomy card moves down. That makes the problem visible: the reorganisation hits Lea directly. The Scrum Master can now discuss with her specifically how she finds room to act within the new structure.
MISCONCEPTIONS
Do Moving Motivators measure motivation objectively?
No. They are a conversation tool, not a measurement instrument. The values are subjective and situation-dependent. They help enable conversations, not collect data.
Are Moving Motivators only suitable for agile teams?
No. The tool is universally applicable in any leadership situation where motivation and change play a role. It is also used in classically managed companies in development conversations.