member
motivation
IMPROVING THE FITNESS
John Hackston, managing consultant at business psychology firm
understandable and useful in everyday
OPP, talks about the role the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
life. The tool sorts individuals into
psychological ‘types’, helping them to
instrument can play in motivating and retaining your customers understand how they are different from
other people, and how they can improve
T
he majority of us start going Personality can have a big impact on their working and personal relationships
to the gym because we want the way people think and feel about in a positive and constructive way.
to be healthier and more exercise. Would regular classes be your What the MBTI questions reveal is
comfortable in our own choice – group workouts in a noisy, whether you get your energy from the
skin. Yet when progress is measured crowded room – or would you prefer to outside world (extroversion) or your
in numbers, it’s easy to forget why swim laps solo with only your thoughts inner world (introversion); whether you
we joined the gym in the first place for company, just when you feel like gather information by looking at the
and, instead of confidence, we can it? Do you feel better about exercising evidence of your fi ve senses (sensing)
get negative feedback and stop going with a fi tness partner or on your own? or by those things that ‘go together’
altogether. Particularly in the current The answers to these questions have (intuition); whether you make decisions
climate, with consumers looking to save little to do with physical ability and with your head (thinking) or your heart
money, this could be all the rationale more to do with personality. (feeling); and whether you like to make
they need to leave. It’s therefore vital With this in mind, health clubs need up your mind and move on (judging)
that health clubs do more to ensure that to be doing more to understand their or explore possibilities and keep your
members see the real value and benefits customers by investing in tools that options open (perceiving).
of their gym membership. establish their motivations and different These different types of personality
approaches to retaining them. By directly feed into the individual training
A PERSONALITY WORKOUT starting with personality, as opposed to regime. The effectiveness of the full
If you probe deep enough, you may find the activity, personality tests such as the training cycle, from the moment the
out that members are leaving because Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
®
(MBTI) member steps into the gym until they
the club hasn’t done enough to keep instrument can be used by instructors leave, is dependent upon how the
them engaged or motivated in their to help them discover what activities programme relates to the different
fitness regimes. This is easier said than and regimes their customers will most preferences of each individual.
done, and many fitness professionals fail enjoy, engage and stick with. Do they prefer to talk through their
to appreciate the role that individual Currently the MBTI self-report programme, or do they prefer time and
personality type plays in determining questionnaire is the most widely used space to think about it independently?
approaches to fitness. instrument to make psychological types Do they like to interact while they work
40 Read Health Club Management online september 2009 © cybertrek 2009
healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital
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