What is SIMA®?

The System for Identifying Motivated Abilities® (SIMA®) is a proprietary qualitative process that identifies a person’s innate giftedness—their motivated strengths—their God-given natural talents.

The process involves an in-depth interview in which a person tells us about achievements they have accomplished over their lifetime, beginning in childhood to the present, that they enjoyed doing and believed were done well. Analysis of these achievements reveals a consistently recurring pattern that emerges in the early years and stays constant throughout that person’s life.  This pattern is referred to as a MAP® (Motivated Abilities Pattern®).

A MAP is a description of an individual in action when he or she is most highly motivated. It describes their unique pattern of strengths, what they find highly motivating to do, what they get excited about, find absorbing, naturally gravitate to, and get tremendous satisfaction from doing and accomplishing.

It is different from ‘can-do’ skills which as the name implies are skills a person is capable of using with some proficiency, but which do not give the individual a tremendous sense of satisfaction.

When people live and work in accordance with their MAPs, they are likely to be highly motivated, more successful and satisfied, and experience a greater sense of meaning and purpose. When people work outside the parameters of their MAPs, they are more likely to feel unmotivated, frustrated, and to be less successful.

A Motivated Abilities Pattern (MAP) identifies five aspects of a person’s functioning

      • - Abilities the person is highly motivated to use, that they naturally and instinctively seek to use to accomplish things (e.g., analyze, organize, persuade)
  • - Subject Matter with which the person is naturally drawn and highly motivated to work with and through (e.g., details, people, concepts)
  • - Circumstances situations, and conditions  that trigger and sustain the person’s motivational energy (e.g., novel, structured, difficult)
  • - Roles and Relationships the iindividual is highly motivated to have in relation to others (e.g., loner, organizer, team member)
  • - An Overall Central Theme thrust, or “payoff” the person is driven to try and accomplish. This is the core of their MAP (e.g., serve others, build things, make teams)

A person’s MAP describes the kinds of work at which they are likely to excel and conversely, the work at which they will not likely excel.

People tend to perceive through the eyes of their MAPs. This influences what they focus on and how they go about trying to do things. The more they understand their unique MAP the more they will be able to effectively manage themselves.

When a person is not performing well in a job, it can often be linked to their MAP. When a person is in a job that fits, their MAP enables them to excel. The same strengths, though, in the wrong context could end up as weaknesses if not understood and managed properly. In some situations, people end up becoming their own worst enemy by not understanding the nature and implications of their motivated strengths and potential weaknesses.

The value of knowing your motivated strengths is that you can build on them. Once you understand your unique motivational pattern, you will have a solid foundation upon which you can make more informed decisions regarding work, educational, and avocational pursuits. You will have a foundation to enhance your ability to better understand, work with, and manage others, along with more effectively managing yourself.

As a manager, the more you understand MAPs the more they can be used to help individuals and organizations to make good ‘job fit’ decisions, improve individual performance and work satisfaction, enhance team functioning and individual relationships, resolve performance problems, resolve conflicts between people, and help people make decisions so they can lead more meaningful and purposeful lives.

Motivated employees are at the heart of effectiveness. People who are highly motivated add significant value to any organization──performing well, maximizing their potential, and passing on the benefits to customers and colleagues. In contrast, de-motivated employees can destroy an organization’s effectiveness.

A number of people have studied and written about the validity and utility of SIMA. One of those studies that we are particularly proud of was conducted by Dr. John Crites, an internationally recognized testing specialist, who was hired by McDonnell Douglas Corporation to determine the validity, reliability, and predictability of SIMA in relation to identifying leaders.

In his final report, Dr. Crites wrote, "SIMA® is both theoretically sound and empirically reliable and valid for use as a selection tool. It meets standards, as enumerated by the American Psychological Association, for the assessment and selection of leaders." He found the profiles to be "stable over time," the level of objectivity to be "outstanding," reliability to be "quite high," and content validity to be "exceptionally high." Overall, he found the results to be "unique and highly positive," the findings to be "impressive" and concluded that "SIMA® can be used with confidence as a selection and leadership identification method.”

SIMA has been used in a variety of situations, including:

  • - Job Fit and Career Decision Making
  • - Executive Coaching and Management Development
  • - Enhancing Team Relationships and Performance
  • - Candidate Assessment
  • - Resolution of Performance Problems and Conflict Situations
  • - Retirement Planning
  • - Educational Planning

Steve Darter has been using SIMA to help individuals and organizations for more than forty-five years.

Information on SIMA and its value can be obtained by reading the book
"Managing Yourself Managing Others: Learn How to Improve Effectiveness, Productivity, and Work Satisfaction"