Towards 0
Your manager generally prefers to keep what works unless there is a clear reason to change it.
Manager behaviour
Stimulation
Stimulation measures how strongly your manager encourages questioning methods that already work and exploring alternatives: keep what works unless there is a clear reason to change it, or regularly prompt you to question the existing…
The engine question
When a way of working already functions well, how does your manager respond?
0—10
Stimulation is not a measure of actual innovation.
Définition
What Stimulation measures
Stimulation measures how strongly your manager encourages questioning methods that already work and exploring alternatives: keep what works unless there is a clear reason to change it, or regularly prompt you to question the existing approach. Research on leading innovation gives both behaviours a place: a review concludes that innovating requires alternating opening phases, in which the manager encourages experimentation and tolerates error, with closing phases, in which they refocus and consolidate [1]. The axis measures which of these two behaviours your manager habitually leans towards when a method works, not whether they switch at the right moment.
What Stimulation does not say
Stimulation is not a measure of actual innovation. Encouraging change does not guarantee that it is relevant; preserving a tried-and-tested method does not mean rejecting all improvement. Towards the low end, it does not describe a manager stuck in place: the meta-analysis of team innovation shows that what helps innovation is explicit support and a shared vision [2], and a manager can provide both while protecting what works. Towards the high end, it does not guarantee that ideas come to anything: on the person's side, intrinsic motivation and job characteristics weigh on innovation as much as the encouragement received [3]. The axis describes an impulse, not its outcome.
0 → 10
Read the scale without ranking it
Between the two
Around the centre, your manager challenges the existing approach when there is a plausible gain, without turning every method into permanent experimentation. It is the alternation that research on innovation describes [1], opening then closing, practised at the scale of a single topic: they open when a method plateaus and close when a new approach has shown its worth.
Towards 10
Your manager regularly encourages you to question the existing approach and explore alternatives.
Contexte
When this axis becomes concrete
The axis is visible in continuous improvement, innovation, tool choices, process reviews and problems without a single solution. It is felt when a method that works is challenged for no visible reason, or conversely when an alternative you proposed goes nowhere. Context weighs on what this behaviour produces: the meta-analysis of team innovation shows that encouragement counts when it comes with concrete support for ideas [2]. A manager towards the high end in a setting that does not allow experimentation creates expectation without a field to act on; one towards the low end in a fast-changing context lets methods age. Scientific scope: the cited studies examine workplace behaviours, conditions or outcomes. They do not directly validate this preference scale or an individual PIMPmyBOSS compatibility score.
The score describes a situated preference or a perceived behaviour. It is neither a personality diagnosis, a norm nor a verdict on professional quality.
Active mirror pair
Exploration × Stimulation
In the current engine, Stimulation is compared with Exploration. The relationship score does not judge either level: it measures their gap on this specific pair.
Understand Exploration × StimulationKeep exploring
Define the concept, then connect it.
See the 10 manager behavioursTen behaviours describe what you actually experience with your manager. They measure a way of acting in a given context, not a person's overall worth.Exploration × StimulationThis pair compares the person's preference for trying a new approach, when several routes are possible, with how often the manager encourages them to question methods that…Understand the methodProfiles, pairs, calculation and limits.
Sources and evidence limits
These publications provide context for the concepts discussed; they do not directly validate this questionnaire, its scores or its compatibility formula. An abstract does not allow every nuance of a paper to be independently checked.
- Rosing, K., Frese, M., & Bausch, A. (2011). Explaining the heterogeneity of the leadership-innovation relationship: Ambidextrous leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 22(5), 956-974. DOI : 10.1016/j.leaqua.2011.07.014
- Hülsheger, U. R., Anderson, N., & Salgado, J. F. (2009). Team-level predictors of innovation at work: A comprehensive meta-analysis spanning three decades of research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(5), 1128-1145. DOI : 10.1037/a0015978
- Hammond, M. M., Neff, N. L., Farr, J. L., Schwall, A. R., & Zhao, X. (2011). Predictors of individual-level innovation at work: A meta-analysis. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 5(1), 90-105. DOI : 10.1037/a0018556