The Difference Between Car And Driver

The relationship between car and driver on the Formula One track is like the relationship between personality and social-emotional skills in the race for performance in your organization.

Are you a Formula 1 fan? Have you seen the 2025 movie “F1” starring Brad Pitt? Have you watched the “Drive to Survive” series on Netflix?

If you are a racing fan, you understand the inseparable relationship between driver and racecar. When they work together in unison, magic happens.

While inseparable, they are distinct.

Car vs. Driver

The car:

• is designed for a particular purpose.
• is a technical masterpiece, evolved over many years and many races.
• is predictable and consistent.
• has performance parameters, capacities, and limitations.
• can do some things very well, but not other things.
• requires specific, regular maintenance to function at its best.
• will malfunction if not properly taken care of.

The driver:

• has a heart, mind, and soul.
• uses judgment, experience, and intuition to make thousands of decisions per day.
• is an artistic masterpiece, evolved over many years of experience, relationships, and failure.
• is ultimately responsible for realizing the highest capability of the car.
• requires specific, regular self-care to function at its best.
• will go into distress if not properly taken care of.

Personality vs. Social-Emotional Competencies

Your personality is the car. Your social-emotional competencies are the driver.

Your personality is relatively fixed and comes with specific default settings, strengths, capabilities, needs, and malfunction sequences. But your social-emotional competencies are malleable and learnable.

You are the driver and you are ultimately responsible for realizing the highest potential of your personality. This is a high calling and noble purpose. Will you embrace it or hide behind it?

Your personality was made for you and is packed with potential. So many resources are at your disposal, but you have to be the steward of those resources. You are the only one who gets to drive your car but you have to become a good driver to realize that potential.

Personality represents WHO you are. Social-emotional competencies represents HOW YOU ARE DOING with who you are.

Most personality models will give you the spec sheet for your car, but leave you hanging without the skill to drive it.

The best race car, like your personality, accomplishes little without a skilled driver. You also need driving lessons.

The Perfect Combination for Success

At Next Element, we’ve assembled the best tools to help you understand the performance capabilities of your personality and unlock that potential by learning how to drive it like a pro.

And we’ve taken it one step further, teaching you to be a guide that helps others do the same.

The Process Communication Model® is the ultimate framework for understanding your personality, learning to decode behavior, and adapting communication to bring out the best in yourself and others. This is the car – it’s a remarkably accurate and insightful map of who you are.

Compassionate Accountability® is the ultimate social-emotional framework for becoming a conscious, competent, and resilient steward of your personality resources. This is the driver – we have a remarkably accurate and insightful assessment of how you are doing with who you are, called the Compassionate Accountability Assessment. It measures your stewardship of energy, both positive and negative.

Car and driver working together in unison create magic.

Bring In The Support Team

The analogy extends further. In racing, there are pit crews, mechanics, support teams, and sponsors. It takes a whole community to win the race. The race happens within the context of a larger culture. Culture is everything. Even the most talented driver will fail in a toxic team culture.

The same is true for personality and social-emotional competencies. Nobody is an island, and we know that culture eats strategy for lunch. To succeed, you need trusted support, honest and accurate feedback, accountability, regular fuel fill-ups, and a vision for where you are headed.

That’s why we don’t stop with assessment and training. Long-term success depends on having all the pieces in place. With Train the Trainer certifications, e-learning, targeted consulting, and reinforcement activities, you can embed the principles and skills into the DNA of your culture.

It’s easy to throw money at acquiring fancy cars or talented people. But if your people don’t know how to drive their personalities, you won’t win the race.

Copyright Next Element Consulting, LLC 2025