I am an Associate Professor in Organisational Behavior/Management at Deakin University.
With a background in I/O psychology, I have approached the use of MI from a work psychology perspective. I have offered MI training for engineers, energy managers, and HR professionals. I particularly like how MI focuses on interpersonal dynamics and how it helps learners to understand how their own behavior affects the response of their conversational partner. I also focus on using MI for career counsellors and within life coaching interventions.
In my PhD, I have explored the use of principles and ideas from MI within a research-based planning project to improve energy-related behavior within organizations. I have developed MI demonstration conversations for energy managers. I have used these videos as training materials for energy coordinators as part of an organizational change project.
In my research, I have also investigated interactional dynamics between change agents and change recipients from an MI perspective. I have translated the MI Skill Code into German and implemented it as a computer-supported coding instrument. This methodological improvement has helped to better understand how the behaviors of a change agent (e.g., therapist, doctor, facilitator, manager) affect the behavior of a recipient (e.g., client, patient, trainee, employee). I have extended this research to the observation of organizational meetings, and I developed time-sensitive behavioral and observational measures that help us to shed light on interpersonal dynamics in organizations (group meetings and team dynamics, leader-follower interactions, change agent-recipient interactions).
In 2025, I further explored the idea of using MI-based interventions in organisations to help employees with job redesign efforts with the goal to improve employee wellbeing and to increase work engagement. I am working with organisations in Australia to support them in coding MI adherence of their counsellors/treatment providers (and support training efforts). I also developed the Communication Analysis Tool (https://cat.ctwd.com.au), a coding tool that provides more detailed process feedback for counsellor-client interactions. The CAT website features some of these projects in more detail. Overall, I have studied theoretical principles from MI within my work and applied these MI principles in my practice as a trainer and group facilitator. As I had the opportunity to provide training about MI principles with Psychology students, engineers, managers and HR professionals, I found the use of reflective / directive listening and evocative questions to be most helpful. From a research perspective, I am also interested in different types of reflective listening and how this affects employee/client behaviors.
Key Publications about MI
Klonek, F. E., & Tims, M. (2025). Including Managers in the Job Crafting Process: Cognitive Clarity through Motivational Interviewing. Journal of Business and Psychology, 1-19.
Güntner, A. V., Klonek, F. E., & Kauffeld, S. (2018). 14. A socio-motivational perspective on energy conservation in the workplace: the potential of motivational interviewing. Research Handbook on Employee Pro-Environmental Behaviour, 287.
Klonek, F. E., Wunderlich, E., Spurk, D., & Kauffeld, S. (2016). Career counseling meets motivational interviewing: A sequential analysis of dynamic counselor–client interactions. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 94, 28-38.
Klonek, F. E., Güntner, A., & Kauffeld, S. (2016). Damit Sie auch im Coaching bekommen, was auf der Verpackung steht: Qualitätssicherung von Coachings am Beispiel der Prozessanalyse im Motivational Interviewing. In Qualität im Coaching: Denkanstöße und neue Ansätze: Wie Coaching mehr Wirkung und Klientenzufriedenheit bringt (pp. 155-168). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Klonek, F. E., Quera, V., & Kauffeld, S. (2015). Coding interactions in Motivational Interviewing with computer-software: What are the advantages for process researchers? Computers in Human Behavior, 44, 284-292.
Klonek, F. E., Güntner, A. V., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N., & Kauffeld, S. (2015). Using motivational interviewing to reduce threats in conversations about environmental behavior. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1015.
Klonek, F. E., & Kauffeld, S. (2015). Talking with consumers about energy reductions: Recommendations from a motivational interviewing perspective. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 252.
Klonek, F. E., & Kauffeld, S. (2015). Providing engineers with OARS and EARS: effects of a skills-based vocational training in motivational interviewing for engineers in higher education. Higher education, skills and work-based learning, 5(2), 117-134.
Klonek, F. E., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N., & Kauffeld, S. (2014). Dynamics of resistance to change: A sequential analysis of change agents in action. Journal of change management, 14(3), 334-360.
My teaching and training philosophy is strongly linked to the mindset and spirit of MI. I actively foster and encourage power sharing in the interaction with students so that their ideas can influence the nature of my training. I view my trainees as having the potential to move in the direction of the learning goal.
Overall, I believe that teaching is an interactive dynamic process. My main goal is to maintain a mindset in which students should be promoted to grow and unfold their capacities. By fostering students’ autonomy in learning, I ensure they develop an intrinsic motivation for the learning outcomes. My training philosophy is to collaborate with trainees rather than impose an expert role, promote trainees’ autonomy rather than control their learning outcomes, give students structure to help them reach their learning goals, use empathy to understand areas where they struggle with training contents, and evocate their knowledge and expertise rather than suffocate them with an overload of information.
