Watch the videos* The Self-Motivated Achiever
Watch the videos* The Self-Motivated Achiever
David C. McClelland describes motivating for performance through the learned needs model -- a content approach that focuses on the needs that motivate people. People acquire three important needs or motives - achievement, affiliation, and power - through interaction with their surrounding environments. Individuals can be differentiated into distinct personality types depending on which need predominates. McClelland focuses on achievers, people who perform tasks because of a compelling need for personal achievement.
McClelland describes the self-motivated achiever as a person with a tendency to think about ways to accomplish something difficult and significant when he or she is not being required to think about anything in particular - that is, when he or she is free to relax and let his or her mind just "idle." The self-motivated achiever tends to set goals, avoid the extremes of difficulty in selecting goals, and prefers tasks that provide feedback. Achievers strive to reach goals and measure success in terms of what those efforts have accomplished. They learn to set challenging but achievable goals for themselves and for their jobs and, when they achieve them, to set new goals. Goals that are too high and those that are too low don't work. Goals that are too high to achieve lead to frustration, and goals that are too low lead to complacency.
Supervisors can identify achievers and provide ways for them to satisfy their drive to do excellent work. Achievement characteristics -- such as personal responsibility, individual participation in the selection of productivity targets, and
moderate goals -- can be built into the job. Achievers should be provided with immediate, concrete feedback on the results each individual is attaining. Effective supervisory tices include some general guidance, occasional follow-up, and detailed appraisals.Note: David McClelland, chairman of Hay/McBer, recently analyzed 64 Hay/McBer leadership studies conducted over the past 15 years. Hay/McBer collaborated with Dr. McClelland and Murray Dalziel to publish the latest findings on predicting leadership success and accelerating leadership development on a global scale. Murray Dalziel presented these findings in a keynote address delivered in October 1996 at the Leadership Development Conference in Boston.
*Videos adapted (with permission) from Motivation and Productivity, A Gellerman Series, BNA Communications, Inc.
