18 Kasım 2008

Achievers

Fitting theme song: "Climb Every Mountain." - * The following discussion of motivation and personality is based on the published work of Harvard Professor David McClelland.

These are internally motivated people with high, self-set standards and goals. Uppermost for them is accomplishment. Although we all feel we have an achievement motive, research indicates that about 10 percent of the population is strongly motivated by achievement. We find many Achievers in positions of business management.

• Achievers like situations in which they take personal responsibility for finding solutions to problems. They tend not to seek advice or help except from experts who can provide needed skills.

• They tend to set moderate achievement goals, attainable with hard work and ability.

• They take calculated risks, preferring to work on the outcome rather than leave it to chance.

• They want concrete feedback on how well they're doing.

• They're quite accustomed to having the task itself be enough motivation for them; concepts about persuasiveness and motivating others don't naturally occur to them.

• Communication is often little more than a one-way street for Achievers, related to explaining what needs to get done. They're so strongly goal-oriented that when they look across the desk,

the people they see may simply appear as implementors of the tasks assigned, not as multi-dimensional, fallible, needy individuals.

• Entrepreneurs tend to be classic Achievers.

To the outside world, Achievers can look insensitive and unfeeling. Not true. They just work from a different set of motivations than many of us; the software of human consideration and understanding doesn't always seem to be part of their concept of work. Achievers are hard taskmasters for themselves and therefore bring the same demanding standards to others with whom they work.

Considerations such as "Do you like me?" are usually beside the point for Achievers, though this varies. They give themselves love when they accomplish. An extension of that is to have others know of and acknowledge their accomplishments. Achievement is where they find their identity and feel their usefulness. Money may be regarded as a further affirmation of their ability to achieve.