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David McClelland: Competency and Achievement

David McClelland is best known to managers for his theory of Motivational Needs,which we covered back in 2012. He was a giant of the twentieth century psychology community, whose ideas remain relevant, practical, and valuable to manangers today.

David McClelland

Short Biography

David McClelland was born in New York state, in 1917 and grew up in Illinois. He gained his Bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1938, from Wesleyan University, a Master’s from the University of Missouri, and a PhD from Yale in 1941. He went on to teach at Connecticut College and then, as professor, at Wesleyan University. In 1956, he joined the Harvard University faculty as a professor, and he stayed there until his retirement to Professor Emeritus, in 1986. However, it’s hard for an active mind to stay retired, so in 1987, he started teaching at Boston University, continuing to do so up until his death in 1998.

Along the way, McClelland published many important books, few of which remain in print. Of those that do, the most notable are:

He also co-founded with David Berlew (and Chaired) a business consulting firm, McBer and Company, that trained and advised managers in recruiting and developing staff. McBer is now a part of the Hay Group.

Contributions

McClelland made two primary contributions that managers should know about. The first and best known is his psychological theory of three key motivators that drive our performance in the workplace. He applied this to corporations, small businesses, the medical profession, higher education and to large scale economic development.

Motivational Needs

The three needs (discussed more fully in the earlier Pocketblog, ‘David McClelland’s Three Motivational Needs‘) are:

  1. The Need for Affiliation (nAff)
    Our drive to form attachments, to be accepted by others, and to interact with them.
  2. The Need for Power (nPow)
    Our drive to control the way people behave, to influence their thinking, and to win status.
  3. The Need for Achievement (nAch)
    Our drive to accomplish demanding tasks, reach high standards, and overcome obstacles.

He also developed the work of Henry Murray to create a “Thematic Apperception Test‘ That allows trained users to evaluate the balance of these needs in an individual, based on their story-telling response to imagery.

McClelland studied how different balances of these three motivators impact people’s performances in different job roles. For example, he concluded that the most senior managers and leaders do not fare well if they have a dominant need for achievement. Rather, they tend to have this (and a need for affiliation) at moderate levels, with a high need for power.

Entrepreneurs and middle managers, however, thrive best with a high need for achievement. So much so, indeed, that McClelland believed that a nation’s economic development was dependent on the level of need of achievement among its citizens. This is what leads, he says, to setting big (but realistic) goals, taking calculated risks, and feeling a sense of personal responsibility for our work.

Competencies at Work

In the 1960s, McClelland took what was then a radical perspective on successful recruitment. He argued that we should hire for demonstrated competencies in the area of work we need people to perform and not, as was common in the US at the time, for IQ levels and the results of batteries of personality tests. This does not seem so revolutionary now, but it is well to be aware of when this idea started to emerge. His company, McBer, was at the forefront of developing lists of competencies.

More recently, his ideas have been applied to the workplace by popular psychologist, Daniel Goleman – particularly in his 2002 book, The New Leaders: Transforming the Art of Leadership, but also in his earlier, 1998 book, Working with Emotional Intelligence.

Learn More

There is an excellent interview with McClelland, from the end of his life, at: orientamento.it/indice/interview-with-mcclelland/

For more on motivation:

For more on McClelland’s theory in particular:

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Three ways to Stifle Motivation

There are many theories of motivation around, yet most of the ones that turn up on training courses hark back to the 1970s, 1960s and even the 1950s.  Is there any new thinking on motivation, for the twenty first century?

It turns out that there is.  And it isn’t just new thinking: this is research-based and supported by experimental evidence.

Self Determination Theory

Self determination theory (SDT) emerged into the limelight in 2000 with one of the now most-cited papers in psychology: ‘Self-Determination Theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being.  It was published in the Journal ‘American Psychologist’, and written by Richard Ryan and Edward Deci of the University of Rochester.

University of Rochester psychology professors Richard Ryan, left and Edward Deci outside Meliora Hall May 25, 2010. The two are internationally recognized scholars who developed Self-Determination Theory, which holds that well-being depends in large part on meeting one's basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. //photo: J. Adam Fenster/University of Rochester

Richard Ryan (left) and Edward Deci (right) are both at the Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology of the University of Rochester.  There, they direct a training program focused on SDT and maintain a substantial website that acts as a valuable (but technical) resource on SDT.

SDT in a Nutshell

We are all motivated to satisfy three fundamental needs, which are described as ‘psychological nutrients’.  If one or more of these needs is unfulfilled, we lose motivation.  Critically, Ryan and Deci also see the fulfilment of these needs as essential to our sense of well-being.

These three psychological nutrients are:

  1. Autonomy
    Being able to make your own choices and live your own life
  2. Competence
    Feeling able and confident in what you are doing
  3. Relatedness
    Having safe, secure social relationships (which do not threaten your feelings of autonomy or competence)

Does this sound familiar?

It did to me.  In my well-thumbed copy of Ilona Boniwell’s excellent ‘Positive Psychology in a Nutshell’, I have written against these the terminology from two older and more familiar models: Clayton Alderfer’s 1969 ERG Theory and David McClelland’s 1961 Theory of Needs.

ComparingNeedsTheories

Lots more Depth

So, the needs Ryan and Deci have identified are familiar – although not identical to those described by previous researchers.  What is more convincing in their work is the greater subtlety they characterise in examining how these three factors act to motivate us.

They don’t try to describe all of the motivational phenomena that they observe in their experiments with one grand theory.  instead, they have articulated five (to date) ‘mini theories’ to account for different aspects of motivation.

These make Self Determination Theory a very compelling model, worthy of greater study.

  1. Cognitive Evaluation Theory (CET)
    How we assess our social context and how that evaluation affects our intrinsic (self) motivation.
  2. Organismic Integration Theory (OIT)
    How we internalise external factors, turning them into motivators or de-motivators.
  3. Causality Orientations Theory (COT)
    how we make behavioural and situational choices based on personality orientations towards autonomy, control and our need for competence.
  4. Basic Psychological Needs Theory (BPNT)
    How autonomy, competence, and relatedness are basic psychological needs, essential to our well-being.
  5. Goal Contents Theory (GCT)
    How intrinsic and extrinsic goals have different affects on our perceptions of satisfaction and well-being.  There is a great animated video, made by a colleague of Ryan and Deci, below.

Some Management Pocketbooks you might Enjoy

The Motivation Pocketbook

The Motivation Pocketbook

The Management Models Pocketbook
(for Vroom’s Expectancy Theory and McClelland’s Theory of Needs)

The Performance Management Pocketbook

The Reward Pocketbook

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