McClelland proposes that each of us have three fundamental needs that exist in different balances. These affect both how we are motivated and how we attempt to motivate others.

n-ach: Need for achievement:
Seeks achievement, attainment of goals and advancement. Strong need for feedback, sense of accomplishment and progress

n-affil: Need for affiliation:
Need for friendships, interaction and to be liked.

n-pow: Need for power
Authority motivated needs to influence and make an impact. Strong need to lead and to increase personal status and prestige.

It seems that some people have a very strong need to achieve, whilst the majority of people are not motivated in this way. McClelland was so interested by this that he focussed his research on the need to achieve.

In a famous experiment, people were asked to throw rings over a peg (like at a fair). The distance that one should throw from was not specified, and as a result most people threw their rings from random distances. However, people with a high need for achievement chose their location carefully so that they stood a realistic chance of getting the ring on the peg, but that it was not too easy. They set an achievable goal that would stretch them.

This seems to be the nub of the whole thing - achievement motivated people set goals where they feel that they can influence the outcome and ensure that those goals are balanced between challenge and realism.

An achievement motivated person sees the achievement of a goal as the reward; it is more satisfying than praise or monetary reward. Money is seen as good only in that it is seen as a measure of their achievement. This idea of feedback is essential to the achievement motivated person: the feedback needs to be informative to enable them to use it to improve their achievement. In addition there is an element of competition - it is important for the individual to be able to compare their achievement against others.

The key differentiator between this group and others is that achievement motivated people frequently spend time thinking how things could be improved.

Rather than being the preserve of a privileged few with these characteristic, Mclelland believed that these characteristics could be taught and developed training programmes.

Dave is someone who has a high need for achievement and I must admit that it does explain a lot to me. I can normally see very quickly how to improve a system, and struggle to understand why others might not want to improve it too. I also find it difficult to understand why people do the things that they do more generally. Maybe it is because rather than wanting to make everything as good as it can possibly be they have higher needs for power or affiliation.

It seems that I might not be alone in my difficulties as although n-ach people make good business leaders and entrepreneurs their management style can suffer because they expect everyone to be motivated in the same way as themselves.

However, it is the need for power that I have the most difficulty with. It seems very destructive to have a need for power without a strong need to achieve as well. Surely having a strong motivation to increase personal status and prestige will always lead to destructive and competitive tendencies?





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