This question has two parts; be sure to answer both. First, explain McClelland's acquired needs theory. Second, discuss how you would use the model to motivate fellow students on a project team for one of your classes.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

McClelland focused on three needs: power, affiliation, and achievement, which are the major motives determining people's behavior in the workplace:

1. Need for power: "I need to control others." This is the desire to be responsible for other people, to influence their behavior or control them.

2. Need for achievement: "I need to excel at tasks." This is the desire to excel, to do something better or more efficiently, to solve problems, to achieve excellence in challenging tasks.

3. Need for affiliation: "I need close relationships." This is the desire for warm and friendly relations with other people.

Managers should attempt to create work environments for individual employees depending on the individual's own pattern of these needs. They should apply acquired needs theory by appealing to preferences associated with each need when they set goals, provide feedback, assign tasks, and design jobs.

Employees with a high need for achievement should be assigned to challenging, but not impossible, tasks or projects. They should receive a fair and balanced amount of positive and negative feedback, and they should be rewarded based on their efforts and performance.

Employees with a high need for power enjoy being in control of people and events, and they like to be recognized for this responsibility. Accordingly, employees with a high power need should be publicly recognized for their accomplishment.

Those with high affiliation needs seek social approval and satisfying personal relationships; they may not be the most efficient managers because they will have to make decisions that will make coworkers resent them. Such employees are better off in jobs (such as sales) that provide for personal relationships and social approval.

Students should explain how they would motivate fellow students on a project team for one of their classes.