Article Contents:
One of the emotional intelligence competencies for aspiring managers or leaders is to develop “Achievement orientation.”
In this new topic on “Achievement Orientation,” let us discuss the challenges and perspectives on
- What motivates us to progress continuously?
- How to be highly motivated internally?
- How to bring the ownership feeling?
- Steps in achievement orientation and insights
What is achievement orientation ?
Achievement orientation is a combination of mindset and practices to accomplish the task or move towards achievement. It ranges from small task completion to achieving something meaningful in life in a broad context.
You might have observed some people are continuously progressing in their life journey, and some people are stagnant at some point in time.
In my opinion, regardless of the field of work, environment, and external challenges, the clear differentiation between a highly growth-oriented person and a mediocre person is “Orientation intensity towards achievement.”
You might have experienced some of the scenarios in the professional environment.
- Some people can get things done amidst all the challenges.
- When you assign some tasks to someone, he/she will finish them, and your intervention or follow-ups would be relatively less.
- Some people would complete the task due to follow-up/reminders, or the quality of work may not be up to the expectation.
- Even at your level, you may find joy in doing some tasks and not find yourself enjoying some tasks. You will be wondering how to keep your motivation high all the time.
One of the challenges for most professionals is “How do you stay highly motivated at an individual level and keep others accomplishing more?”
What drives people to achieve?
As we discussed in the “Achievement Orientation Introduction,” the key challenge for every professional is motivating or keeping others in the same state.
You might have observed some people are always on a high energy level or highly self-motivated despite all the challenges like age and health factors. What motivates them to be in that state?
They are driven by their thoughts to achieve something in their profession or life.
Different schools of thought believe that people are motivated by external factors like money, a high positional status that comes from the title, and exposure. Some studies found that those external factors help to some extent to keep the person in a motivated state; eventually, the energy level is reduced. The pace may depend on the individual and the stage he/ she is in.
In one of the interviews, the interviewer asked Ratan Tata, ” What drives you to do more even at this age as well? He said, “Exactly, I do not know, but it could be the fire inside.” His rich experience reveals the truth.
Hence, what drives people is the inner desire to achieve something. That inner desire manifests externally in a different way.
How can you identify those people who are driven by inner desire?
- They are passionate about what they are doing.
- Eager to learn more in their passionate area
- Most of the time, restless and unhappy with the current state or status quo
- Displaying a high level of energy in their passionate work despite any challenges
When an individual develops the inner desire or fire to achieve something, he/ she uplifts himself and makes a positive impact on the team or in the working environment.
The question would be, how do we inculcate the inner desire? Is it inborn, or can we develop it?
In my experience, anyone can develop the achievement orientation within and with others and a structured process and practice.
Let us discuss the holistic framework of achievement orientation, starting from creating the inner desire to achievement and dealing with achievement challenges during the journey.
Holistic Approach to achievement orientation mindset and practices
As we are discussing Achievement Orientation both at self and through others, the process is a continuous and lifelong experience.
Why is a holistic approach required?
Instead of being content with any short-term benefits with an external motivation to get things done, if we understand the HOLISTIC approach of achievement orientation, that will help us be highly motivated to achieve something or make others achieve.
Also, In today’s world, there are ample opportunities and equally distractors.
Staying in line with your purpose and orienting yourself towards achievement is a challenge.
If we are not aligned with our purpose on a sustainable basis, any setbacks or any new distractions would derail us from achieving or tapping our potential.
For example,
you might have come across some people who are changing jobs frequently, even switching careers, but not feeling fulfilled with the achievement.
The reason could be the lack of clarity on the purpose and values.
The earlier one gets the clarity, the more fortunate one is to make an impact in one’s chosen areas.
Hence, we need to understand the holistic process of achievement orientation.
I developed a holistic framework based on my experience when I embarked on a significant life transformation.
I believe more perspectives on the following framework will help you stay on course on achievement orientation.
Let us discuss the following queries.
- What is the priority in my life? What do I like most? How do I identify my values?
- How do I identify the purpose of my life from a long-term perspective?
- How to design my life in line with the purpose
- How do you develop the inner desire and stimulate the appetite of others in a professional environment?
- Why does the environment matter, and what is the process of creating a conducive environment to achieve at the personal and organizational levels?
- Need for self-commitment and developing ownership for self and others?
- Developing the roadmap to achieve and focus on the result and the challenges
- How to be in a winning mindset when things go wrong or during the challenging time?
Values : why should you know?
As we discussed the VALUES as a prime step towards achievement orientation, let us understand the need to realize the value by self.
We are driven by mostly two emotions, viz happiness (pleasure) and sadness (pain).
Either we want to maximize the pleasure in any activities/circumstances or minimize the pain as much as possible.
The outcome of the task depends on the emotional mix of pleasure and pain.
For example,
When your boss/ colleague asks you to prepare a presentation content, you may have two choices in executing the task.
If you like preparing the presentation content, you want to maximize the pleasure of the preparation process. Hence, you will be striving to give your best.
If you do not like the presentation preparation task and at the same time, you do not want to lose your boss/colleague’s confidence or relationship, which you perceive as painful. To avoid the pain, somehow, you complete the preparation with a half-hearted effort.
In both choices, your presentation quality is based on the emotions you are undergoing in the task, maximizing the pleasure or minimizing the pain.
Now you can relate any task or circumstance to your professional context, and you will realize you are driven by those two basic emotions only.
The key point is that when you are driven by the emotion of pleasure, your quality of work is excellent, but when the emotion of pain guides you, your quality of work may be substandard.
The emotion comes from your like / dislike, which I term as your PREFERENCE, INTEREST, or VALUES.
Life is a series of events or circumstances, and if we ensure most of them are in line with maximizing pleasure, our effectiveness will be high.
We need to learn how to identify our likes/dislikes or Interests or preferences or values and align life in line with VALUES.
Let us learn the process of identifying the values and their significance.
Why Value alignment is required?
The quality of work depends on the emotions we are driven to work, either pleasure or pain. In simple terms, when we like the task, the quality of work will also be better.
Similarly, from a larger life perspective, when we align what we like to do and what we do, the quality of life will be relatively good.
Here, what we want or prefer, or what is important to us, is called VALUE.
When there is a VALUE CONFLICT between what you like to do and what you do most of the time, it will affect personal and professional performance. It leads to suboptimal performance compared to the potential.
For example,
You give more importance to CREATIVITY as your value, and your work environment is not conducive to demonstrating creativity. It will create value conflict inside of you that leads to low-level emotional experience.
You may prioritize making more money in life (who does not give priority?), that is one value of you, and at the same time, you would like to give importance to being in comfort without much effort, that is also one value of you.
If you have both values internally, you will be undergoing guilt as, basically, both values do not align or match together.
Knowing your dominant preference in life and resolving the conflict preference of values are essential for personal and professional achievement.
Let us learn the structured process of identifying the core values.
How do you identify your CORE VALUE?
Having discussed the importance of knowing our values and their influence on our behavior, actions, and decision-making speed, let us understand the step-by-step process of identifying our core values.
The identification process is iterative, and anyone can do it by themselves through analysis. It may be challenging for some people to identify by themselves, and for those, I recommend seeking help from the coaches.
Values are nothing but some of the principles we stand for or the importance or priority we give in life most of the time. Those values will drive our behaviors, decisions, and actions on a personal and professional front.
Whether we realize it or not, each one of us has inherent values within us that are driving us every moment.
We might have acquired from our parents, childhood experiences, or even current experiences. The more we are sure about our core values, the more it will help us make the right decisions during challenging times and be emotionally healthy.
How do we identify the values?:
Step 1:
Go through the list of values and identify the favorable values with which you are associating yourself frequently or the unfavorable values with which you do not like to be associated.
Given below some of the lists of values, you may get more than 200 values when searching on the web.
My suggestion would be not to get into the searching for a list, and you do the self-analysis, identify, and label on your own as it would reflect you correctly without bias.
Favorable Values:
Growth /Love / Challenge/adventure / Pride in achievement / making a difference/individuality/creativity/passion/honesty/integrity/stability/freedom/achievement/contribution/gratefulness/ courage/ expressive / fun/harmony/power/peace/happiness/secured/ intimacy /sense of control/intelligence/ success/ sharing /giving/family/career/money/ compassion/Loyalty/connections/commitments/Health / Nature/ relationship/ risk taking
Unfavorable Values:
Anger/ Guilty / Being controlled/rejection/failure/ insecurity/jealousy/ sadness/ humiliation/ victimized/worry/ instability/ mediocre
Step 2:
First, choose the top 10 values you are associating with, either favorable or unfavorable values, and further analyze and bring to the top 3. It would be challenging to prioritize the top 3 values. In that way only, you are clear about your values.
As said, this is an iterative process. The more you spend yourself, the more clarity on your preferences.
The awareness of your preferences, principles, or what you stand for gives more clarity to deal with life challenges. Internally, it will help you have a balanced emotional level.
Also, it allows you to design your professions in line with your values.
Identifying your PURPOSE
In continuation of knowing yourself more through getting value clarity, the next step in Achievement Orientation is to know your purpose in life.
There is a saying that everyone comes to earth with a purpose, and everything happens with a purpose only. There is a school of thought from a philosophical perspective that the meaning of life is to live happily or go along with the flow.
It may be valid, and only a few people are aligned with that perspective and internally motivated. That is a high-level maturity of living.
However, from a materialistic perspective, there is always a compelling need to be on a high level of internal motivation and achievement orientation. One way of fulfilling the requirement is to find the life purpose at the self-level at some point in a lifetime.
Given the realm of our education, knowledge, skill set, experience, and background, we need to find the purpose of our life.
The tough question that needs to be answered is,” Why do I exist”? What is meaningful to me? What is the real fulfillment for me? What is my identity? What will I be remembered for, at least for some time?!!.
The purpose could be anything, as it depends on the individual. It could be making a difference, creating an impact on others, building wealth, solving a chronic problem, entertaining others, and so on.
Finding purpose is the exploration process, and it is not a one-time activity.
Why should we find our purpose?
- When we have clarity on the big picture of our existence, it will give a sense of direction.
- When the direction is not right, no matter how fast we move, the path does not take us to the right destination.
- When we do not know our true north and are busy with all the distractions of life, we feel empty despite all the success.
- When we know our purpose, even though there are struggles, it won’t hurt much. When we do not have any clarity about our purpose, we are vulnerable to even small disappointments, rejections, and failures.
- When we are clear about our purpose, our journey will be enjoyable, even if it is slow because we are aware that we are marching in the right direction in our path. That realization makes us feel good. Optimism comes out when we are clear about our journey’s direction.
Let us learn the different ways of exploring self to get clarity on our purpose .
As we discussed the need to be aware of our purpose, a few responded that the purpose would vary from time to time.
For example, at a young age, money was the purpose, and in a later stage of life, the purpose changed to impact society. The purpose may not be the same throughout life.
That is right only, and let me give my perspective on purpose with reference to time, based on my experience.
A few years back, I met a successful entrepreneur who ventured into the business at a young age, and even at 70+, he is active and involved in business decisions. When I asked about his high energy level, even at this age, his response was, “When I started my entrepreneurial journey, the purpose was to make money and survive. Those purposes drove me then and met. Now my purpose is to enhance the life of my employees, which motivates me now to do more”.
We can relate the above example to our life as well.
The key learnings are
- The purpose will change over time, depending on the maturity of individual learning and maturity.
- Today, money may not be a purpose, but it does not mean that he ignored it. It becomes a subset of the higher purpose of providing quality life to employees.
- The purpose may vary from a small /short-term to a high/ long-term perspective. Those are all interchangeably accepted as a purpose, goal, or objective. Achieving those little/ short-term goals is essential, and that eventually leads you to find your TRUE NORTH. Finding purpose is an evolving and time-consuming process.
- We should have some higher-level purpose to drive us; otherwise, we will get distracted. We need to find some meaning in what we are doing, which will keep us at an elevated emotional level.
Earlier, you get your TRUE NORTH or ULTIMATE PURPOSE in life and align your actions; better, you will become emotionally healthy and balanced.
Let us discuss the practical way of finding the purpose.
How do you identify your life purpose?
Having discussed the importance of knowing the purpose for being in a high-energy state and achievement orientation, let us learn to identify the purpose by ourselves.
Through self-introspection, one can find his TRUE NORTH, and some people are fortunate enough to be aware of the purpose at a young age. Accordingly, they design their professions and life.
For others, it may take time to get clarity on life’s purpose, and those need to explore it continuously if they want to make meaning out of life. That is a continuous evolution process.
Based on my experience, I have listed below some of the methods to find a purpose.
- Identify what you love most to do
- Leverage your strength
- Experimenting and exploring
Identify what you love most to do:
Not all people have the privilege of choosing a path that they like. Practically, we take what is given. Even in that living environment, we naturally love to do some of the activities most of the time. We will not lose energy even when we are doing those activities for a longer duration. That is called passionate tasks.
We need to find those passionate activities and design a significant part of life around it.
When we are doing passionate activities, our energy level would be towards achievement orientation rather than procrastination or excuses.
For example,
If you find yourself enjoying more when solving technical issues through your observation, analytical, and creative skills, that may be likely your passion. Ensure that most of your profession or, in general, life activities are around that passion for solving technical challenges.
If you find yourself enjoying helping others solve their leadership-related problems, then teaching may be your passion and ensure that most of your life activities revolve around teaching life skills.
You can relate to some of the celebrities who found their passion (sports, music, journalism, entertainment) early and made a career out of it.
The key point is that when you find your real passion and design your life around that passion, you will find meaning in what you are doing. That will make you work towards achievement orientation. One of the methods is finding what you love most to do.
How environment affect achievement orientation & what you should do?
As we discussed the first two factors on achievement orientation, viz Values, and Purpose, the third factor that impacts achievement orientation is the environment.
The environment is where and with whom we spend most of our time; that could be our internal family members, colleagues, friends, and externally, to some extent, the society.
How does the internal environment impact us toward achievement orientation?
Since we spend more time with family, friends, and professional networks, they influence our thought process toward achievement orientation. That thought process triggers our ability to take risks, confidence, and courage to manage the challenges during the execution of any task.
For example,
Imagine that you are proposing a new venture to your internal environmental members. The next step in your venture is predominately determined by the kind of response or reactions you receive from your close circles. That could be an encouraging response or a show-stopper kind of response.
The environment is primarily influencing your thought process in the following aspects.
Should I focus more on ” to be successful “ or ” not to be failed”?
Even though both focus approaches seem to be the same, there is a subtle difference in how we deal with the achievement task.
When we have a “success” orientation, most of the time, we look for LEARNING in each step and always look at the experience (either pass or fail) as a learning opportunity. That approach would put us at a high energy level.
When we orient towards “not to fail,” our inclination would be more rigid, always try to be smarter than others, and that approach leads us to a high anxiety level.
The environment predominately determines our approach.
Practically, as individuals, we have limited choices in selecting the environment circle. However, we can be conscious about our responses and our thought processes towards achievement orientation.
Being positive in a non conducive environment
In response to a discussion on “Creating a conducive workplace environment for achievement orientation,” one of the queries asked was,
” When the workplace environment is not conducive for achievement, how can we perform?”
As said, creating a conducive environment for achievement orientation is the primary responsibility of the leaders in the workplace. In the absence of it, it is challenging to perform and even manage survival itself, which is a challenge for most people. However, depending on our positions and the level of influential skill, anyone can initiate or bring some level of conduciveness for achievement orientation.
The answer could vary from person to person as it is purely from the perspective of how we wire our thought process towards work and self in the workplace.
I am fortunate to work with some bosses/colleagues who are around a toxic environment in a high-performance workplace. I observed some of the patterns or qualities they demonstrated. That may be the basis for reflecting your management style.
They focus more on their job and the contribution than to whom they are working for. They believe in hard work and continue to strive for DOING. They believe that they stand out through their contribution.
They are always inclined to positively impact others through their behaviors, communication process, or adding value to others whenever an opportunity arises.
They accept the situation and try to make a difference through their personal skill rather than blaming or complaining about someone or past decisions.
They leverage their personal skills more than the position that makes them go beyond their boundary or levels to make things happen.
When they do it consistently, the negative bias people also turn to listen to them eventually.
I have been with some people who have changed their workplace environment from a firefighting, blaming, and excuse culture to a performance-oriented workplace only through their positive orientation and friendly, firm behavior.
The idea is irrespective of your power or position, when we demonstrate the above qualities, there are possibilities of turning the situation favorable. Also, there is a high probability that we would be seen as lead or influential personalities.
It all depends on your energy level, your perspective on work and people, persistence in working in a non-conducive environment, and converting to your advantage as well as to organizational benefits.
When the possibility of turning into a conducive is very low, we always choose to move out. That is the ultimate option available to anyone.
Committing self
As we have discussed, the factors affecting an individual toward achievement orientation include clarifying personal values, knowing the purpose, and being in a conducive environment. The next important factor is “ Committing self to achievement.”
What is “committing self”?
Committing self is taking responsibility for the action and the consequence. In a business context, most of the time, the term responsibility is perceived as the external enforcement of commitment to some person. But at a personal or individual level, responsibility is a feeling of owning some task or profession or, on a higher level, life itself.
The only difference between achievers and non-achievers is “ commitment “ or “ taking responsibility.”
When you observe any achievement, apart from skill, knowledge, luck, and environment, there would be one fundamental invisible ingredient, that is the “personal commitment of an individual or group of people.”
When you take responsibility for any task, you will get the following benefits.
- Intention to achievement will be relatively more.
- Person displays solutions orientation in any challenges
- Despite failure or any setback, the person looks for the learning from the failure.
- Always look at the setback or failure from a 360 perspective rather than blaming or fixing someone.
- Always look for doing better in the given context as much as possible.
- When we take personal responsibility, it puts us on a highly energetic emotional level during the journey.
Quite contrary to the above behavior, if the person is not committed or not taking personal responsibility, he/ she displays the following behaviors.
- Less interest in actions and finding reasons or excuses for procrastination
- Look for the problems at any moment.
- Any failure or setback put the individual down.
- Momentarily blame someone or try to fix the external reason for failure or setbacks
when there is a commitment. Eventually, you win despite all the challenges …In the absence of commitment, nothing sustains.
One of the questions most business heads/managers look for answers to is whether the commitment is inborn or built within the person. How do you inculcate the feeling of responsibility in people’s minds in an organizational setup?
Commitment -Nature or Nurture?
We ended up with one question : Is personal commitment an inborn quality or can it be nurtured in any person?
For quite a long time, I used to observe and wonder how some people are committed to their work and being consistent. Also, I used to hear from business heads/managers that some people are not committed to the work or towards achievement.
One question I always seek answers to is whether the commitment naturally exists as an inborn quality or is nurtured by the environment.
I found some research studies on personality traits and the impact of genetics and the environment.
The finding is summarised below for quick reference.
- People develop a strong identity as they age, and maturity brings a more significant commitment to whatever task they take. At a young age, people are exploring their identity. In this process, there is a perceived gap in the commitment of others.
- Even though some of the personality traits are inborn, they are not stable. Those are subject to environmental factors like those with whom they are associating and influenced.
- Role clarity and continuity in the role bring more commitment than consistency in the environment.
The key learning for me is that both inborn and environmental matters are important in cultivating commitment among the people in the workplace.
How can the leader interpret the above findings and apply them in the workplace?
- People are at different levels of evolution. Each one requires TIME to change. Let us give it.
- Leaders / Managers are role models in demonstrating commitment consistently. When people work under a committed person, eventually he/ she becomes, which I have witnessed in many places. For example, when the leader is committed to responding to customer complaints within 24 hrs, people under them also commit the same pace as I have witnessed in one of the organizations.
- Since people are struggling with their identity, role clarity, distractions, overnight success pressure, and dilemmas, the leader’s time with people brings change toward achievement commitment.
- People development is a nurturing process, and it is the role of the people manager.
We need to ask ourselves whether we are committed to people’s development in the workplace!
Why do we sometimes fail to achieve?
Have you come across a situation where, despite knowing the clarity on your values, purpose, being in a conducive environment, and committed self, you still do not achieve what you intend in any new venture or assignment or delay the pace of achievement?
What is preventing us from achieving as per plan, or why is there slowness in progress?
It is due to the intensity of self-efficacy or, alternatively, lack of conviction.
Self-efficacy is the person’s belief that he/ she can complete the task. It refers to the individual conviction that he/ she can accomplish the task or mission. We know that to achieve something, we need to change some of our behaviors, but we have internal doubts that we can change our behavior. Given that self-doubt, we choose not to change the behavior. In that stage, we lose the conviction.
For example,
We are aware of the importance of physical fitness and know how to maintain healthy practices. However, most of us still never achieve the target of fitness, whatever we set ourselves. We have self-doubt about our ability to accomplish, say we need to get in the early morning to do exercise. When we have doubt, we lose conviction.
The point is that the failure is not because of awareness or know-how but, at an individual level, a lack of conviction.
In many organizations, the business heads set the business goals during the financial year but end up with a flat result or delaying progress. It is mainly due to a lack of conviction of the result or a lack of self-doubt in accomplishing it. External factors rarely play a role in achievement.
However, in some organizations, the business head sets the target and achieves the same. How do they bring the conviction themselves on the result and process, and how do they convince the team to succeed?
There are two main factors that determine the conviction. One is emotional, and the other is rational thinking.
Sense of achievement
Recently, in one of the management review forums, one manager narrated his daily work experience and asked the following question, which I felt is relevant to the topic “achievement orientation.”
The question is, “I am working hard throughout the day in the office, doing many activities, and being busy throughout the day, but still, at the end of the day, I do not get the satisfaction that I did achieve something.”Why don’t I get a sense of fulfillment?
I am sure most of us relate to ourselves as we might have experienced it sometimes.
What could be the reason for not feeling a sense of achievement?
My view is that lack of FOCUS on the priorities …. In an organizational setup, each role is expected to meet some of the priorities. Else, at the end of the day or eventually, at some period, we will feel, or others will perceive us that we are not achieving as expected.
Let me give an example,
If you are a functional finance head, your core priority or expectation from others is managing the fund flow in the organization seamlessly and looking at the opportunities for cash generation. Only when you have clarity on the same and focus your energy, effort, and time on achieving the core priorities do you feel a sense of achievement.
Alternatively, suppose you concentrate more on other non-core activities or work on others’ priorities and are always busy; at the end of the day, despite your hard work, you feel a sense of non-achievement only. Here, the issue is a lack of clarity on the priorities/expectations and a lack of focus on the priorities.
The point is for any professional, depending on the position or role, we need to have
- Clarity on what we want or what is expected of us
- Ability to focus on the priority
- Working on the priority and getting the desired result.
- Feeling a sense of achievement.
Clarity and Focus on priority are essential for getting a sense of achievement.
Just relate to your life experience and let me know your views!
Winning mindset to deal with challanges
As we conclude the topic “Achievement Orientation,” the last aspect is how an individual or effective leader deals with the challenges during the execution of any task.
Despite the planning process, clarity on values, purpose, being in conducive envelopment, self-commitment, and clarity on the roadmap, the reality is that the execution journey may not be rosy. The execution may not go as planned.
Sometimes, we ended up with a different result than what we planned at the beginning of the journey. Dealing with reality needs a mindset that looks at everything as a winning opportunity in the journey. We can develop the mindset with awareness and practice.
Some of my observations from effective leaders on dealing with the challenges
Embracing the challenges with excitement:
Effective leaders embrace the challenges when they initiate. I know one of the managing directors of an organization always starts with, “I am excited to initiate some actions.”Whenever he begins a difficult task, he begins with that vocabulary. He demonstrated his energy and enthusiasm towards facing difficult task challenges, and he succeeded in most of the tasks. The key is how you look at the challenges at the beginning of the journey. That will give you the power to navigate.
Being adaptable during navigation
Effective people are good at being adaptive to the challenges or changes during the journey. Adaptability is the ability to accept the changes at a given moment and accordingly change the plan, considering the task’s holistic view. This emotional aspect is essential as, in reality, the plan may not go as expected. The person who has adaptability is happier than the person being rigid.
Learn from the experience.
Another mindset the effective people demonstrate is that they take the outcome, whether favorable or unfavorable, as a learning experience. They always look at challenges in an optimistic way as “what I have learned from this experience.” When you look at every outcome as a learning experience, you will not get much disappointment.
Taking a step back and self-introspect
Some people take a step back and reflect on the things that went wrong in the planning. This mindset is the most effective way to deal with challenges and avoid mistakes in the future. The strong person can only admit mistakes, and self-introspection makes the individual further emotionally stronger.
Our mindset in dealing with reality is more essential than the celebration of the successful outcome, as life is an experience rather than an event. The mindset to deal with each experience matters in emotional wellness!
