McClelland’s Need Theory of Motivation Management Coursework Paper

Motivational Theories: McClelland’s Need Theory of Motivation
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There are many theories of motivation that have been fronted that give a critical perspective on how organizations can best find ways to improve their workforce’s efficacy and productivity. This essay will criticize a movie depicting an organization and use McClelland achievement and acquired needs theory to understand how the organization could have applied the theory.
Introduction of the movie
Outsourced is a movie directed by John Jeffcoat and was produced in 2006. The movie is about a company that outsources its marketing department to India and sends one of its present employees to India to train the new crop of employees of the company. The movie starts when Todd Anderson (one of the employees to the company) is summoned by his boss (Dave) into his office and informed that he has to go to India to train the employees of a new company to which his department has been outsourced to. He goes to India to train his replacement Mr. Puro who is to be groomed to take his position. His new workplace is a half-built story building where he will lead a team of native Indians to understand what American customers expect. He has been given a nearly impossible goal by his employer; to make minutes-per-incident performance metric go below six minutes otherwise he will never return to the USA. Mr. Todd tries imposing his western approach to work on his employees. He challenges them to learn about Americans and develop American accents. The employees have many questions about the products they are selling since they do not understand them.
As Mr. Todd settles in Indian culture, he runs into Holi a celebration of color marking the start of spring. Arriving to work late with Mr. Puro, they notice that Asha, another employee had stepped up to fill their roles and she had remarkably improved the MPI. Mr. Todd noticing her leadership qualities, promotes her to be an assistant to Mr. Puro. He also asks the employees to bring whatever they want to the workplace which will make them happier and motivated to work. He even requests the company to ship some products as rewards to his team. He convinces his boss to agree to ship the products but they arrive at a different destination where Asha and Mr. Todd go to collect. Due to unavoidable circumstances that forced the two to spend a night together, Mr. Todd learns that Asha was engaged to her fiancée when she was 4 years old and she wanted to have a holiday in Goa. The two become closer even at work as they push to have lower MPI.
Dave arrives to check on Mr. Todd and to inform him about cancellation of the contract to the Indian company. He finds a power issue crisis that Mr. Todd and his team promptly respond and address in a short time. Dave is also impressed by the efficacy of the team but he has to let them go. Mr. Todd later announces the sad news in a partying event held to celebrate the six MPI in a local bar but the team seems motivates except for Mr. Puro. The movie ends as Mr. Todd turns down the offer to train Chinese employees but recommends Mr. Puro who is excited to take it.
Introduction of the theory and its application to the movie
The McClelland achievement and acquired needs theory was proposed by McClelland in his book The Achieving Society published in 1961 CITATION Dav61 \l 1033 (McClelland, 1961). McClelland pointed out that a person’s motivation and efficacy on a job is influenced by three needs; achievement, power/authority and affiliation. An employee who is achievement motivated seeks new challenges, sets challenging goals and job advancement. Their reward is not mainly monetary but also positive feedback. These people tend to avoid low risk and high-risk situations as low risk has very minimal returns on the achievement while high risk have a higher probability of failure. An individual motivated by power/authority seeks to find or assume a role in which heshe is influential, effective and ca make an impact. Such an individual has a strong need to lead and to have his/her ideas prevail. Thirdly, affiliation motivated individuals tend to want friendlier working environments and are motivated by desire to have better and more meaningful interactions with other people. Their goal is to develop healthy social relations and feel accepted by other people. Their main reward is a positive perception by other people.
All these factors occur in different blend in individuals but people exhibit a particular bias for a particular motivational need. This is the very point in which managers need to focus on to bring out the best in their employees. It is also their biggest weakness. A person driven by the need for affiliation will undermine their objectivity as their desire to be liked sometimes trumps their efficacy on their assigned tasks. A person who is driven by power and authority may impose their will unnecessarily on their teams or departments which undermines the social cohesion of the group because of inferiority complex. A person driven by achievement are also more likely to lack flexibility and social skills as their infatuation to their goals may hinder their other facets of their working environment. Individual motivated by high achievement make good leaders as they can push their team to achieve better results.
McClelland achievement and acquired needs theory can be used to analyze the human resource practices depicted in the movie Outsourced. The movie depicts the cause and effect of different facets of this theory through its characters. First, at the begging of the movie we meet a high achievement motivated character. Dave (Mr. Todd’s boss) who is a high achievement individual. He possesses the hallmarks of a leader who pushes his team to achieve better results. Subject to his character to push himself and his team to achiev...