This guest blog was written by Marion Spears Karr, President, Avery Executive Search (a unit of Atlanta-based Avery Partners Inc.). It summarizes a concept – the title of this blog — that he developed and uses then he offers personal- and leadership-development programs.
Accomplishment Culture© (AC) is a comprehensive team- and leadership-development program. It makes individuals strongly and concretely aware of how their skills and accomplishments do (or could) create value not only for their team and organization but also for themselves. Individuals especially create value for themselves when their work activities are compatible with their own so-called motivational value systems (MVS).
MVS is a concept rooted in the well-established, generalizable observation that what typically drives behavior is the need of individuals to feel themselves (perhaps subconsciously) worthy as human beings. While each individual has his or her own MVS, science has established that there are only a few basic MVS types and that an exceedingly simple test can uncover them.[1]
One objective of AC training is to help individuals discover the key features of their MVS. Another objective is to enhance the awareness that
- everyone in a team environment matters, irrespective of the position they hold on the organization chart and that
- everything any member of a team does each day is mission-critical to the attainment of the goals and targets being pursued at the workplace.
When the individual and collective capabilities of a team are deployed in such a way that they support the self-worth, motivation, and optimal experience of each team member, the team has the highest probability of achieving its goals and mission in a meaningful and impactful way.
A key element of achieving lasting success with AC training is that the mission and objectives of the workplace (and that of each business unit) be formulated and communicated clearly and in ways that individuals can identify with.
AC is fully compatible with the ideas and practices of Flow-Promoting Leadership . Beyond that, those who understand and make use of the principles and practices of AC are more likely to experience Flow on a regular basis than persons who are similar except for not being aware of AC and its benefits.
[1] This is the well-known psychometric test, the “Strength Deployment Inventory” (SDI), used widely by all kinds of organizations in various types of cultures, throughout the globe. See http://oka-online.com/content/assets/Articles/SDI-Handout_Final.pdf