Creating an Achievement Driven Culture is more than recognizing employees for employment anniversaries and team accomplishments. It is about creating an atmosphere that exists and thrives in the leaders and their employees.
Why is creating an Achievement Driven Culture important?
Organizations are 32% more adaptable to changes in the external environment and 32% higher in quality performance.
Teams are 28% more effective in teamwork and have a 25% greater commitment to producing a quality result.
Individuals are 32% more motivated, 26% more satisfied, and 25% more likely to stay with the organization.
It takes an Achievement-focused leader that can facilitate better results at an individual, team, and organizational levels (research by Human Synergistics).
An Achievement-focused leader demonstrates an Achievement style. These behaviors include (as referenced by hrsuccess, Greg Mitchell's blog: Focus on leadership and culture: Achievement.):
Showing enthusiasm.
Involving others in goal-setting and planning.
Exploring alternatives before reacting.
Being clear about their expectations of others.
Enjoying a challenge.
Believing in their own ability to achieve and have a positive impact. (Achievement-focused individuals tend NOT to believe in fate, luck or chance as the determinant of success).
An Achievement-focused leader engages with their employees. They create an atmosphere of possibilities. This results in an Achievement-focused culture where employees will generally feel expected to:
Set challenging yet realistic goals for themselves and others.
Work hard to achieve those goals.
Pursue a standard of excellence.
Think ahead and plan.
Focus on excellent and continual improvement.
According to author Susan Robertson, in her book REAL Leadership:
Waken to Wisdom, as a leader, you can realize true achievement by simply acknowledging and supporting the humanness you see. Treating people as people first and as workers, second is building an organization on shared values. That is as strong a foundation as you can have.
Your organization can be a high-performing, vibrant team of contributors, individually and collectively engaged in a mutual quest for reaching and surpassing all goals placed before them. You and your employees can enjoy a culture of organizational success on a scale never before achieved in your company. This success will be realized through a transcendence from old habits and unconscious behaviors to a new openness and state of being at choice to do better.
Here is how you can become an Achievement-focused leader:
Use the language of Achievement and demonstrate personal enthusiasm (e.g. "I'm confident that we can...", "There is a real opportunity for us here...").
Set goals, write them down, plan for their achievement, and regularly revisit your plan.
Be persistent when faced with challenges.
Adopt a deliberate, problem-solving approach rather than a negative, emotive one.
Do not allow yourself to be distracted from the task at hand.
Remember these 4 Tips to creating an Achievement Driven Culture to improved results:
Demonstrate the Achievement-focused leader behaviors, it's about your attitude.
Engage with the team by getting the team involved in goal-setting and planning, regularly communicating, and reviewing progress towards the goals. Allow the employees to evaluate their own performance and give them the opportunity to see the impact of their work.
Focus on continual improvement of products, services, systems, and processes.
Recognize and celebrate collective and individual achievements regularly.
References:
Mitchell, G (2016, May 10). Focus on leadership and culture: Achievement. Hrsuccess.com.au
Robertson, S (2019). Real leadership: Waken to wisdom. The Books Factory.
The Human Synergistics Circumplex (n.d). humansynergistics.com
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