Creating a Climate of Mastery

When we think about creating a winning culture, during both periods of success and a culture that carries through in periods of adversity, too often the basis of that “culture” is on the end outcome, the goals. That seems to make sense. There is a target to achieve, a competition to win, a league ladder to top.
What is missed with that approach is the achievement motivation of the individuals and the team. This refers to the efforts to master the task, with excellence, to overcome obstacles and take pride in exercising talent rather than a singular focus on the end outcome. Consequently the hallmarks of high achievers are that they select challenging tasks and persist in the face of failure.

What we know from sports science is when we as leaders can provide task-oriented feedback our “players” perceive the motivational climate to be more mastery orientated and less based on ego-orientation (a key facet of a goal based motivational climate), (Gershgoren et al, 2011).
This approach is often lost within sales team cultures. Too often the win at all costs attitude permeates through observation, modelled behavior and rewards aligned to the end goal that ignores attitudinal shifts towards a high ego-orientated state, that ultimately leads to attributions of success primarily to an individuals proficiency and attributions of failure to those other than the individual. In other words a blame culture, win at all costs, and ultimately a culture that does not thrive in the face of adversity.

This creates a problem for those entering such a culture. These “high achievers” have a fragile hold on success. For the new entrants whose competency at tasks may initially be low, can without initial success demonstrate a maladaptive behavior pattern in that faced with now being able to compete they, reduce their efforts, cease trying or make excuses. However as the blame game is one that perpetuates in these climates, they shift to tasks that are guaranteed to provide success and challenge new ways, new methods, fight change and fight progression and avoid peer evaluative feedback. In fact they don’t cope with feedback very well at all.

What motivation theories tell us is that to build a culture of achievement orientation, a climate of mastery, leaders in organisations need to become better at focusing on task mastery and feedback that builds confidence in an individuals management of the task at hand rather than a singular focus on the end goal.

Weinberg and Gould (2015) provide these guidelines:

• Set appropriate tasks aligned to progression towards mastery of a subject
• Emphasise the task goals and downplay the outcome goals
• When providing feedback ensure that attributions are appropriate. In other words focus on what the individual can control from a task perspective and ensure they take responsibility of task achievement and non-achievement.
• Enhance the perception of competence and control for the individual.

Critically this approach aligns with studies of organisational behavior such as the groundbreaking working of Amabile and Kramer (2011),that provided the keys to positive work culture. It was identified that clear tasks, with appropriate encouragement, resources, feedback, transparent leadership and celebrating the small wins (task achievement) were vital ingredients to developing a vibrant supportive and winning culture.

We as leaders directly and indirectly create motivational climates. If we do not give this influence we have any thought or planning (on a daily basis) we can unconsciously and irrevocably create a climate that focusses on blame, that is siloed, stagnant and incapable of reacting to challenges that require different thinking and approaches.

A new game plan is needed, one of confidence in the ability of our players to carry out the required “plays” and is achieved because they understand their roles, their tasks and through that clarity they have mastered the set plays and are ready for the challenge.