10 Lectures for a Fresh Undergraduate @HSS Lecture 4 : Finding the Right Job-Fit

Every attendant got a questionnaire which is designed to help people understand their own values from three aspects: Achievement, Affiliation and Power.

Dr. Hall emphasized that “A job that suits you helps you gain energy, while a job that doesn’t suit you takes the energy from you” by showing a picture of Michael Jordan as a basketball player and a baseball player. The reason why Michael Jordan was less known as a baseball player is because the baseball player Michael Jordan was not as successful as basketball player Michael Jordan.

With a picture of an iceberg, Dr. Hall illustrated the components of a competence. It is quite easy for people to see with their eyes and measures of a person’s knowledge and skills. However, his values, self-image/social role, traits and motives are pretty hard to be observed yet matter most. The factor at the bottom with great importance is called “motive”. Motivation can be either internal or external. Reward, for example, is external motivation. 

There are three social motives: Achievement (concern for achieving/exceeding a standard of excellence), Affiliation (concern for maintaining relationship) and Power (concern for having impact or influence). 

People who are driven by achievement motives are pretty comfortable with taking challenges. Here, Dr. Hall cited an example of children playing games. Children like to play the games with affordable challenges, without which, the games will never satisfy them anymore. Jobs that suit these kind of people most are salesmen, since they enjoy the pleasure of reaching selling goals and motivated by achievements. 

Affiliation motive-driven people value more on creating a friendly working environment. Teachers and psychologists are of this type as they prefer the harmonious environment to persuade others.

Power motive-driven people usually have strong wish to influence others: they use “I/me” a lot and speak quite often. Actors, teachers and consultants are of this type.

Another important latent component of the “competency iceberg” is “traits”. According to IBM’s Leadership Model, “motives/traits” determine the “management styles” and thus form a certain “climate” and will certainly effect their “organization results”.

“Think about your motives. Think about your traits.” Dr. Hall said, “We can all be world-class professionals, but our DNA must align to our profession.”