Success Secrets and Stories
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Success Secrets and Stories
Navigating the Forth Level of the Responsibility Ladder of MBR - Achievement
Ever wondered what fuels the relentless drive of high achievers and how they cope with the immense pressure to perform? Join us as Greg and I, with insights from Dr. Durst's classroom wisdom, peel back the layers of the achiever personality. We take you on a journey through the emotional landscapes of these ambitious individuals, examining their need for validation and the competitive spirit they infuse into the workplace. As we unpack the achiever's world, we'll share stories that shine a light on the stress-induced behaviors, including their dietary habits, and the strategies they employ to maintain balance amidst their rigorous success quests.
Our discussion further evolves as we cherish the profound influence of parental guidance and the art of practical life planning. We reflect on how a positive outlook and gratitude for the present can dramatically shape one's pursuit of happiness and success. With a nod to my book, "Building Your Leadership Toolbox," and Dr. Durst's invaluable resources, we illustrate the power of foresight and preparation in steering a rewarding career trajectory. So, whether you're an achiever grappling with the stress of high expectations or a leader looking to understand and guide your high-achieving team members, this episode offers a heartfelt and strategic approach to embracing the journey and acknowledging every milestone along the path to fulfillment.
Presented by John Wandolowski and Greg Powell
Well, welcome everyone to Success Secrets and Stories. I'm your host, John Wunalski, and I'm here with my friend and co-host, Greg Powell. Hey everybody, yeah, so today we're going to be talking about a new subject it is the fourth subject of five on ladders, different ladders of responsibility, and today we're going to be talking about the achievement level. And I'm really a fan of the achievement level because that's one of the things that I think really struck me when I took the class with Dr Durst. What was important is we were pushing to try to be better and when I came into the class I had that A-type personality and it kind of fell right into the description of achiever. And of course, whenever you're going in for a course, you want to try to get ahead. You want to. You know achievers are trying to get all the answers. And I read ahead in the text before I came to the meeting and said I fit that category of achiever and was pretty surprised on what I learned as the course of the day went on. So let's begin Now.
Speaker 2:The first element we're going to talk about is emotional responses, and the things that are associated with the achievement levels are interesting enough A sense of utility, heredity or impatient, hyperemotional, can be aggressive.
Speaker 2:Dissatisfaction with performance. It's usually that driving force that you want to do better and you want to do more and you want to have that opportunity for advancement and those things kind of migrate into things like being aggressive or being hyperemotional. One category that we talk about in terms of activity involvement, which is his next description, it's frenzied or there's very short activities, quick activities, those simple kind of returns on investment. Instead of picking the hard things on my list to do, I'm going to take the easy ones because I get that sense of satisfaction and completion. The importance of goals and deadlines really do affect the people who are at the achievement level, because the more you get to prove to your boss that you're better than the others, that does affect how people act and how they interact. Relationships is the other piece and I think, Greg, you can talk about a little bit about how that relationship element of it, the need of intimacy, the esteem of others, especially the esteem of others, how people who are in this category are always looking for approval.
Speaker 1:They are John. They're looking for approval, they're looking for acceptance. It's really, really important to them to feel valued and needed, and so they have a heightened desire for that achievement piece in the relationship scenario.
Speaker 2:And they're competitive. They try to be positive in the competitiveness, but I always find it interesting in work-related activities that they're measuring themselves against others. I did more than you did. You didn't know that you were in a race, but the people who are in this category are and they're looking for competition.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, they bring that sports competitiveness into the office, into the workplace. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and a little bit of that is healthy. A lot of that isn't healthy, right, right. And the physical state in terms of how people react in terms of, well, I personally found myself, when I was in stress, sometimes eating too much because food's my friend and I have stress and so I'm going for the food side of it. Some people avoid food and practically starve themselves. It's all stress related and, you know, sometimes you know I need to set one beard when I get home or whatever it is that you're taking to relax. And sometimes that affects your ability to act, your ability to perform, your ability to have a clear head, that high performers also trying to gear down at the end of the day because they're trying to charge as hard as they can, those things affect in terms of their physical state. So the achievement level, after the activities, in addition to those external, dictates that they want to gain acceptance and they are going to strive to achieve or find some order and approval in the process. The achievement level individuals look for accomplishments and ways to establish self-worth. Unlike the conformance level, managers at this level are productive, goal-oriented and typically meet deadlines. They question rituals and have a sense of independence. The major problem with the achievement level is the manager seems hassled or under a great deal of pressure. Because they are, it's all self-imposed, because everything is an emergency. The laugh that I got is I was extremely good at emergencies. Because it was right in my wheelhouse, that's what I did. I could bring order to chaos, but that isn't the greatest of all skills. These managers often managed by crisis and that was one of the trips. When I heard that one like rang a bell that my jobs that I've actually found success in were pretty high pressured positions. He goes on to say ironically, since these achievement managers often do not take the time to plan ahead or to anticipate possible problems, they end up creating the very crisis situations they were attempting to control or quell. That was the one that you could put a star on it, because that was me. When he hit that line, I was like okay, I think I do have some place to grow.
Speaker 2:Several problems resulting from continual crisis situations often manifest themselves into a great deal of stress Executive burnout, coronary disease, high blood pressure. I raised my hand for high blood pressure, yay. All those things compound your ability to try to act and perform work, those pressures you have to start managing. Now, one of the giggles I got is I got into jazz at that point trying to listen to music that didn't have any words and I drove my kids nuts. Every time they hear the call letters of WNUA, they would just start to freak out no dad, please something else other than jazz. But that was one of my ways of dealing with stress. The topic, I think, is something that, greg, you can add in terms of stress.
Speaker 1:I can, john. We're a couple of old baby boomers. You were just taught to power through it. If you work on it, take care of it, muscle it out, you'll be fine. But the topic of mental health in the workplace is real. If the pandemic taught us anything, it said, people definitely can go over the edge, go over the top mentally because of the stress they're going through, whether it's imposed or it's real. And so now you're hearing about companies offering enhanced mental health care benefits. You're hearing about you. Think about achievement level managers. They could be very vulnerable, very vulnerable, and don't ignore the systems and assistance that's available. So I'm saying that to the manager themselves, I'm saying it to their manager be in the lookout for these types of symptoms and use the resources at your disposal.
Speaker 2:The pressure, the things that are associated with achievement. Dr Dersheda, I think about the achievement game, which is an interesting sidelight of you. Bet your life, rather than monopoly it's, are you going to survive the job? The achievement level always wants more and at the same time, I really have a hard time finding satisfaction. Highest salary, fastest cars, best restaurants the list goes on. Always comparing themselves to the competition, always looking for satisfaction. You know the types that are trying to keep up with the Joneses, who want to talk about how their golf score is better than others, their college that they went to was superior to the other person's college. That competitiveness just sometimes doesn't have any place to end and I think that that kind of tips a line that I like, that, Greg, you used.
Speaker 1:So satisfaction, get some. So think about that. Old Rolling Stones hit. I can't get no satisfaction. They probably had a different kind of meaning than what we're talking about, but actually you can get satisfaction. Life is short and guess what? More is not necessarily better. Again, more is not necessarily better. So how do we get satisfaction? So, several ways. The first one is be conscious If you think of the times you experience happiness, joy, inner peace and satisfaction. Were you there for it? Think about it. Well, of course you were there for it. Share the truth. Satisfaction and relationship stems from true communication, that exchange To share experiences and stuff with another and be willing to experience the other person as they are. And the operative word here is share, share the truth.
Speaker 2:And the one line I really like from that is you experience the other person as they are. You're not trying to change them. Overachievers are trying to manipulate the processes and that's where they usually get themselves stuck, as they are. Appreciate who they are, anyway sorry.
Speaker 1:That's good, john. Yeah, now it's perfect, even when things are going on that you don't like. And finally, the fourth one. Satisfaction is really saying, to kind of sum it up, being conscious of sharing the truth, noticing the perfection of your experience, accepting total responsibility, which has been a theme in our podcast, management by responsibility. Now, people who found satisfaction actually smile more. Satisfaction is a choice that is made in the now. Get the joke. When someone tells you you should be happy, get it. You are making the decision that present on how you want to conduct your life, because you're either happy or you're not happy.
Speaker 1:Some of the richest people in the world are miserable. So I think about a story that went into a movie that I love. Think about it around the holiday times. It's called it's a Wonderful Life and the richest person in town was a banker, mr Potter. He was rich and very unhappy, very miserable. But George Bailey ended up being broke because of his uncle's mistake and at the end of the movie you see that big basket of money. His younger brother comes back from the war and says congratulations to my brother, the richest man in town. He wasn't talking about that basket of money, he was talking about all the friends that came to his aid, to his assistants, just because he needed it.
Speaker 1:One other story when I think about satisfaction and choice, I think about my mom. My brother and I grew up. We didn't have a lot. It was a small house, two bedroom place. My brother and I used to do clean empty trash cans and dust off chalkboards, to pay for Catholic grade school. But we had food, we had clothing. Did I have the hottest new basketball shoes? No, but I had basketball shoes. Did I have the coolest new Stingray bike? No, it didn't say Schwinn on it, but it was a good bike and it did me very well. And you learn to appreciate what you have and be satisfied for the things that you do have. And so for me, I had a house full of love. That was more than I could ask for.
Speaker 2:And I think your mom's profession helped in terms of how you see people and how you act with people. Maybe you can talk about that and how it formalized how you conduct yourself and now you find achievement, how she defined achievement.
Speaker 1:I will, john, thank you. So my mom was a social worker and her specialty was family social work and it took on all types of dimensions when you think about maybe that one child that was kind of wild, maybe the one spouse that wasn't fully engaged. But her work was to try to help bring order and a pattern of good behavior moving forward for family situations, and sometimes it was really as basic as this. They didn't have necessarily a lot of money, but you didn't have to have a lot of money to have some peace and peaceful coexistence with a family and you learn to appreciate those things. Hey, we ate dinner together, that's fantastic. We went to church together on Sunday. So on to those birthdays, we're all celebrating it together.
Speaker 1:Dad got a promotion at work what have you but she was there to help remind people about the things they should be excited about and they could anchor around to be happy. And so she led her life that same way. Sometimes she had disappointments. She worked around the disappointments. When things were going well, we celebrated and reveled in what was going well and we took stock of those things in our lives as she did in her life. She sacrificed a lot. I remember the Michael and I and I think by all intents and purposes we probably exceeded our own expectations. But it wasn't about a lot of money in the pocket. It was about understanding what satisfaction really means and applying it to our lives.
Speaker 2:Now that, I think, is what formalized your approach to life that I noticed, having the joy in the moment and understanding the blessings that you have. I think it comes from my background, from your background, and you can appreciate the things that are happening. I think the other part about the achievement level that really rang a bell for me was the planning your mom, your mom planned and she found a way to make it work within her family, and she was a single parent. Yes, and that's one of the toughest things for a woman to do is take on both roles and trying to help their son. And where they're going in the next spot For me, when I went through this class, what really stuck out for me was the planning part of it and the part about how I was going into crisis after crisis, because I found that as being a natural part, but until I went through MBR, I really didn't put a lot of time and effort in planning, and I think that's the magic dust of what we're talking about and especially how it applies into the next step, when we're talking about the responsible level.
Speaker 2:Planning and setting goals are something that you're supposed to be doing every year, every other year at minimum, so that not only do you do the planning and the goal setting for your job and this is the part that Dr Durst really made a point it's for your life, for the things that you're trying to accomplish in your life, the goals that you're trying to get to that end. One of the wonderful lines that he used was don't wake up five years from now, or, worse, 10 or 15 years from now, and say, where did the time go? I had such ambitions. If you're not working the plan, if you're not setting goals, then you're just going to experience life and it's all going to be an accident. Your mom had a purpose and she taught you goals setting from the beginning, and it wasn't so much the best, but it was what was competent and capable and met the requirements.
Speaker 1:It was what I needed.
Speaker 2:Right, you didn't have to have the best. It wasn't a Cadillac, it was a car, it wasn't Michael Jordan's, it was shoes. Those things, I think, are important for not only a business mentality but a personal mentality, and to enjoy the things that you have, make realistic goals on where you're going. The whole part of the A personality that I was taught when I first went into management. They talked about the A personality, the B personality and the C personality. Does it ring a bell? Absolutely A, b, c styles. Yes, right, so the A style was the achievement level and, man, this is where you wanna go, and fast, fast, hurry, hurry. The truth is you need people in each one of those categories. You need somebody that is going to do the job, that finds the joy in the job, and maybe they've hit the pinnacle of what they want to do.
Speaker 2:I find I have found that other measurement approach was really counterproductive when I was in the maintenance world, because I needed people who were happy at the job that they've accomplished. And it isn't like I saw more potential. They could have done more, but the point is they got where they wanted to be. This was their goal. They found joy in being a mechanic and they wanted to be the best mechanic possible. And until you understand that there's people at different levels in how they achieve those. One is challenging, which is fine. I believe we as managers need to challenge people when it's appropriate, when there's an interest in it.
Speaker 2:One of my fears is trying to promote and not have something to advance the person in. And they'll say, well, I don't see what you see in me, but more so, I don't see how I can see that advancement. And there's this wide opening moment when you look them in the eye and say, maybe it's not here, maybe it's in another company, but I'm still here to help you make that transition to your next level. And there's like that mind opening of what you mean somewhere else. You've experienced that where you've told people to try to improve on their career, even though maybe the company that you're working for now is not the one you're gonna end up with, you're not gonna retire with. I mean, we've had companies fall out from underneath us as we were working. Yes, and I think you're one story there. You're talking about how you were training yourself to prepare for the next level and when you had that phone call. Maybe you can talk about that.
Speaker 1:Sure, sure, john. Yeah, I was a manager in human resources. My goal was to hit that next level of responsibility and accountability at the director level, and I had a sheet that I wrote down what the competencies were for that next level and what was I doing to check mark and close that gap from the manager to director and, for all intents and purposes, from my manager. I was doing fine. And then what happened? My company was purchased by a bigger company.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you've been through that right. And they moved from the Midwest to the Northeast and that wasn't part of my plan to make that geographical move, but because I had been working on that plan, closing those competencies had a goal in mind. I was hired by a local company in Chicago for a director level position and there's no question in my mind I was getting myself prepared for the job. I wish it would have happened with my old company, but the old company's gone. I still want that level, responsibility and accountability. I put the plan in action, had a couple of good breaks come my way, as we all do, and voila, I became a director of human resources.
Speaker 2:But what's the line that they use in sports? You're lucky if you're prepared.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they used to say the definition of luck is for opportunity and preparedness meet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. So a lot of what the achievement level gives you, that the responsibility level in this regard is basically agreeing with it, but asking you to have a wider sense of view, that you're not looking at a very small opportunity. It's not just work, it isn't that next paycheck, it's what are you gonna do with your life? How are you trying to gear yourself going forward? And I'm looking forward to our next podcast. So, greg, what are we talking about?
Speaker 1:next time. So, john, we're gonna continue with the discussion of the five levels of responsibility, but focusing on responsibility level.
Speaker 2:There you go, so we're gonna be wrapping up the ladders. If you like what you've heard, my book that I have based our podcast on is available on Amazoncom and Lulucom. It's building your leadership toolbox. Success Secrets and Stories. Podcast is on what you're listening to and other formats. Thank you, dr Ders' books and his MBR program is available on wwwsuccessgrowthacademycom and the music is brought to you by my grandson.
Speaker 1:So thanks Greg, thanks John as always, next time, next time.