Leit Motif

David McClelland's 3-Need Theory
Achievement, Affiliation, Power

before we talk about the theory lets talk about motivation..
motivation
the reason to do ...intrisic or extrinsic
what ever be the reasons but its difficult to stop a motivated person ... there is no good or bad in the balance of life .. the feeling of schadenfreudo is prevalent among the common masses.The idea of carpe diem is what motivation leads to .Motivation is like a sine qua non without which no objectives can be achieved.the idea of ne plus ultra is what drives some ,the sense of challenging tasks ,to reach the pinnacle of excellence, what the rifraf know as perfection and the elite as way of living.motivation is to process in which we find the reasons to act in a preconcieved directed fashion.

McClelland views are not associated with some theoretical idea but rather deals with general work place environment, motivates are a result of from life's experiences .Acquired need's theory that he proposed specify individual specific needs
And most of these can be classified in terms of achievement affiliation and power
so he demarcated the
nAch need for achievement
nAff need for affiliation
nPow need for power

people with high need for achievement tend to avoid high risk and low risk situation,you may ask why so .. well cause in low risk situations there is no glory and in high risk it is control more by the roll of the dice than by the edge of the sword. Achievers tend to work alone or with other achievers.
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the need of affiliation
people with such needs conform to the norms of the group... they have acquired the need to be accepted from their past experiences in childhood or in adolescence for that mattter.. High nAff individuals prefer work that provides significant personal interaction

POWER
A person's need for power (nPow) can be one of two types - personal and institutional
Managers with a high need for institutional power tend to be more effective than those with a high need for personal power.

more on his later

Thematic Apperception Test

McClelland used the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) as a tool to measure the individual needs of different people. The TAT is a test of imagination that presents the subject with a series of ambiguous pictures, and the subject is asked to develop a spontaneous story for each picture. The assumption is that the subject will project his or her own needs into the story.

Psychologists have developed fairly reliable scoring techniques for the Thematic Apperception Test. The test determines the individual's score for each of the needs of achievement, affiliation, and power. This score can be used to suggest the types of jobs for which the person might be well suited.