Motivating Students and Employees
Motivation
and Value-Based Learning
Students and employees want to be inspired to be the best they can
be in the pursuit of knowledge and in the workplace. People are fundamentally
self-motivated when provided with a direction and purpose greater than
themselves. Eric Hofer stated, “Man is his own worst taskmaster.” In other
words, people will drive themselves harder and longer than either a teacher or
a manager will drive them when they understand and are inspired enough to
commit themselves to a high-minded purpose or goal. Whether it is the greater
mission and purpose of an organization or simply to be the best they can be as
employees or students, people want to be inspired and then they will motivate
themselves to take the next step toward higher levels of performance and
development individually, organizationally and culturally (See Motivation and Performance).
The more high-minded and service-oriented students are the more motivated they are to learn and to develop. However, this is the key element that is missing in education today. At present, learning in most schools is based on a carrot-on-the-stick approach to education as students compete for grades and are compelled to work against each other as teachers attempt to pack as much knowledge into their heads as possible before graduation. Since studies have shown that most students forget up to ninety percent of what they learn after about a year, this approach is limited in what it is able to achieve. Also, most studies support the fact that students need to feel safe enough to take the risks necessary to learn and to grow individually and socially in school (Knowles, 1979). In the mad rush to compete for grades in order to enter grad school or law school most students feel neither safe nor free enough to take the risks in class to participate openly and learn from each other. Instead, they are learning that their colleagues are primarily competitors who cannot be completely trusted. As a direct result of this process, students who are best able to memorize the soon-to-be-forgotten information for tests and function best at taking exams are graduating top in their classes, but without the key elements of motivation or inspiration necessary to take their learning to the next level. These students are not high-level learners but are products of institutionalized learning that has prepared them with some technical knowledge and skills but without the collaborative learning or leadership abilities to inspire or motivate themselves or others without the carrot on the stick.
Now, as these students graduate, they trade grades for money as the new carrot and their approach to learning is built upon a fundamental distrust of each other instead of a collaborative or team approach to learning, problem solving and the construction of knowledge. Many of these students are neither motivated nor inspired by anything more than their next paychecks and without any sense of how their subjects in school connect with a better society or world. The results of this process have become increasingly clear in recent years and months with the collapse of the economy and the havoc on Wall Street. This catastrophe has led to the bankruptcy or “bailout” of investment companies whose valueless management could only take advantage of a lack of oversight and regulation. Through the use of financial engineering and manipulation of investments for profit at the expense of the consumer they created investment tools such as the Credit Default Swap (CDS) and packages that served to undermine the overall economic system. Armed with only their technical knowledge and the ability to compete for their own self-serving benefits they were only able to go for the carrot without regard or the vision to see how their actions might affect others. This reality is sending shock waves through the economic system and now is beginning to send even greater shock waves through our educational process (See Crisis in Education).
Even our Nobel Prize Winning Professors are beginning to see the flaws in the students they have taught. Paul Samuelson, the Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, recently stated that we have created monsters who have the tools to financially engineer economic disaster on Wall Street. Professor Samuelson was addressing the teaching of students who had been involved in helping to create the Credit Default Swap System that has undermined the entire investment process by taking advantage of the loopholes in the regulations with little or no regard for the implications of their actions. Now, everyone is asking the same question as Dr. Samuelson. What has gone wrong with our educational process that we could create such self-serving monsters with the lack of vision or concern for the broader implications of their actions on the financial system?
This process of teaching the naked tools of financial manipulation (engineering) without a foundation in ethics or democratic values to help students to appreciate the implications of their actions and impact on others can be compared to all of the mad scientists throughout history who had no regard for anything or anyone except their own fame and power to create something monstrous. However, at least in most scientific research in the educational realm federal funding requirements for government grants involve evidence that the research being conducted provides a clear benefit to society or the environment. On the other hand, in the realm of high finance there are no such requirements either in education or in business. And, as a result without connecting these courses in economics and finance with some benefit to humanity or democratic society, an out of control species of financial manipulators is created who only learned how to maximize personal or business profits without human concern.
Clearly, these recent events on Wall
Street bring to light the increasing problems in our educational system that is
devoid of a value-based democratic context for learning. Students are
continuing to graduate with narrow technical knowledge, but without the
necessary collaborative learning, problem solving or team leadership abilities
to succeed in a way that benefits everyone and makes the world a better place
to live. Also, with the emphasis on grades in school and money in workplace
fewer students are motivated to choose advanced learning in the areas of
science and engineering. Instead, with the increasing cost of higher education
and bills that must be paid after graduation, students are choosing the fast
track to financial success as lawyers, doctors or investment brokers. They are
choosing Wall Street over
High-minded students and employees are motivated students and employees who are connected with a mission and purpose greater than themselves and see the value of their work in relation to the world around them. No individual or organization exists in a vacuum and learning how all students and employees in finance, science or engineering are connected in a significant way to society and the environment is an essential part of their education and ability to perform at the highest levels. It is also essential to inspire them and help encourage them to motivate themselves to increasingly higher levels of learning. Without these important elements of connected learning context in a value-laden system, students are left to fend for themselves in a valueless system of competitive self-interest that limits their aspirations, motivation and ability to succeed in creating better organizations and a better world.
Copyright 2009, Global Leadership Resources: For teaching or classroom use only.
Note:
The above examples are based on the concepts and principles included in the
book, Transformative Leadership and High Synergy Motivation by Timothy Stagich,
Ph.D.
Other sources: Knowles, Malcolm, The Adult Learner: A Neglected Species, Gulf Publishing Company, 1970.
Discussion Questions
- How are students and employees motivated to achieve higher levels of performance?
- Do you agree with Eric Hofer that “Man is his own worst taskmaster”? Why?
- What are the key elements involved in self-motivation and advanced learning?
- How is the present carrot-on-the-stick approach to education preventing students from motivating themselves to achieve higher levels of learning?
- Why are high-minded and collaborative students more motivated to achieve?
- How do value-based learning and democratic context for coursework help to inspire and motivate students to greater levels of performance?
- Discuss ways of incorporating
value-based learning and democratic context into the curriculum of schools
and universities. Give some examples?
