Punished by Rewards

by Alfie Kohn

 

You can't motivate people. Al you can do is set up conditions to maximize the chances that they develop a genuine interest in what they're doing.

 

CY: Note that this book is aimed at managing children or employees. The entrepreneur is generally self-managing.

 

Step One: Abolish (Externally Imposed) Incentives.

People want to be paid fairly, but once pay is negotiated, decouple the task from the compensation. That way, they don't become preoccupied by what they will get for what they are doing.

 

Step 2: Revaluate Evaluation

Evaluation should be for helping employees do better work. An evaluation should provide feedback, discuss problems, and identify needs. (This ties in well with Marcus Buckingham, who states that the job of the manager is to figure out the appropriate approach to help each individual attain the highest level of achievement.)

Therefore, evaluation should have the following characteristics:

- Be a 2-way conversation for trading ideas and asking questions, not a series of judgments by one individual on another.

- Be a continuous process, rather than an annual or quarterly event

- Not involve relative ranking or competition

- Have no direct link with compensation

 

Step 3: Create the conditions for authentic motivation. "Changing the way workers are treated may boost productivity more than changing the way they are paid."

Watch: Look for problems that need to be solved and help people solve them (but don't may them feel like they are under surveillance).

 

Listen: Listen seriously and respectfully to their concerns and try to see things from their point of view.

 

Talk: Provide plenty of feedback, both on what's going well, what needs improvement, and how to change.

 

Think: Understand the deeper issues, rather than simply reaching for the seductive simplicity of an incentive-based system.

 

The Three Cs of Motivation:

Collaboration:

People are more enthusiastic when they feel a sense of belonging and see themselves as part of a community. This is due to the exchange of talent and resources that result from cooperaton and the emotional sustenance of social support.

 

Content:

"If you want people motivated to do a good job, give them a good job to do." (Note from Buckingham: What consitutes a good job varies dramatically from person to person. Recall the joke about Heaven and Hell i.e. British cooks versus British cops; German engineers versus German lovers.)

The best jobs offer a chance to engage in meaningful work. This goal can't always be achieved, but is a good guiding principle.

 

Motivation is highest when a job offers the opportunity to learn new skills, experience some variation in tasks, and to acquire and demonstrate competence. "The manager's job is not to motivate people to get them to achieve; instead, the manager should provide opportunities for people to achieve so they will become motivated."

Let people work at the jobs that they are most likely to find interesting. Give them a chance to sample a variety of jobs until a good fit is found. Alow them to transfer periodically to keep things interesting. "When people are well-matched with their jobs, it is rarely necessary to force, coerce, bribe, or trick them into working hard and trying to perform the job well. Instead, they try todo well because it is rewarding and satisfying to do so."

Within a job, it is possible to enhance responsibility, meaningfulness, and feedback:

Make sure each worker has some knowledge of the results of what she is doing, experiences responsibility for these results, and sees the work as valuable.

 

For unpleasant jobs, acknowledge frankly that the task may not be fun, offer a meaningful rationale for doing it anyway, and give as much choice as possible about how to perform the task.

 

A study of garbage collectors showed that they were happy because relationships among the men were highlighted, tasks and routes were varied to avoid monotony, and the company was set up as a cooperative, making each worker feel a pride of ownership.

 

Choice:

Burnout is not a function of work volume, but rather of feeling controlled and powerles.

The characteristic most likely to kill creativity is not inadequate pay or tight deadlines, but a lack of freedom in deciding what to do or how to accomplish a task, lack of sense of control over one's own work and ideas."

People don't like change policies because they fear change, but because they don't like having it imposed on them. "People don't resist change. They resist being changed."

Giving employees the chance to make decisions is challenging, but pays off.

 

When a problem arises, managers should bring every employee into the process of working out a solution, including devsing ways to cope with hard times and searching for alternatives to layoffs.

 

Motivation in the Classroom

1. Focusing solely on grades can reduce a child's interest in learning. Instead, ask deeper questions like:

What did you do today in school that was really fun?

Did you hear or read something that surprised you?

What does it feel like when you finally solve a tough math problem?

Why do you think the Civil War started?

Instead of just assigning grades, offer substantive comments. Bring students in on the evaluation prooess by working with them to figure out how their learning can be assessed, and involving them in the assessment.

 

2. Learning as Discovery

- Alow for active learning, not just sitting passively at a desk.

- Give the reason for the assignment. If there is no good reason, it probably shouldn't be assigned.

- Elicit their curiosity. As with storytelling, ask questions (without right answers).

- Set an example. Show kids tha you enjoy reading and other intellectual pursuits. Admit when you don't know something. Demonstrate tenacity in th face of failure. Question conventional wisdom. Show how to make sense of a piece of writing tha is hard to understand.

- Welcome mistakes. Don't just correct them, figure out why they occur and use them as opportunities to facilitate the learning procees.

 

The Three Cs in the classroom.

Collaboration: Learning Together

Learning at its best is a result of sharing information and ideas, challenging someone else's interpretation and having to rethink your own, working on problems in a climate of social support. Al these things require talking--a classroom shouldn't be silent. Understanding and intellectual growth are derived not only from the relationship between student and teacher or between student and text, but also from the relationship between one student and another.

 

Make collaboration the rule, rather than the exception.

 

Content: Things Worth Knowing

The current system decontextualizes learning. We give individual bricks of information, devoid of the big picture, and hope that they have a house at the end (when they're more likely to have pile of bricks).

 

Unfortunately, this system is easier and takes less effort on the part of educators.

 

We must ask, how does the task connct to the world that the students actually inhabit. Children have lives and interests outside of school, and walk in with their own perspectives, points of view, ways of making sense and formulatint meaning. Teaching should take these realities into account ("constructivism"). Give students opportunites to explore phenomena and ideas, conjecture, share hypotheses, an revise their original thinking. Don't just lecture on the "right way" to do things.

 

A teacher should be "the guide on the side, not the sage on the stage."

Provide the right level of challenge. "Children are intrinsically motivated to engage in those tasks which are within their reach, but developmentally just beyond their current level."

Choice: Autonomy in the Classroom

Giving choice shows more respect for the kids, makes the teacher's job more interesting, and to given them a sense of control. Study after study shows that given choice, students produce better results. They learn faster, achieve more, and are happier. They even score higher on standardized tests.

 

Give children at least one block of time where they decide what to do.

Give creative writing assignments.

Let the class decide which books to read.

Give them choice in which medium to respond to a lesson--a poem, and essay, a play, sculpture.

 

Note that teachers are still providing guidelines or broad parameters, but are helping students set their own goals. A survey of high schoolers showed that their most important objective was reaching a personal goal.

 

God Kids Without Godies

 

Solving Problems: Return of the Three Cs

Content:

As a parent, ask yourself how reasonable your demands are. Do our rules conflict with basic needs, drives, or tendencies? Are we asking them to behave in a way that doesn't make sense given their stage of development.

 

For example, if a 6-year old wants to play with an ice cube at the dinner table, is there anything wrong with that? Maybe you ask them to clean up afterwards.

 

God parenting is about a willingness to think about decisions as opposed to a tendency to say no habitually and demand mindless obedience to mindless restrictions.

 

Collaboration:

The older the child, the more involved she should be. Instead of punishment and rewards, focus on mutual problem solving.

 

At the least, explain decisions with an appeal to reason.

 

Is it wrong to not clean up? Why do they have to stop grabbing toys that belong to someone else? Do students really have to raise their hands before speaking? Ideally, you can reach a mutual understanding wit children of what constitutes inappropriate behavior.

 

Going beyond that, thinking out loud together about why some things are wrong is integral to moral development.

 

If a behavior is a problem, the next task is to figure out the source. Start by asking the child. Since younger children can't always identify and verbalize their motives, parents have to play detective.

 

Next, come up with a plan together. "How do you think we can solve this problem? What do you think we should do now?" Carry out the decision, then check back later to achieve closure.

 

Choice:

When in doubt, bring the kids in on it.

 

Caring Kids

A warm, nurturing environment is ideal for positive development. It also turns out to be the best for getting children to do what we ask.

 

If children feel safe, they can take risks, ask questions, make mistakes, learn to trust, share feelings, and grow.

 

If they are taken seriously, they can respect others.

 

If their emotional needs arre met, they can meet other people's needs.

 

In order to be a caring person, parents must first be a person, rather than playing a role. A person gets distracted or tired, makes mistakes, asks for opinions, has interests outside of parenting and teaching, and doesn't mind discussing them.

 

Modeling.

Listen respectfully, try to help people, and admit your mistakes. Outside of providing love, few things we can do with children are as important, or as difficult, as apologizing to them for something we regret having done. Telling them, "If I ever say something to you that embarrasses or hurts your feelings (which I may do sometimes because I'm not perfect) please let me know" sets an example of courage as wel as concern.

 

However, give them a chance to help themselves. Rushing in to help teaches them that an adult will always take care of everything.

 

Explaining

People whose parents reasoned with them when they were children (rather than punishing or demanding simple obedience) were more likely to act altruistically and to become involed in social service.

 

Explanations shouldn't be limited to why things are bad, but also why some things are good.

 

Atributing positive motives. Atribute to a child the best possible motive that is consistent with the facts can set in motion a virtuous circle.

 

Ofering opportunities to care

Given them a chance to experience caring for other firsthand: caring for pets, younger siblines, working to help peers.

 

Emphasize perspective taking. Promote the practice of trying to imagine the way other people think, feel, and look at the world. Do not simply do unto others as you would have them do unto you because they may have very different tastes.

 

You can encourage perspective taking by:

- Modeling it yourself

- Using it to solve problems (like asking quarrelsome students or siblings to learn the other's perspective.

- Use the arts--ask them to describe how a story looks from another character's point of view, or to rewrite it.

 

The Chance To Choose

People who experience a sense of control over their lives are healthier, live longer, and recover more quickly. The psychological effects are even more pronounced. We are more likely to do constructive things like exercising when given choices. We can better tolerate noise, cold, and electric shock if we know we have the power to end them.

 

If we want a child to take responsiblity for their own behavior, we must give them responsibility. A child learns to make decisions by making decisios, not by following directions.

 

Barriers to Choice

Yes, we need rules and structures. The important question is who sets them--the adults alone, or the adults and parents together.

 

It is rigid an inauthetic to deny that Mom and Dad don't always see things the same way.

 

You must be willing to let children make decisions about thinks that matter, where you do care about the outcome, but are willing to give up the power anyway.