In the last two posts, I wrote about two motivational strategies that Daniel Pink's research says do not work to motivate teachers (or anyone else) in creative endeavors: Carrot and Stick reward/punishment systems and If/Then rewards. In the next three posts, I'll write about the three things that he says do work effectively to motivate people: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Finally, I'll write about the factor that I think Daniel Pink missed. This post will be about the first element . . . autonomy.
Using autonomy to motivate and engage people is about giving individuals freedom within their jobs to direct themselves and the work, giving real input into the workings of the job, and allowing flexible grouping of employees to work on projects collaboratively. In studies of organizations that practice this kind of motivational strategy, Pink found that creative solutions and products burst forth out of activities featuring high levels of autonomy. Pink gives an example of Google's Friday activities. On Fridays at Google, employees are allowed to work on whatever project they desire with whomever else they wish. In this "20 percent time," more than half of Google's products (hence its profits) are generated. It is said that employees show up early and stay until the wee hours of the morning working on these Friday projects. And Google is not the only example. Atlassian, FedEx, and Twitter also use autonomy days like these to motivate and engage employees.
Eric Sheninger, a principal and prolific Twitter user, has used this same strategy at his school. Teachers are given time within the school day to work on creative projects of their choice with colleagues of their choice. Here's more information: http://www.centerdigitaled.com/training/Googles-8020-Principle-New-Jersey-School.html and you can find Eric on Twitter at @NMHS_principal. At one school I've worked with, we did something similar. This school had four collaborative meetings a month on late-start days. Originally, the principal gave an agenda for each meeting and teachers were mostly compliant, but not engaged. Then, the principal changed the structure so that he created the agenda for 3 meetings a month and on the fourth meeting teachers were allowed to create lesson plans with any group of teachers they wished. The result was spectacular cross-curricular, project-based common lesson plans. But an even more important result was a happy and engaged faculty.
In my experience at a county office, I've seen how autonomy can change motivation as well. As part of my work supporting Professional Learning Communities, one of our first activities is to show teachers how to use common assessment data to design interventions and change instruction. So, we developed a Data Analysis Worksheet to help schools accomplish this task. I dutifully took this DAW to several schools, trained them how to use it, and then watched it go completely unused for years because of a lack of motivation. Now, when I start working at a new school, I ask them "What would you like to accomplish with your data?" and "What would you have to measure in order to accomplish that?" and then together we build a tool to do exactly what they want. In every one of the schools that I've used this strategy, the worksheets get used regularly. And the magic is that they look almost exactly like the worksheet that I used to give other schools that went unused. What was the difference between the schools that used the data worksheet and those that didn't? Autonomy
Another example came from a friend of mine, Stan Crippen. Stan is retired now, but when he was teaching in a local high school, he helped set up what were called REAL Committees. The acronym stands for Resources, Environment, Achievement, and Life-Long Learners. Each committee was given autonomy to study issues, identify problems, and propose solutions. For example, a question might come up at a faculty meeting about getting iPads for teachers. The resources group would look around for grants to write and the Life-Long Learners group would set up fun trainings to show teachers how to use them. I had the wonderful experience of reproducing this process at another school (who added a "Students" committee to make them "REALS Committees"). It literally changed the entire culture of the school. The school went from an embattled relationship with the principal to a highly collaborative relationship. When that principal left, the committees kept the school running smoothly for 6 months with an interim principal. The REALS committees were able to implement a school-wide writing program with a common assessment, common rubric, and common data analysis worksheet! An administrator or outside consultant never could have accomplished this through training and traditional motivation alone. I uploaded a few slides from a PowerPoint that these teachers created to describe the REALS committees to their school board on my wiki, click here to have a look.
In the first post in this series, I wrote about how important teachers and the lessons that they teach are in improving student achievement. This new motivational technique, autonomy, should be used where it is most powerful, in motivating teachers to create spectacular lessons, assessments, and interventions. Autonomy works perfectly alongside PLCs, team-teaching assignments, leadership teams, School Site Councils, and other committees on campus tasked with affecting student achievement. Pink says that people should have autonomy in four areas: Task, Time, Technique, and Team. I cannot see how schools could be flexible with time as Results Only Work Environments do, but the other three areas leave plenty of room for autonomy. Give teachers autonomy over what they do, how they do it, and who they do it with and they'll be motivated to do creative, fulfilling work.
There are many more examples of autonomy-based motivational strategies with teachers. Please share yours in the comments section below.
How have you used autonomy to motivate teachers and change the culture of your school?
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Tags: autonomy, daniel pink, motivation, teachers, principal, leadership, michael horton, mike horton, drive
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