Post 8- What did Daniel Pink Miss?

What did Daniel Pink miss in his three factors of motivation: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose?  Relationships!  If your teachers don’t like you, don’t trust you, and don’t believe what you say, all of the autonomy in the universe is not going to help with the motivation.  Stuart Diamond, author of “Getting More: How to Negotiate to Achieve your Goals in the Real World” has read more than a half a million pages of research to determine that in negotiations, relationships are far more important than any of the facts, figures, or processes.  He uses a pyramid to summarize his point where he shows that successful negotiations are 8% substance, 37% process, and 55% people.  Diamond uses an anecdotal example that the reason that the jury in the OJ Simpson trial found him innocent despite a mountain of evidence is that they didn’t like or trust the prosecutor.

John Hattie in “Visible Learning” showed that the effect size of Teacher/Student Relationships on student achievement is 0.72!  That’s incredibly high, higher than reducing class size (0.20), homework (0.29), Problem Based Learning (0.15), teaching test taking (0.27), Cooperative Learning (0.41), and effective principal leadership (0.36).  It’s as John Maxwell says, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."  While the magic of classroom management and student achievement is the student/teacher relationship, the magic of motivational leadership is leader/teacher relationships.

When I was teaching, I had a young man I’ll call Paul who would play Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh in my classroom.  This group of boys and Paul specifically really appreciated that I allowed them to hang out in my room because they may have been the type to get picked on at lunch time.  They were even more impressed that I talked to them and showed an interest in their card games.  Only one or two of the group of about two dozen were even enrolled in one of my classes.  This lasted about two and a half years before most of them graduated.  It wasn’t until later that I realized how I had influenced this group.  As a teacher who used many AVID strategies, there was a lot of college-going information in my classroom.  It was clear what my goal was for all of my students, but I had never actually mentioned college to this group.  When I saw Paul more than 3 years after graduation as the drive-thru attendant at Taco Bell, before I could even say a word he literally broke down in tears and said, “Mr. Horton, I am so sorry I’ve disappointed you and I haven’t enrolled in college yet.  I’ve gotten so busy working, I haven’t had a chance.  I’m going to meet with a counselor at the community college next week!  I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”  The influence that I had on Paul because of the relationship that I built with that group of students communicated unstated goals that lasted many years after the last time I’d spoken with him.

As part of a county office of education, I get to visit schools every year who have applied for awards from Distinguished Schools, to High School Models of Excellence, to AVID National Demonstration Schools and Blue Ribbon Schools.  Those of us who visit these schools have made sort of a running gag on the way into the schools; we take bets how long it’s going to take for the first person to say, “It feels like family when I’m here at school.”  Without fail, at every single one of the several dozen highly successful schools I have visited, I’ve heard this comment from someone within the first 60 minutes of my visit.  I can’t believe that this is a coincidence.  It should be every leader’s goal to set up an atmosphere, a relationship with the people in the school, so that it feels like it is one happy family.  They should shake hands and greet the faculty on the way into school on Monday mornings.  They should salute every one of them on the way out on Friday afternoon with baked treats.  They should make faculty meetings feel like social celebrations.  They should barbeque for teachers on special occasions.  They should ask them five questions about their family and hobbies before asking one question about their lesson plan.  The idea is similar to Steven Covey’s “Emotional Bank Account.”  If you do 5 favors for them, they’ll be far more likely to be supportive when it comes time to ask for their support.

I love Chris Widener’s quote, “You cannot decide if you’re going to be a leader.  You can only decide if you will become the type of person that others want to follow.”  I have seen that from the classroom, from the administrator’s office, from the district office, or from the county office, the greatest way to influence others is to have a relationship with them such that the last thing they’d ever want to do is disappoint you.

How do you build relationships with your teachers?  What effect have you seen as a result?

Here's the Stuart Diamond video mentioned above:

Read Part 1 of this blog here

Read Part 2 of this blog here

Read Part 3 of this blog here

Read Part 4 of this blog here

Read Part 5 of this blog here

Tags: motivate, teachers, principal, Daniel Pink, autonomy, mastery, purpose, Stuart Diamond, Getting More, motivation, chris widener, the art of influence, steven covey, michael horton, blog