Post 25: The Motivation Breakthrough by Richard Lavoie
Richard Lavoie, the author of “The Motivation Breakthrough” is a specialist in working with children who are not motivated by the traditional school. He specializes in children with ADHD which causes motivation problems at school. Although his book is aimed at motivating students at school, I’d argue that human motivation is the same no matter the age or the audience.
The principal behind Lavoie’s motivation strategy is that humans are motivated by six things that all happen to begin with the letter “P.” The six things are:
1) Power
2) Prestige
3) Projects
4) People
5) Prizes
6) Praise
Most people, Lavoie argues, welcome a mixture of all of these motivational strategies, but have one that is dominant. The student who constantly rebels against the teacher is probably motivated by power. The student who is overly competitive is probably motivated by prestige or prizes. None of these things are good or bad, they’re just important to know in order to motivate the individual properly. I’d venture to guess based upon my experience that teachers are no different in what motivates them. Teachers are likely motivated by these six things also.
But here’s the elephant in the room, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “I have 120 teachers at my comprehensive high school. How in the world am I supposed to know what motivates each and every one of them?” I have a one-word answer for that . . . ask! Put out a survey that asks a simple question, “When you go above and beyond the call of duty, how would you like to be rewarded?” Keep all of the results in a spreadsheet somewhere to use when needed. Also, use a variety of different motivational strategies with the whole group and you’ll multiply the probability that you’re using the right strategy with any individual.
Here are some examples of how you might use these 6 categories to motivate:
1) The teacher who is motivated by power is likely the teacher who is on the fast track to becoming an assistant principal. The best thing that you can do for this group is to teach them to be great leaders. They’ll either use that motivation for power to force people to do what they want or learning to influence and motivate people to get what’s best for the whole. These people can be department chairs or can oversee committees such as school site council, attendance committees, etc.
2) The teacher who is motivated by prestige likes for others to know that they are doing a great job. These are the teachers who can be motivated by teacher of the month awards, being written up in the principal’s weekly newsletter, or acknowledged by the parent group with a certificate to hang above their desk. Certificates, trophies, banners, and other public awards are effective with this group or teachers.
3) Teachers who are motivated by projects are great for being the lead on a new technology rollout, writing the accreditation report, or overseeing a new grant. These teachers are great at teaching courses such as leadership, newspaper, yearbook, running the students store, robotics, debate, FFA, or other courses that require organizing teams and groups to compete or perform. These projects will help keep them motivated on the way to school each day. Just be careful of the amount of time that they require outside of the school day and don’t overwhelm the teachers.
4) Teachers who are motivated by people appreciate getting together with others in groups socially and professionally. These teachers love to collaborate with peers, eat lunch in the staff lunch room, and rarely complain about faculty meetings. These are the perfect teachers to put in charge of the social club on campus that celebrates birthdays, throws retirement parties, and knows when a teacher has a grandchild born. Just make sure that there's a purpose behind the collaboration, don't limit it to only social get togethers.
5) Teachers who are motivated by prizes are the ones who bring in the most box tops or store receipts when there’s a competition at the school. They get the most students to sell holiday cards during the annual fund raiser. They always have the best decorated door at Halloween and get the pizza party. For students, digital badges are very motivational, similar to boy scout badges but collected online. A similar program could be started for teachers. There could be badges for 100% attendance for a month, completing report cards on time, returning greater than 80% of parent surveys, or whatever schoolwide strategies are used (objective on the board, lesson plans submitted, calling on non-volunteers, gave a performance task, etc.).
6) Teachers who are motivated by praise are the ones who are constantly asking for feedback. They want to hear from the proverbial horse’s mouth how they did after you do a classroom walkthrough. They don’t necessarily need to hear it in public like the prestige group, but they need to hear it. Leaving notes of praise on their desks when you leave a walkthrough could be very motivational for this group. Saying thank you when they do a great job goes a long way. You may want to read the research by Carol Dweck on how praise can backfire. Be sure to praise things that are not inherited, but things that can be perfected and improved with practice. The former will lead to a stalemate in improvement and the latter will lead to growth through practice.
This is clearly not an exhaustive list of how to use these six factors to motivate teachers. But if you leave this blog thinking about each of your teachers and how you might use these ideas to motivate them, then my job here is done. I highly recommend that you read this book in its entirety to get the whole story and I think that you’ll end up getting a copy for each of your teachers as well.
What are some other ideas that you have for motivating teachers who fit into one of these six categories? Leave your ideas in the comments section below.
Here's a compilation of excerpts of videos by Richard Lavoie on The Motivation Breakthrough.
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