What Motivation Is and Why It Matters
Motivation
What makes us do what we do. The drives within a person that account for the degree, direction, and persistence of effort spent at work. Internal and external factors that stimulate people to take action for achieving a goal.
Why People Work
Most people work to satisfy wants and needs:
- Money.
- To satisfy ambition.
- To feel important.
- To have a sense of identity and achievement.
Why Motivation Matters
Workers who are NOT motivated tend to
- Have high rates of absenteeism.
- Arrive late.
- Produce poor quality output.
- Be careless, with losses, accidents, and damage.
- Be slow to react.
Workers who ARE motivated tend to
- Be more committed; take responsibility.
- Be loyal, reducing turnover costs.
- Be enthusiastic and offer ideas.
- Arrive early and take few days off.
- Help achieve objectives.
A school does not run on its policies and procedures alone. It runs on the daily motivation of its teachers, support staff, and students. A motivated teacher transforms her classroom; an unmotivated one drains it. Understanding what motivation is, why people are motivated, and how to influence motivation is one of the most useful skills a school head can develop.
The working definition
A good working definition: motivation is what makes us do what we do. It is the drives within a person that account for the degree, direction, and persistence of the effort spent at work, plus the internal and external factors that push people to act toward a goal.
Three parts:
- Drives within the person. Motivation has an internal source.
- External factors. It also has external sources.
- Three dimensions: degree, direction, persistence. Not just whether someone works, but how hard, on what, and for how long.
A teacher can be motivated to work hard (degree), on the wrong things (direction), for a short time (persistence). All three matter for the school. A teacher motivated on the right work, hard enough, and for long enough, produces great teaching.
Why people work
Money is usually at the top of the list. There are other reasons too: ambition, the desire to feel important, a sense of identity and achievement. Most people work to satisfy wants and needs of several kinds.
Money matters. Few teachers in any country can ignore pay. But money is rarely the only reason, and often not the strongest reason once basic needs are met. The other factors named, ambition, importance, identity, and achievement, drive much of the behaviour the school depends on.
A school head who thinks her staff is motivated only by pay misses the bigger picture. The staff member who stays late to mark papers carefully, who volunteers for the science fair, who mentors junior teachers without being asked, is not doing it for the money.
Why motivation matters in a school
Workers who are not well motivated tend to have high rates of absenteeism, arrive late, produce poor-quality output, become careless (with losses, accidents, and damage), and react slowly.
Workers who are motivated tend to be more committed, take responsibility, be loyal (reducing turnover cost), arrive early, offer ideas with enthusiasm, and help the school reach its objectives.
The contrast is sharp. The same staff member, motivated or not, produces very different work. A school with mostly motivated staff is a different place from a school with mostly unmotivated staff, even with the same formal structures.
Three specific effects in a school
- Teaching quality. Motivated teachers prepare better, engage students more, and reflect on their own practice. Unmotivated teachers do the minimum.
- Student engagement. Children pick up on their teachers’ motivation. A motivated teacher’s class is more engaged.
- School culture. Motivated staff lift the staffroom; unmotivated staff drag it down. The culture is the cumulative effect.
A school head who invests in motivation invests in everything. A school head who ignores motivation has to use heavier control to compensate, and the cost is high.
The internal and external sources
Two related distinctions matter.
Internal motivation (intrinsic)
The teacher does the work because she finds it meaningful in itself. Teaching is rewarding because she enjoys helping children learn. The work itself is the reward.
External motivation (extrinsic)
The teacher does the work because of an external reward or to avoid an external punishment. Pay, promotion, recognition, the threat of dismissal.
Both kinds of motivation are real. Both have their place. Studies on intrinsic motivation consistently find that it produces more sustainable work than extrinsic motivation alone.
A teacher who teaches because she loves teaching keeps going through difficult years. A teacher who teaches for the pay does the minimum to keep the pay. The first kind is what a school wants to develop and protect.
What a school head can do
Three things a school head should do about motivation.
- Understand what motivates her staff. Different staff members are motivated by different things. Knowing each one’s drivers helps the school head respond accurately.
- Build a motivating environment. The physical and social environment of the school shapes motivation. A respectful, well-resourced, supportive environment lifts motivation; a cynical, under-resourced, hostile one suppresses it.
- Recognise that motivation is dynamic. A motivated teacher this year may not be next year if conditions change. A demotivated teacher can become motivated with the right intervention. Motivation is not fixed.
The internal and external factors that drive behaviour toward a goal.
It is what makes us do what we do, in degree, direction, and persistence.
The three dimensions of motivation break that definition into something more precise.
Degree, Direction, Persistence.
- Degree: how hard the person works.
- Direction: what the person works on.
- Persistence: how long the person sustains the effort.
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