Naveen, one of my PIDP 3250 classmates posted this video by Daniel Pink on motivation. Wow. I really resonated with the three foundations (autonomy, mastery, purpose) Daniel talks about for motivating individuals at work requiring anything above a rudimentary cognitive skill. When I reflect on my professional career I can definitely match the positions where I felt very motivated with those where each of those three foundations were present. | |
My current place of employment provides me with enough income that money is not an issue and it also allows me sufficient time and mental space away from work that I am able to have some hobbies outside of work. One of them has been helping a friend design and develop videos to take his message about fetal alcohol and the law to the general public. This is a challenging project and one which I do feel like I am developing a level of mastery around and at the same time the purpose is quite appealing to me.
The second hobby is collaborating with three friends and operating a micro community supported outdoor vertical hydroponic vegetable farm in East Vancouver where we grow salad greens during the spring, summer, and fall. The project entirely volunteer run and any money we do recover goes only towards covering our costs. We have thought at times of making a business out of it and have yet to do so for various reasons. Perhaps the most primary one just became quite a bit clear after watching Daniel Pink's video. Growing greens hydroponically is reasonable complex and has had quite the steep learning curve (challenge), their is a definite purpose of helping individuals re-evaluate their relationship with their food (local, healthy food) and all three of us have a fair degree of autonomy. For me turning it into a business where there is a bottom line not only makes it much more challenging (perhaps prohibitively so) it also takes away from my motivation. It does this by shifting the focus from encouraging people to shift their relationship to food to making dollars. The former is more personal, involves a relationship (a connection with another human being), the latter is much more in-personal (numbers on a balance sheet). And when I currently make enough money to meet my basic needs that allows me to do this project on the side why change it?
As for this video's implication on adults motivation for learning off the top of my head I think that for any learning involving the cognitive domain that is above say just the knowledge level it probably couldn't hurt to involve more self directed learning that grants the learner more autonomy while doing my best to connect the purpose of the learning to something that is meaningful to them. I will think on this some more.
The second hobby is collaborating with three friends and operating a micro community supported outdoor vertical hydroponic vegetable farm in East Vancouver where we grow salad greens during the spring, summer, and fall. The project entirely volunteer run and any money we do recover goes only towards covering our costs. We have thought at times of making a business out of it and have yet to do so for various reasons. Perhaps the most primary one just became quite a bit clear after watching Daniel Pink's video. Growing greens hydroponically is reasonable complex and has had quite the steep learning curve (challenge), their is a definite purpose of helping individuals re-evaluate their relationship with their food (local, healthy food) and all three of us have a fair degree of autonomy. For me turning it into a business where there is a bottom line not only makes it much more challenging (perhaps prohibitively so) it also takes away from my motivation. It does this by shifting the focus from encouraging people to shift their relationship to food to making dollars. The former is more personal, involves a relationship (a connection with another human being), the latter is much more in-personal (numbers on a balance sheet). And when I currently make enough money to meet my basic needs that allows me to do this project on the side why change it?
As for this video's implication on adults motivation for learning off the top of my head I think that for any learning involving the cognitive domain that is above say just the knowledge level it probably couldn't hurt to involve more self directed learning that grants the learner more autonomy while doing my best to connect the purpose of the learning to something that is meaningful to them. I will think on this some more.