Whose Incentive? Which Motivation?

Economics is premised on a tautology – a helpful one, but a tautology nonetheless. People are motivated by incentives. What is an incentive? Anything that motivates. How do we explain why Susie did x, y, z, or anything else? She must have had incentives. What are they? Could be anything that motivates her. See, a tautology.

Recently, Daniel Pink has written a book called Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us to discuss exactly that: what are the best incentives to action? Geared primarily towards the business world, Pink uses several studies to show that the best incentives are autonomy, mastery, and doing better by ourselves and the world.

As many of the amazon reviewers who gave Drive a low review mention, though, this conclusion is based on only a few very artificial studies. The motivational picture may well be more complicated, and maybe even more when we talk about school rather than business and children rather than adults.

Pink suggests that we went through several stages of motivation through human history. Motivation 1.0 was when motivation to work was based on basic human survival. Motivation 2.0 was the “carrot and stick approach” of rewarding externally by material goods, money, etc. Pink suggests that we are now entering motivation 3.0, where we need to realize that workers are best motivated by intrinsic rewards: the pleasure of doing the job well, the pleasure of being autonomous, and the pleasure of mastering things.

Now, let’s talk about school and kids. I think it goes without saying (even though I will say it) that the best moments of student performance happen when we have tapped into a student’s intrinsic motivations as defined above. Students do best what they derive satisfaction from doing. But here is the problem: there are many situations in school where students have to do what they do not like doing. It is an unavoidable part of the school day (wrongly lamented by progressive types who would rather see kids only do what they want to do). It can be assumed that most often, workers work in fields that they at least semi-enjoy (of course this is not always the case, but it is likely the majority). Kids, on the other hand, are compelled by the state and their parents to take biology, algebra, and civics. Thus, kids will very probably experience more situations where intrinsic motivation may either be hard to come by or impossible. (Some educationists suggest that intrinsic motivation is always possible and maybe it is if one has unlimited time to try and find it. Teachers, of course, are constrained by time and class size, so it may not always be feasible to help students find intrinsic motivation.)

All of this is to say that wisdom in supervision and teaching often consists of knowing what reward to use when. Sometimes, we can get students interested enough in the task at hand to harness students’ intrinsic motivation. Like everyone else, I highly recommend always trying this route first and student initiative produces the best work when they are engaged. One does not have to fight for student attention when the object of study does that job for us.

But there are also times when we may have to use external motivators because the students are engaged in an activity they have no real interest in and do not care to perform well on. Grades, stickers, a threat of a call to parents, etc, must  be used to get students to work on the subject at hand. This is not the bad thing that progressive types think it is, as a valuable life lesson is to learn how to do things we don’t want to do, and train our attention so that it can focus on areas if may not naturally gravitate toward. If students only learned how to do what they had intrinsic reasons to do, they would never learn how to discipline themselves to do those life tasks (paying taxes, housework, etc) they will inevitably have to do later.

Does extrinsic motivators kill intrinsic motivators? Pink thinks so. I am not sure. I have seen no good evidence – studies or otherwise – that tell me that one cannot have one without undoing the other. It seems to me a simple fact: in some areas – those we are interested in naturally or can come to be interested in – intrinsic motivation will always be there. In other areas – those we do more because we have to than want to – extrinsic motivators may be the only way to keep us doing the task. I find it hard to fathom that external motivators for me to do taxes (I will reward myself with x once these are done, and if I don’t do them, the government will penalize me) would ever undo intrinsic motivators in other areas. I suppose that it may be true that use of extrinsic motivation may kill intrinsic motivation ON THE SAME TASK, but that assumes that intrinsic motivation already existed for the task (and if it did, we likely would not need extrinsic motivators).

Anyhow, the motivational picture seems to me more complicated than Daniel Pink wants to suggest. We all operate with internal and external motivators. Some tasks we do because we like doing them (and some of us are lucky to be employed doing such tasks). Other things, we do because we will be rewarded or penalized externally for completing them or not. The wisdom of supervisors and teachers is to know when employees or students need external or internal motivations, not simply to fear the former group altogether.

[Via http://edphilosopher.wordpress.com]

'Document Z' by Andrew Croome

2009, 345 p.

‘Document Z’ opens with an image instantly recognizable to Australians-of-a-certain age, even if we were not born at the time.  It’s the image of Evdokia Petrov on the tarmac of Mascot Airport, flanked by a burly man each side of her, clutching her handbag, hand across her chest as if she is heaving, with one shoe lost.  For those of us brought up in the black-and-white certainties of Menzies’ world, it captures the fear of the Communist enemy: that they’ll come and get you and hustle you onto an aeroplane.

But whatever misconceptions we attach to the picture, it is not the full story.  She was not so much frightened of the men, as frightened of the crowd surrounding the plane, and she was a woman torn just as much by conflicting emotions as the physical presence of the people surrounding her.  What a dreadful situation to be in. Her husband and fellow-spy had defected and was no doubt talking to the Australian agents about her;  she was frightened for her family back in Russia, and she was wary of official censure when she returned irrespective of her husband’s actions.

The title ‘Document Z’ plays on Documents H and J that were tendered to the Royal Commission that followed the Petrov defection.  I wonder if it is, as the title rather cheekily suggests, the last word- certainly since Robert Manne’s book The Petrov Affair, the debate seems to be over.

The book is a fictionally reimagined telling of the Petrov defection from the perspectives of the participants- Evdokia, her husband Vladimir,  Michael Bialaguski the doctor go-between and the various agents on both sides.  Croome has obviously done his homework (occasionally a little too obviously) and I marvel at his courage in describing a time long before he was born that is still within living memory today- lots of scope for slips and false notes there.  He captures well the sterility of 1950s Canberra with the claustrophobic and enmeshed atmosphere of the Soviet Embassy enclave.

I’m not sure if it’s a failing of the book, or the nature of the relationship he is describing, but there is a flatness to the relationship between the Petrovs themselves.  They worked alongside each other, and they shared the same career trajectory for better and for worse but there’s an emptiness at the core of their marriage as Croome depicts it.  And again we run up against the dilemma with writing within a historical event, but I feel that Croome has shaken free of those restraints.  I was puzzled that he didn’t use ‘that’ picture on his front cover (cost? copyright?) but it liberates him from having to stick only to the historical sources.  If the relationship is sterile perhaps he meant it to be, or perhaps he could not, for whatever reason,  make it otherwise.

I enjoyed this book, and this is from someone who loathes spy-novels.  I liked the atmosphere- the juxtaposition between the bright light outside and the whispers and fears inside.

[Via http://residentjudge.wordpress.com]

Lord of the Rams: The Greatest Story Never Told

Ronan Smith

Trafford Publishing, 2008

224 Pages, Non-fiction/Humor

3 1/2 out of 5 stars

If you love boyish anecdotes of widespread vomiting, fart jokes, cow “shite” and other forms of “shite,” brutal fights, infantile wrestling, arbitrary vandalism, heavy drinking, and all manner of theft and dishonesty—all experienced by the author and his real-life cronies—then you’ll love this sophomoric chronicle from Ronan Smith.

Lord of the Rams: The Greatest Story Never Told invites us to “join one man for the adventure of his life…growing up in rural 1980s Ireland.” It “provides an insightful account of life in Ireland over a 25-year period, which many—regardless of nationality—will be able to identify with.” I found myself often drawn to the raw energy, passion, and living-life-to–the-fullest attitude of the author (a.k.a. “The Rams”) and his friends, but, along with the relatively innocent juvenile adventures, Smith adds layer after layer of “shite” such as alcohol abuse, fraud and common thievery. While certainly human, the book’s protagonists don’t give anything promising to the reader hoping for greater depth of character and humanity.

I may be a bit hard on Smith, however. Perhaps I’m writing from the point of view of the emasculated American male who—along with his fellow American males—has lost touch with his once wild and undomesticated self. Okay, so before I get all Robert Bly in your face, maybe Smith wasn’t trying to accomplish anything of significance except a simple look into his early and very wild life. After all, boys will be boys. Maybe he simply needed to express the experience of being a young male. Perhaps, but do we need 222 pages of boys doing what boys will do?

Although the immature subject matter becomes tedious—especially after page 60 or so—Smith weaves a tale that is quite engaging at times. My guess is that if Smith were to take up the profession of technical writer, he could easily create page-turners for even the most mundane topics. I would love to see a revised edition of this book with new chapters interspersed describing childhood disappointments, joys and loves.

The success of this book ultimately depends upon a very narrow intended audience. If you’re a college-aged young man, this book will fulfill your Fast Times at Ridgemont High juvenile longings, desires and addictions. Being that the second half of book is nothing but a perpetual frat party, I can’t imagine, ladies, how this book would be of interest to you with the childish behaviors and actions of the author and his friends.

While Smith’s story is often funny and entertaining, where is the meaning, significance, importance or even redemption? Why don’t we discover more of what makes Rams tick besides having fun and causing trouble? Where was the balance? I would have loved to discover more about his family relationships, but we learn of only the most inane, base motivations of Rams, his likes and dislikes, and nothing about his emotional and spiritual state beyond his crazy antics. Maybe that wasn’t Smith’s intension. But why should I be interested?” It’s the “so what” factor. (How much do we really need to know about college-aged boys and their fart contests?) Like the author’s own words about his life, I hoped for the “cessation of the infantile messing” that had become the book.

Smith talked only briefly about his life successes and failures in academia, his relationships with women, and his family life., I would love to know more about Irish culture beyond his family watching professional wrestling together. In Chapter 25, Smith gives us a rare glimpse into his heart for his family and treats us to his experience fishing with his dad, giving the book a much-needed diversion, but it‘s disappointingly short-lived. At some point, the juvenile escapades lose their edge making the reader the true victim and recipient of his childish behavior.

While his memoir is self-centered and self-absorbed, I give him credit for the courage to express himself so openly and honestly. Where Smith succeeds is when he writes about the person most of us want to be–or are; the dual personalities within us vying for control of the “true self”—the one shy and well mannered, the other fun loving and free spirited. Who wouldn’t want friends with names like Rams, Stano, Finger Jo, Boo Boo, Goosey, Slug, Spade, Jockey, or Tritchy?

Remarkably—and here’s where I do agree with the book’s promo—I found myself identifying with some of the same childhood and young adult experiences Smith had, such as our love of English and writing, and our struggles with the sciences (mine Chemistry, his Biology). I delighted in the reminders of all the crazy stuff we jumped into as youngsters in suburban Michigan, and Smith’s experience in Chapter 6 of “The Gauntlet” was nearly identical to my high school experience. That’s my story, not Smith’s!

Overall, Lord of the Rams is a smart-assed, quirky, approachable, deranged and tight autobiography, full of ill-advised antics. Smith succeeds with what he intended: a harmless (to the reader, at least), entertaining romp of his first 25 years. Ultimately, Smith’s strength is his writing. Free of cliché, his writing effectively brings us into the journey of his early years. With short, approachable chapters, Smith’s story keeps the pages turning–. Yet, I went back and forth with this book. At times, couldn’t wait to read what was on the next page, other times I just wanted it to end.

Interestingly, the last page of the book ends on a strangely philosophical note. Perhaps as catharsis for his 200+ page promotional rant on the joys of ill behavior. Although difficult to decipher from only one page, in a sad way, Smith ends his memoir with a rather repentant and guilty tone. Maybe he felt the way I did and asked the same question I asked of the book: After all that, is that all there is?

Strengths: Strong writing, inventive, imaginative, witty, fun and funny (at times), wonderfully descriptive

Opportunities: Laced with crude and empty humor, lacking emotional depth

Lord of the Rams: The Greatest Story Never Told is available directly from the author (which really helps the author) and amazon (which really helps amazon), and a lot of other places…

Reviewed by David Stucki, December 2009

[Via http://theboogle.wordpress.com]

Change is Your Competitive Advantage - Book Review

Editor’s note – This week we will be posting a series of book reviews prepared by Pam Banks. These reviews are also available to watch on Roger’s TV In Business Program. See link below.

Change is Your Competitive Advantage – by Karl Schoemer

By Pam Banks

I used to think that competitive advantage was all about proficiency in a new skill or an added feature in a new product.  But Schoemer points out that the “New Business Reality” is that in an uncertain world the only certainty is that things will change.

Change is driven by technology, information and people.  The pace of change is much quicker than it was even ten years ago.  Change is not a product of a decision in a company but as a result of how interconnected we are with people, societies and businesses around the globe.  We can see this when there is a severe storm forecast in the Gulf, gas prices in Mississauga escalate overnight.

Generally, people don’t like change – we like the status quo because it’s easier.  Change always brings a measure of problems, challenges and frustrations.  In fact, when you change how you do things, your productivity always goes down initially.  No matter what the change, there are four basic dynamics of the change process including a sense of loss, ambiguity and uncertainly, deterioration of trust and the need for self- preservation.  The prospect of change is like riding the Behemoth, there’s a dichotomy between the fear and thrill – and we each have a different perspective

In a business environment the four stages we go through when faced with change are: betrayal, denial, identity crisis and search for solutions.  These stages of resistance are directly tied to the drop off in productivity.  A recent labour study determined that the average productivity of a worker during an eight-hour days is 4.8 hours.  During a transition or period of change productivity drops to 1.2 hours a day.  The key is to move through the stages quickly to reach the “search for solutions” stage.  Using your customer as a barometer will help you more accurately judge the value of change.

Effective communications is important to facilitate change.  Informative, supportive and inspirational communications are important at different stages of change.  Change has a trickle down effect because managers hear about it first and go through the phases earlier than front line employees.  Follow the rule of repetition, which says you need to tell people multiple times before you can count on it registering with them.

It’s hard to see how any work gets done when change is always present.  But it’s not ok to keep doing things the way you’ve always been doing them.  Developing an organization-wide perspective on how change works and how to accelerate it is critical.  In today’s marketplace an organization gains competitive advantage by getting to be good at change and truly creating an “adaptive culture” that can adjust quickly and effectively.

A story about a group of monkeys illustrates how change is adapted into culture.  Scientists observed a  group of monkeys on a remote island.  They left a load of potatoes on the beach and sat back to watch their behavior.  Monkeys are curious so one bit into the potato, and the next day the monkeys were waiting on the beach for the potatoes.  On the third day in the scramble for the potatoes one dropped into the water, and to one monkey’s surprise it tasted much better when it was washed.   Instead of monkey see monkey do – the potato washing monkey was ostracized from the group.  The innovator monkey was isolated because he was different.  It’s important that our organizations aren’t like the monkey groups.  If we are truly going to embrace change we need to recognize that change or innovation will make us more relevant to our organizations and our customers.

So change happens and we need to embrace it as our competitive advantage for our employers and our businesses.  Change is Your Competitive Advantage is a great read to help stay on top and ahead of change.

Pam is Commercialization Director for RIC Centre. She is a regular book reviewer on the business program  In Business on Rogers TV. Watch Pam’s review  of  Change is Your Competitive Advantage

[Via http://riccentre.wordpress.com]

Book Review: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane (1401340903)

Getting past the unusual design of the book, I found Connie’s and Deliverance’s stories very interesting.  This is a fiction novel that has some historical facts about the Salem witch trials.  I was expecting the historical element, but the suspense element was a nice surprise.  Connie is working on her dissertation and comes across an old “recipe” book that connects her to the past and to Deliverance Dane, an accused Salem witch.  Little does Connie know that the book will put her in danger as well.

[Via http://eclecticreview.wordpress.com]

Book Review: "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell

I hadn’t read any of Malcolm Gladwell’s earlier bestsellers The Flipping Point and Blink, but many people I know have raved about his third book, Outliers.  A friend lent it to me for a couple of weeks and I must admit I am now a fan.

Outliers is a non-fiction book that looks into the way society perceives success.  We tend to think that massively successful people, like the Bill Gates and The Beatles, are outliers, freaks of nature who fall outside the normal realms of possibility for ordinary people.  Gladwell, on the other hand, reminds us that success (and by this I mean phenomenal success), is a product of not only natural talent, but also extreme hard work, fortuitous opportunities, as well as cultural background and upbringing.  To be fair, there isn’t anything entirely novel about the ideas in the book, but it’s the way Gladwell structures and writes it that makes it so unputdownable.

Outliers starts off with a look at the so-called ‘Rosetta’ mystery – why a town of people who live according to their own cultural rules live longer and are more immune to heart problems than everyone else, despite not having more healthy diets or living habits.   It’s a starting point which demonstrates that everything has an underlying reason, and to get to the root of it, you inevitably have to dig deeper.

The book then delves into various aspects of what makes a person super successful.  Of course, there is the natural, innate talent.  There’s no doubt that some people are born better than others at certain things, and that talent is imperative to success.   But there are also plenty of other factors you may not have considered.

For instance, the date you were born.  Gladwell considers the cut-off dates of sports teams for youths, and discovers that the time of the year you were born could dictate whether you are most likely to be just an average athlete, or perhaps provide you with an opportunity to become a star.

Another fascinating chapter looks at the hard work of professional musicians (such as The Beatles) and IT whizzes such as Bill Gates and Bill Joy.  Of course, extreme, prolonged periods of hard work is important to becoming successful, but being at the right place and time to give you that opportunity to work hard is equally important.  Each of The Beatles, Bill Gates and Bill Joy all worked exceptionally hard in their respective fields, but they were also recipients of some extraordinary twists of fate which put them on their paths to stardom.

Then there’s the story of Joe Flom, one of the most successful lawyers in the one of the most successful law firms on Wall Street.  Flom was also one of those guys that appeared to have the world against him, but what initially seemed like bad luck and awful injustice actually led him to becoming the man he is today.

That’s not all. Cultural backgrounds and ancestry are also contributing factors to success, according to Gladwell.  Why are Asian children typically so good at mathematics?  Why are Mid-Western Americans more temperamental?  These are just some of the things Gladwell considers.

There are plenty of tales of success in Outliers, but success stories alone aren’t sufficient – there are also stories of failure that help illustrate Gladwell’s point.  One of them is Chris Lagan, considered by many as the smartest man in America, and yet he never managed to live up to the expectations of his brain.  Another story of failure deals with the catastrophes of Korean Airlines, where Gladwell shows that many of the airline’s plane crashes could have been avoided had the pilots not been so constrained by their culture.

I love Gladwell’s style. He writes in a simple, unassuming manner that communicates the message across in the simplest way possible. He starts off each chapter by telling a story that leaves little clue as to where it is heading.  It grabs your attention as you wonder what he the heck he is trying to get at.  But then, by the end of that intro, he reveals that there’s a long back-story that forms the foundation of the point he is making, and then get down into the nitty gritty of it.  It’s the type of writing I would like to try and emulate.

Of course, you won’t necessarily agree with every point Gladwell makes, and you won’t always find what he is saying interesting.  Sometimes you may think he’s making something out of nothing, or perhaps stretching statistics and coincidences too far.   Every person’s life is full of opportunities, small, big, or life-changing.  Gladwell never comes out and says it – but the essence of what Outliers is getting at is that mega-success is really a product of fate, and being able to make the most of it.

Nevertheless, I found it fascinating reading Gladwell as he tries to connect all the dots and delivers compelling theories and arguments.  When I get a chance, I’m definitely going to check out Gladwell’s latest book, What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures.

4 out of 5 stars!

[Via http://pacejmiller.wordpress.com]

I didn't know...

Last night for Advent we read a story I have been meaning to get to for a long while…An Early American Christmas by Tomie dePaola.  We are in the middle of studying early American History so when I spotted this little gem at the library I snapped it up.  I meant to do it as a history study but time ran out and it has been sitting there on our shelf while we are busy preparing for Christmas.  I finally got it down and decided to read it during our evening meal.  After many false starts and warnings about paying attention (there may have been a threat or two about not getting to do the Advent calendar) we got on with the story, and what a story it was!

I have always loved Tomie’s books, especially his own children’s autobiography (which inspired me to go out to buy each child their own box of 64 count real crayola crayons).  This one was no exception.  His author’s note is at the beginning instead of the end and helps to set the stage for the story of how the colonists might have celebrated this special time of year.  The story was simple, the illustrations wonderful, but even better it was filled with tidbits of information we never knew before.  Like the bayberry bush.

Summer Bayberry

Winter Bayberry

Now I have heard of bayberry candles…I think I may have even smelled them at one point.  I’m sure they smelled spicy with evergreen undertones.  But I always assumed it was a candle scented like a bayberry (having no idea what a bayberry was).  But did you know that bayberries can make wax?!?!  Reading this book immediately sent me on a computer hunt.  What is a bayberry?  How does it grow?  Can I grow it?  Can you get real, authentic bayberry candles?  Can I make my own?  I feel another project bubbling under the skin.  I know, I know…trying to slow down.  This will have to be a project for next winter.  But I feel it will play into my winter reading of garden catalogs!  How fun to grow and make your own bayberry candles.  What a new and fun concept to add to my growing list of sustainable skills to know!

Authentic Bayberry Candles

Towards the end of the book, when Christmas is finally brimming, the kids were intrigued by making your own ornaments out of dough.  This made me remember just having seen such a recipe in Susan Branch’s wonderful book Christmas From the Heart of the Home!  If you haven’t read this book I would highly recommend it!  It will instantly transport you into the Christmas season no matter how much like scrooge you feel.

We set to making dough, which the kids loved doing.  The recipe is absolutely simple and the kids loved squishing, mushing, and using all the cookie cutters.  My only warning is to anyone with dry winter hands.  Wear Gloves!!!  The cup of salt the recipe calls for works it’s way into any little nicks on the hand and stings like needles for hours, as Lily and I both came to find out later!  Today we spent the afternoon painting them – interesting to say the least (will put pictures up tomorrow).  Then tonight we will bake and put a clear sealer on the top.  The kids are so excited to be making their own.  Lily even said that painting these was better than getting a gift!  All in all, I’d say this little Christmas book led to some wonderful rabbit trails for us.  May it do the same for you!

[Via http://amypayson.wordpress.com]