Take some time and watch the Dan
Pink TED Talk; it is an interesting one, if only because it challenges
preconceptions. (http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation?language=en).
Assuming you have watched it, I will
continue. I have worked in the private sector for about 25 years and the common
belief is that this sector is broadly (even primarily) driven by financial
reward.I am about to start a sentence with,
"In my experience", which normally means, "Without a shred of
evidence", but here goes...
In my experience, Pink is fairly
accurate. Most of my colleagues and co-workers are university educated and
adequately paid. Don't get me wrong, I would love to get a pay rise, but I am
not poorly paid. Being able to put food on the table is not a nagging worry
ever hour of the day. And that is the key. It comes down to the Douglas Adams questions
of existential sophistication..."How can we eat?", "Why do we
eat?" and "Where shall we have lunch?"
If you don't have enough money to be
able to eat, then eating (or working out how get the food to eat) becomes all
consuming (pardon the dodgy pun).
I believe that it is the same with
working and earning money. If money is tight, it becomes the overwhelming
driver. Linked to that is the fact that low paid work is more often dull and
repetitive (needs limited cognitive effort [see Pink again]) and you have an
inverted golden spiral, with everything going down the plughole.
OK, it's not just my opinion (I have
learned better than to simply pontificate in these blogs). The Institute of
Leadership and Management report Beyond the Bonus (2013) demonstrates that while an adequate
salary and pension is important to staff there are other facets of working that
are more important:
"Employees were asked to select
three factors that influence their level of motivation to work as hard as they
can. Intrinsic factors dominate four of the top five spots. Enjoying the role,
getting on with workmates, how well they are treated by their manager and how
much control they have over their work are all placed in the top five
motivational factors."
I also found the report in a CIPD blog (Job satisfaction beats bonuses in staff motivation stakes)
and one of the most interesting parts of the articles was one of the comments
it received:
"I was talking to a group of
entrepreneurs at a gathering. They found disbursement of bonuses a much easier
task than to play into the emotions and the minds of employees, because it
requires persistence and painstaking efforts to build empathy." Dhruva
Trivedy
Working out effective, motivational
rewards is difficult. It is easier to just open one's wallet and pay a bonus,
working on the premise that everyone likes a bit more money. There is a real
danger of papering over the cracks with bank notes.
All very interesting, but what does it
mean for training designers; and specifically those of us who work with games
and gamification?
Handing out badges can be
motivating, but does it motivate students to learn, or just to collect badges?
In World of Warcraft, for example, a gamer can get new powers, weapons, money
etc., etc. But does that start to become the point of the game; I level up,
therefore I am?
While WoW, and such like, may
engender flow (for more on this, take a look at Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s
Thinking Allowed interview at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dSzKnf5WWg),
is it the type of flow that we want. The player may become engrossed in gaining some arbitrary award rather than in the learning. Fine for WoW, but not so good for
educational games. Perhaps the focus on badges and other extrinsic motivators
makes it all too easy to lose sight of the true goals of an educational game.
Back to Pink.
He holds that Autonomy, Mastery and
Purpose are key to effective motivation. Most games designed for entertainment
cover the latter two (if levelling up or getting the Sword of Azeroth is
purpose enough for you :¬) )
But
autonomy? It is a real challenge to put autonomy into a game. OK, you can
choose not to play or not to take on a quest, but where does that leave the
player? Back on their desktop or wandering around a virtual woodland? Autonomy
is all about making decisions that affect our lives (even our virtual lives)
not just working out how to get the next badge by slaughtering the next
battalion of orcs.
No comments:
Post a Comment