The Conversation Factory The Secrets of Motivation and Systems Change with Becca Block, PhD
Warning - this episode uses a specific curse word - a lot. And once we started using one, we started using more of them. So…if f-bombs, sprinkled like salt are not your cup of tea, this is a good episode to skip!
My guest today is Rebecca R Block, PhD, who is an expert in helping organizations build programs, services and products that equip young people to develop the confidence and skills they need to enter adulthood as thriving and adaptable lifelong learners. She has spent the last 14 years leading the design, improvement, and evaluation of educational programs and services to make them more impactful and learner-centered. She has built R&D departments from scratch and managed large and small teams responsible for creating, measuring, and improving learning experiences.
She also wrote a book with the word “Shit” in the title…or Shit, with an asterisk where the “I” goes, which actually makes her book a bit hard to google!
The book is titled “Can You Help Me Give a Sh*t? Unlocking Teen Motivation in School and Life,” and she teamed up with Grace L Edwards, a current undergraduate student, to talk to young people across the country and gather their stories about what truly makes for engaging learning environments. In the process, she learned a lot about how motivation works for everyone, not just teens, and has taken those lessons learned into her work as a leader, parent, and educator.
In the opening quote Becca outlines the ABCs of Motivation. These ABCs are true for children and adults - we’re basically the same species. And the work of luminaries such as Peter Senge and Amy Edmondson make it clear that great working environments are great learning environments - places where we can create and sustain positive feedback learning loops with ourselves and others. So it’s essential for anyone leading or managing others (or themselves!) to understand how motivation really works.
We also talk about Becca’s essential values when it comes to co-creation - that is, making a systems change along with the people in that system who will be affected by that change. Co-creation is not just a good idea… it leverages the truths about motivation that Becca shared in her opening quote. People are much more likely to want to participate in change that they’ve taken part in forming, rather than going along with something forced on them.
Two Levels of Systems Change
We also talk about the need to work on at least two levels when engaging in systems change:
Helping people, now
Helping make a bigger shift, over time.
Given that Becca knows how challenging it can be to transform a system as complex as education, she focuses her work in this book on helping people, now, to work to create change for themselves, within the current system. This perspective is helpful for anyone leading a team in a larger organization or anyone leading an organization within a larger industry they are hoping to transform.
Listen in for Becca’s deeper breakdown of the ABC’s of motivation, as well, summarized here!
The ABCs of Motivation
Ability Belonging Choices
Ability: In any situation where you want someone (or even yourself!) to have sustained motivation, you need the Ability to do (or learn how to do) the things you want to do. Indeed, whenever you find that someone isn’t doing something you have asked them to do, it’s important to ask - is this an issue of Will or Skill? In other words, can they do the thing? If they can’t yet, do they have the confidence in their ability to learn the thing?
Belonging: Real relationships help us accomplish things. I show up for my Spanish lessons (partly) because I’ve paid for them, and partly because I’d feel bad for standing up my tutor, even though the classes are online. Ditto for my exercise classes. Real relationships create real motivation. In a recent episode, I spoke with Robbie Hammond, Co-founder of the High Line, who talked about how his relationship with his Co-Founder Josh David kept him going through a difficult decade of bringing their dream to reality - talk about Relationships = Motivation!
Choices: Having real choices means you have the autonomy to determine for yourself what you are going to do. “Liberty or Death” isn’t much of a choice - although it is one many have taken. Becca suggests that dysfunctional workplaces create crappy or fake choices, and functional ones enable everyone to see how the work fits into their own personal why.
I connect these ideas to my recent interview with Ashley Goodall, author of “Nine Lies about Work” and most recently “The Problem with Change." Ashley says, “The ultimate job of leadership is not disruption and it is not to create change; it is to create a platform for human contribution, to create the conditions in which people can do the best work of their lives.” This is what every human (and teenager!) actually really wants, if they can connect to the ABCs of motivation.
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