Punished by Rewards LO LO14242

Alan Mossman (alanmossman@compuserve.com)
Wed, 9 Jul 1997 08:11:08 -0400

Lee Holmer wrote in LO14220

>I suspect that part of the confusion here comes
>from thinking of "intrinsic" motivation as inhering in the person, when
>actually the term refers to qualities which are inherent in the task.

I agree.

Going back to the origins of Personal Mastery [the creative process
described by Robert Fritz] Fritz argues that true motivation flows from a
desire to see the end result (C) in reality. The task is worth doing
because you want to see, hear, feel, smell, etc the end result of the
task. The motive [desire, aspiration] is inherent in, integral with the
result.

Time and again Fritz demonstrates in his trainings that, if the would be
creator's attention is on what the creation will do for him or her (the
RoI), the chance of producing the espoused result is greatly reduced.
IMHO his fits entirely with Alfie Kohn's thesis.

viz: If you take your mind off the end result and pay attention to some
potential by product of the result (e.g. "it will make me look good") your
focus is on looking good (or whatever) and not on the task in hand. We
all know what happens when you take your eye off the ball . . .

Others can seduce our eyes away from the ball by introducing [imposing ?]
external rewards, setting up a return on investment that is external to
the focal task.

In either case the potential for enjoying the focal task has been reduced
and the chances of failure increased.

Alan

-- 

Alan Mossman <alanmossman@compuserve.com> The Change Business Ltd 19 Whitehall STROUD GL5 1HA UK 01453 765611 fax: 01453 752261

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>