Colleen -
I did workshops on motivation with supervisors and managers for many years and I look forward to presenting the topic to graduate students next spring. In my workshops I used two handouts to get participants to self-assess their own motivators.
The first handout,
What Motivates You?, asks participants to think about a time when they were highly motivated and then asks them to select their three top motivators from a list. After participants have completed the exercise (usually less than five minutes), I go around the room and list everyone's number choice on the board. This starts out slowly but goes faster once several items are on the board because I just place checkmarks next to the items that are already written. If the group is small, I will go around a second time and ask for their #2 choice. Once all of the top motivators are written on the board for all to see, I process this for two insights:
- The vast majority of people's top motivators are intrinsic, rather than extrinsic (Often it is 100%)
- Different people are motivated by different things
The second handout,
Motivation Assessment, may be closer to what you are looking for. As you will see, I ask participants to assess themselves on job characteristics that are linked to intrinsic motivators. Typically I have participants complete the assessment as homework; then in class I use it as the basis of a pair exercise. In the activity, partners take turns interviewing each other about their assessments and then the brainstorm ways to enrich the job of the person being interviewed.
I hope this is helpful. Feel free to tweak these documents to meet your own requirements.
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William Weech
Adjunct Professor
George Mason University
Arlington VA
(703) 993-1770
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Original Message:
Sent: 11-17-2020 15:52
From: Colleen OBrien
Subject: Motivation
Does anyone know if there is an assessment instrument that can help an individual identify the items that drive their personal motivation?
I would like to use this in my Principles of Management class to give each student a bit of insight into their own levers.
Thanks,
Colleen OBrien
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Colleen OBrien
Assistant Professor
Carthage College
Kenosha WI
(262) 551-5876
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