TWO EXERCISES FOR TEACHING ABOUT MOTIVATION Developments in Business Simulation & Experiential Exercises, Volume 15, 1988 113 TWO EXERCISES FOR TEACHING ABOUT MOTIVATION Janet Mills, University of Oklahoma Melvin R. McKnight, Northern Arizona University ABSTRACT For undergraduate students in business, the study of motivation is often an exercise in abstraction and memorization. However, the authors have found that the following experiential exercises bring the subject to life, providing students with specific, concrete, behavioral knowledge. The first exercise is designed to introduce the subject of motivation. Students use their own past experience to generate descriptions of contrasting motivational states. The second exercise involves application and review. Students draw upon their past experience, cognitive learnings and imaginations to mentally rehearse how their behavior as managers might influence their employees’ motivational states. INTRODUCTION Details of Class Organization The exercises may be used with any size group and in any classroom or conference setting. Each exercise takes 20-40 minutes, depending on how much discussion the instructor desires. Preparation Details Instructors will need either a chalkboard and chalk or an easel with newsprint, magic markers and masking tape to post information generated by participants. The following handouts should be ready for distribution: (1) The Highly Motivated State: Descriptions from An Organizational Behavior Class, (2) The Highly Motivated State: Descriptions from Business and Industry, (3) Lack of Motivation: Descriptions from an Organizational Behavior Class, (4) A Model of Motivation, (5) How to Ruin Motivation, and (6) How to Enhance Motivation. (These are included as Appendices 1-6.) Experience with the Design The authors have used these exercises many times with undergraduate and graduate students, and with diverse groups of managers. We have found that the first exercise provides students with concrete, personal referents for “motivation” and provides the basis for understanding models of motivation. The second exercise helps students apply their learnings in a practical, behavioral context. It also provides a vehicle for review and summarization. INSTRUCTIONS FOR EXERCISE ONE: WHAT IT IS TO BE MOTIVATED 1. The instructor introduces the topic of motivation, stressing that motivation is an internal state. Then, students are asked to recall an experience in which they were highly motivated- -excited, turned on, intensely involved in an endeavor. The experience need not be academic. It can be from any context: sports, work, hobbies, travel, home, etc. 2. Moving to the chalkboard or easel, the instructor asks students to volunteer adjectives that describe their experiences in the highly motivated state. As students volunteer words and phrases, the instructor records these, grouping positive and negative entries separately, but not labeling the columns. (Appendix 1 includes a descriptive list recently generated by an organization behavior class.) 3. The instructor asks the group what the difference is between the two lists. When they distinguish the positive vs. negative quality of experiences in the lists, the instructor labels the lists and briefly points out how positive motivation produces seeking behavior and how negative motivation produces avoidance behavior. 4. Next, the instructor reveals that this exercise has been done many times with groups in business and industry. These people recalled on-the-job experiences in which they were highly motivated. Ask the students if they think the business and industry lists would be different than the list they just generated. Then, show an overhead of The Highly Motivated State: Descriptions from Business and Industry or provide handouts (Appendix 2). Discuss the apparent similarities and differences. 5. Then, the instructor asks students to recall an experience in which they lacked motivation--were bored, apathetic, turned off. Students volunteer descriptions of the unmotivated state and the instructor records them. (Appendix 3 includes a list of recently generated by students.) 6. The instructor asks students to raise their hands to indicate which internal state they most prefer experiencing: positively motivated? negatively motivated? unmotivated? Then, ask which state students experience most at school? on their jobs? in their leisure time? 7. Distribute A Model of Motivation (Appendix 4). Discuss the four classes of variables (social inputs, personal inputs, social feedback and outcome experiences). Invite students to classify information they generated into the four classes of variables as a homework exercise. INSTRUCTIONS FOR EXERCISE TWO: INFLUENCING OTHERS’ MOTIVATIONAL STATES 1. The instructor asks the students to participate in an exercise to apply and review what they have learned about motivation from the point of view of managing people. Students are asked to break into small groups of 5 or 6 in any way that in convenient. 2. Ask the groups to imagine they are managers. Further, they are to imagine that their departments have recently been highly productive and the employees highly satisfied. Some of the groups of managers are assigned the task of ruining motivation so that productivity suffers and employees begin complaining within a week. Other groups of managers are assigned the task of enhancing motivation so that productivity and morale remain high. Developments in Business Simulation & Experiential Exercises, Volume 15, 1988 114 3. Half of the groups receive a worksheet How to Ruin Motivation (Appendix 5) and half receive How to Enhance Motivation (Appendix 6). Ask participants to brainstorm specific things they could say and do as managers to either ruin or enhance the internal motivated states of their employees. They should record these ideas on the left side of the worksheet. Encourage participants to draw upon their experience, their cognitive learnings from reading and class activities, and fantasy. Allow about five minutes for the task. 4. At the end of the allotted time period, ask the groups to turn their attention to the right side of the worksheet and to jot down a brief explanation of theoretical reference which accounts for how or why each managerial behavior in the left column works to ruin or enhance motivation. Allow eight to ten minutes for this task. 5. Gain the attention of the entire group and ask the small groups to report their ideas about ruining or enhancing motivation. Have the groups ruining motivation report first, followed by the groups enhancing motivation. 6. Note that “knowing a thing by its opposite” applies here; what not to do can be as important as what to do. 7. Turn students’ attention to the explanations they generated about why their behaviors would work. Ask each group to report brief explanations of how or why any two of their strategies would work, referring to theory or experience. 8. Suggest that each student repeat the exercise at home, working on the condition (enhancing vs. ruining) they did not work on during class. APPENDIX I THE HIGHLY MOTIVATED STATE: DESCRIPTIONS FROM AN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR CLASS (POSITIVE) (NEGATIVE) Being rewarded Anger Being involved Revenge Being challenged Social pressure Being interested Stress Making someone happy Forces (no choice) Being encouraged Dissension Being “high” emotionally Conflict Making the right choice Envy Being appreciated Hate Having a purpose Covering up a failure Being special Resentment Increasing prestige Jealousy Being honored Saving face Being respected Competing Being curious Against someone I didn’t like Being able to prove I could Being miserable (wanting to do it change) Knowing results will be Fear of failure lasting Gaining personal insight Fear Accomplishing something Being bored Finishing/completing something Developments in Business Simulation & Experiential Exercises, Volume 15, 1988 115 Developments in Business Simulation & Experiential Exercises, Volume 15, 1988 116 Developments in Business Simulation & Experiential Exercises, Volume 15, 1988 117 APPENDIX 5 HOW TO RUIN MOTIVATION INSTRUCTIONS; Imagine you are a manager with a staff of 20. Productivity and morale are at an all time high. Your objective is to interfere with productivity and morale by ruining employees’ motivation within one week. Describe what you could say and do to frustrate people, lower morale and productivity, get poor performance, and encourage self-defeating, neurotic behavior. ACTIONS TO TAKE HOW/WHY THIS WOULD WORK APPENDIX 6 HOW TO ENHANCE MOTIVATION INSTRUCTIONS: Imagine you are a manager with a staff of 20. Productivity and morale are at an all time high. Your objective is to keep this productivity and morale high by enhancing employees motivation. Describe what you could say and do to encourage people, keep morale and productivity up, keep the performance level high, and engender good work spirit. ACTIONS TO TAKE HOW/WHY THIS WOULD WORK Table of Contents Volume 15, 1988 The Role of Experiential Knowledge and Human Information Processing in Decision Making A Semantic Differential Instrument to Evaluate Experiential Teaching Methods A Comparison of Two Approaches to Management Skill-Building in an Organizational Behavior Course: A Replication Integrating Simulations: A Model for Business Policy Success Capstone Renaissance = Simulation + Interaction + DSS A Hybrid Method of Executing a Management Simulation: Combining the Best of Mainframes and Microcomputers Providing an Experiential Dimension to Cost/Managerial Accounting Courses Utilization of Computerized Tax Research Services in the Tax Research Curriculum Using and Expert System Based Decision Aid in Accounting Information Systems Event-Extended Entity-Relationship Diagrams for Understanding Simulation Model Structure and Function Multiple Objectives in the Development of the Gordon Macro Game A Comparative Study of Strategic Performance Factors in Actual and Simulated Business Environments An Empirical Investigation of Integrated Spatial-Proximity MCDM-Behavioral Problem Solving Technology Group Decision models Computer Simulation of Human Interaction The Role of Experiential Learning and Simulation in Teaching Management Skills Expert Systems - The New Business Simulation Tool Integrating Prolog into and Undergraduate Logistics Course Simulating Material Requirements Planning on Lotus 1-2-3 Innovation in Management Education: The Impact of the AACSB Experiential Learning in the International Environment Educational Testing with the Microcomputer A Simulation of Investment Analysis, Portfolio Management and Reporting Using Lotus 1-2-3 The Use of an Expert System to Develop Strategic Scenarios Two Exercises for Teaching about Motivation Sex Roles and the Good Manager A Form and Process for Nonconfidential Peer Evaluations Simulation and the Recalcitrant Student Employee Rights-Student Rights: A Classroom Exercise Computer Simulated Competition: An Alternative to Team Play Management Simulation The Relationship of Locus of Control and Vividness of Imagination Measures to Simulation Performance Formal Planning, Simulation Team Performance, and Satisfaction: A Replication Experimental Analysis of Magnitude and Source of Students' Inequitable Classroom Perceptions in Three Reward Conditions Strategy Design, Process and Implementation in a Stable/Complex Environment: An Exploratory Study Matching a Strategy Simulation to the Business Policy Literature: A Black Box Approach to Simulation Development An Evolutionary Classroom Experiential and Computer Simulation Model of a Corporate Strategic Planning System Collective Bargaining in the City of Elson: A Public Sector Experience Should Students Play Games in Labor Relations? Applying Cognitive Educational Objectives to Business Management Cases Grading as a Teaching and Feedback Mechanism: Involving Students in the Grading Process Teaching Controversies: A New Approach to Computer-Assisted Instruction and Simulation Packages Simulating Demand in and Independent-Across-Firm Management Game Advertising Response in the Gold and Pray Algorithm: A Critical Assessment A Model for Pricing Decisions in First Period Marketing Simulation Games Jog Your Right Brain: An Exercise for the Classroom and for Research Six Thinking Hats: An Exercise to Combat Confusion and Develop Thinking Skills Communicating in Context: A Simulation for Learning Business Communication A Simulated Consulting Service for the Compete Marketing Simulation Game Action Exams in the Consumer Behavior Class Using Focus Groups to Teach Problem Definition in Basic Marketing Research The Use of Journals in Management Simulations: A Literature Review and an ABSEL Response An Initial Step Towards Developing and Using an Expert System with a Business Simulation Self-Managed Learning: An Experiential Course Design Using the QWL Paradigm A Review of Current Developments in Experiential Learning Bring the Real World into the Classroom Assessing Student Performance on a Business Simulation Experience Minimizing Startup Anxiety: Case Studies of Simulation Experiences A Tale of Two Shepards Or Using Simulation in a Class Without Walls Enhancing Business Simulations Through the Utilization of Experiential Activities Involving Local Community Executives Simulation with Integrated Spreadsheets: The Design and Development of a Conversational Marketing Concepts Decision Game Introducing INMART: An International Marketing Simulation Using a Computer-Based Business Plan Assistant in Conjunction with a Marketing Simulation Game Overview of the ABSEL Guide to Experiential Learning and Simulation Learning