Drive Questions

Pink, D. H. (2009).  Drive

Discuss a time when you’ve seen one of the seven deadly flaws of carrots and sticks in action. What lessons might you or others learn from the experience? Have you seen instances when carrots and sticks have been effective.

I have seen the use of rewards and punishments as producing short term outcomes.  As people feel they are in competition for the "carrots", often times, the work accomplished becomes the bare minimum and trust is sacrificed in an increasingly individualized race to acquire the prize.  With students, this often times looks like students working towards finishing first or being the best, bypassing collaboration or supportive relationships with peers. 

I believe it is important to maintain the real goal of learning for understanding, collaboration, communication and meaning in order to see long lasting sustainable growth with our students. 

As you think about your own best work, what aspect of autonomy has been most important to you? Autonomy over what you do (task), when you do it (time), how you do it (technique), or with whom you do it (team)?...

With autonomy comes ownership and a real investment in the work.  Knowing my district leadership trusted me in making the decision over what professional development I was going to provide my staff gave me the confidence to move forward.  When I had the autonomy to guide the work I did with my staff, I felt the most effective.  I was passionate about the training I was providing and committed to support the implementation.  I wanted to see success and I was doing everything I could to ensure it.  I felt personally invested in seeing the training I had provided come to life in classrooms and I did all I could to facilitate that occurrence.