Motivation and Learning

There is an interesting study that shows that after a certain point money is no longer a motivator.   And thinking back over the things I do, since my family lives comfortably, I find I would rather spend my time doing things that I perceive help others.  For example,  I spend many hours donating time to help organize youth ice hockey in the south.   Why do I do this?  I think basically there are two reasons.

First, my son grew up playing ice hockey.  Until that time I didnt really understand the value of organized sports and how they help someone grow as a person.  Many of the things I learned growing up while excelling in school, he learned by his hard work and excelling in ice hockey.   Whether on the ice or studying we both learned the value of working towards a goal that we set for ourselves.   I learned a lot from raising my children.  They have both taught me valuable lessons along the way.  Anyway, I'd like to give back to something that gave so much to my son.

Secondly, the reason I give time to youth hockey is that it is a small group of people that I have come to know and care about over the years.  I feel like I am part of a family.  I enjoy working with them and feel like I make a valuable contribution to the hockey family.    There is some travel with it which I also enjoy.  I've been to places I would never otherwise have gotten to.     

So, all that was said to show things other than money promote motivation.   Mezirow, in the transformational learning, argues there is some event or motivator that happens to create transformational learning.  This is not so unlinke the Heart of Change where the authors argue that the first step to organizational change is that people must FEEL the need to change.   Statistics, money, etc doesnt necessarily get it ... There has to be a motivating force for the change.   

So today I'm going to go looking for lists of motivators to create change.  I'm assuming this list will include both internal motivators that come from being self directed and external motivators that organizations choose to help people move toward their common goals.     So I'm off .. more later on what I find.