With New Year’s resolutions fading into distant memory, I wonder how many of us are still on track with those goals. When we try to understand the difference between the goals that we hit and the ones that we miss, what sets them apart? Realism, of course, plays a part. But what else?
The strength of our conviction certainly, being driven by the reason behind a goal, a purpose, a meaning, alignment with personal priorities and values. We know this is true, but why does our behaviour sometimes paint a different picture?
We often say we should provide the highest quality provision for the children, not for Ofsted, which is undeniably true. So why is it that it’s often the (actual or predicted) words of an inspector rather than that of a child that drives the pace of quality developments? Why is it that we know intrinsic motivation is more powerful than extrinsic motivation, and we wrap this into our practice with the children, yet in the month when a team competition is running, we see greater success than when everyone is motivating themselves? Why is it that we know if we set a goal ourselves, we have greater ownership, yet time and again we see a fellow team member determined to hit a goal that their manager set them over the one that they set themselves? It all goes against everything we know from a child development, people and leadership perspective.
When I mull this question over, I keep settling on two conclusions. Firstly, as all things have, there is a root in childhood. We like to be praised. We remember the warm feeling of praise or the longing for praise. Secondly, we all too often focus on the short term. Extrinsic rewards are effective in the short term, yet as we know from our work with children, not so effective in the long term.
So how do we balance this gap between what we know to be the right way to motivate ourselves and others with what we often see to be the most effective short-term way?
I’m increasingly convinced that habits are the answer. Building effective, efficient, sustainable habits around the ways we work; habits over goals. Rather than a goal to achieve a target, a commitment to consistently do a specific action. Instead of a goal to improve a parent survey score, developing a habit of making one development a month based on parent feedback. As the old saying goes, ‘day by day, what you do is who you become’.
