Learning Objectives:
Students will
- recognize the importance of proactive, independent, decision making
- identify workplace needs
- complete tasks with minimal direct supervision
- apply solutions
- define personal motivators and barriers to motivation.
Correlations
This activity was created to be used primarily with (WRS skill):
- 3. Initiative and Self-Direction
California Career Ready:
- 7. Act as a responsible citizen in the workplace and the community
Secondary WRS skills include:
- 2. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
- 5. Work Ethic
- 10. Teamwork
- 11. Big-Picture Thinking
- 12. Career and Life Management
- 14. Efficiency and Productivity
- 20. Professionalism
Pre-Activity Process Questions
- How can you demonstrate your ability to take initiative? (hint: identify your personal motivations and professional goals)
- What is your motivation to take initiative? (Identify what makes you act.)
- Describe a situation in which you have taken initiative. What was the outcome?
- What sometimes stops you from acting on your ideas or performing necessary tasks?
- How do you overcome your doubts and hesitation to act?
Instructional Steps:
(What the instructor does)
Here is a good overview or background for the value of teaching and learning initiative and self-direction: https://successatschool.org/advicedetails/703/How-to-use-your-initiative-at-work
Teacher Note: Initiative and Self-Direction is one of those super skills that is part of many other workplace readiness skills. Like leadership, it involves understanding what motivates us to do anything, and what prevents us from taking action.
Background
What causes us to act and what prevents us from taking action? Knowing the answers can trigger action and help us take initiative. Understanding our motivation can counteract apathy and procrastination. Knowing that initiative and self-direction are highly valued by employers can help applicants do well in interviews.
Icebreaker
Engage students by sharing moments when they or someone close to them took action that resulted in a positive outcome.
Discussion starters:
Ask students:
- What are some careers that require important decisions and action to be taken?
- What are careers that require working independently and often alone?
- What type of person are you? Do you prefer to work around others or independently?
- How do you feel about taking on greater responsibilities? What are the risks and rewards of doing so?
Walk Through the Worksheet
Students read the following scenario and rewrite it in terms of their own career path. Think about what the problem is and describe future workplace and personnel. Teachers should help students write a more detailed scenario and students should find their own solutions. This exercise is very dependent on the students being able to see a career through the classroom, that is, to realize a workplace condition that would be the outcome of their current education. This allows them to understand the context.
Help them define their position and the project, based on what you are teaching or the career path they wish to pursue.
You are new to a job as a (name your position), but a special project (define the project) has come up that requires all workers to work longer hours to meet an important deadline. Your supervisor/manager/boss has noticed that some workers are not contributing as much as they should. What would you recommend be done to encourage the success of your team?
Complete the accompanying worksheet on this topic in the Materials section.
Teacher Note: Remember, studies have shown that incentivizing with income reward or threatening consequences are counter-effective in cognitive (not purely mechanical, repetitive action) careers. Don’t believe me? Watch this video (start at about the 9 minute mark or watch the whole video) from Dan Pink on TED Talks. You can use this and a guided discussion to support the activity.
Let’s agree to leave monetary ($$) reward out of it for this activity.
What does or should matter the most in today’s economy? The video goes on to tell us:
- Autonomy—the urge to direct our own lives
- Mastery—the desire to get better and better at something that matters
- Purpose—the urge to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves
Encourage your students to Make it Personal
These are intrinsic values to the self. They are engines and mindsets. But they require specific personal definitions. They are also likely to change throughout one’s life. It is never about just “making that dollar.” Even to the shallowest of people, it is what can be done with that money or literally what it affords us. Plus, when you think about careers, it is all about the long term. These values must sustain you over many years. They are extremely important values to define for long-term success and satisfaction. Therefore, even if you do not share or wish to share these deeper personal motivations of Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose, you should be considering them deeply in the completion of this activity. Students need to be honest about the things that are most important to them.
Artifact:
(what the students complete)
- Know Your Spark Worksheet
Evaluation method:
Post-Activity Process Questions
- If money (e.g., salary, bonus, pay raise) is not a primary incentive to trigger your creative motivation and ambition to do well in your career, what other things might you do that would incentivize you to become more productive and innovative and take on more leadership roles?
- What are some innovative methods or rewards that companies use to motivate employees to stay productive and succeed (beyond monetary reward)?
- What is a personal story of self-direction and initiative that you might share in an interview?
- Discuss your values of autonomy, mastery, and purpose and how they are demonstrated in your life.
- What motivates you to complete required tasks that you may not enjoy, such as schoolwork or household chores? Is that motivation effective? Or are you inconsistent?
Differentiation method:
(to address learning styles and disabilities)
- Students can write detailed stories of times they used initiative and self-direction.
- Students can examine their motivation by creating a diagram or image of an action and layers of motivation.
- Students can create a personal motto or phrase that is a personal motivation for completing difficult tasks.
- Place students into teams to solve basic problems together and analyze instances of initiative and leadership as well as decision making.
Vocabulary:
Students will use this link to complete exercises for the following terms on Quizlet: https://quizlet.com/_9xpro8?x=1qqt&i=wcwth
- autonomy, the urge to direct our own lives
- dependence, relying on others for support, help
- emotion regulation, a process of how one controls the emotions he or she experiences and how he or she expresses those emotions
- emotional triggers, actions, events, or activities that you have a strong emotional reaction toward
- independence, not relying on others for help or support
- mastery, the desire to get better and better at something that matters
- money management, budgeting, investing, saving, or spending money in a manner that will help you reach your goals
- purpose, the urge to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves
- self-monitor, keeping a record of a behavior you want to change
- self-regulation, controlling your thoughts, behaviors, and emotions in order to reach long term goals
- self-reliance, learning to depend on your own abilities, planning and talent to be successful
- stress, your body’s reaction to challenges and demands such as school, work, home life
- stress management, making changes and using self-care to prevent or manage your stress
- time management, organizing and planning your time
