On Friday I drove up with Dr Dave Richards of Bournemouth University's Business School to Warwick University's Science park for the launch of Smart Development Solutions' Youth Map. This is a product that has been developed literally through 'public' demand. Over the past three years whenever I have had educationalists – headteachers, teachers, consultants – experiencing our Motivational Map we have had the enquiry: 'Have you thought about doing one of these for kids? You know teachers – and parents – could really use an insight into what motivates their child/class.'
After several false starts we finally got to it – and the real catalyst was meeting Julie Holden, the MD of Smart Solutions, who insisted we do it; moreover, she acquired a long term exclusive license for the UK and more beside in order to make this the focal point of her business. Julie is a woman with true focus: once the agreement was signed back in October her drive and determination ensured that everything would be ready for the launch on the 4th February. That everything including running and evaluation a pilot at a Comprehensive school, massive web development, intricate design work, training packages and licensing structures. Truly an amazing achievement.
And the day was great – nearly 40 experts in attendance – the room felt packed, and it seemed that everyone was straining to hear all the news and see all the detail on the slides. There were fantastic presentations from Julie about the 'system' itself, and from Jenny Goad about the evaluation with the kids at her school, Avonbourne, where she headed up Year 9. The enthusiasm was palpable. I introduced the opening session for about half an hour and explained where all this had come from – the journey in fact. And then I went on to explain why we needed Motivational Maps Youth.
First, because the powers of coercion had failed; the command and control model, so prevalent in business and education, no longer worked. Thus, we had to find a way that aligned itself with the grain of people instead of just kicking them around.
Second, we had to recognise at all levels of society, including our kids, that motivation was a core element of the performance mix. So, we were not promoting motivation for the sake of motivation, but to enable young people to achieve more. The truth is that there is a direct correlation between how we perform and our levels of self-esteem: both reinforce each other; if we can concentrate on motivation then and make a difference, we will impact young people's self concept at a profound level. As Virgil put it: “success nourished them; they seemed to be able, and so they were able.”
Third, the levels of our motivation were linked to the quality of our life. This was particularly pertinent at the moment in the light of David Cameron's desire to want to measure happiness and increase it. Happiness seems to me quite nebulous, but motivation has a language and a metric, and we could measure the whole country if he'd ask us! What would it show? The direction and the amount of positive energy people have. High scores would mean people were happy, and if not exactly that word, then pretty immune to the stress factors that might lead them to be depressed or ill. Low scores, on the other hand, would suggest definite unhappiness and at a certain level real stress.
Motivational Maps Youth is an astonishing system, and can have a massive impact on education everywhere in the world. For this reason I shall return to the topic in future blogs. Are your children motivated? Everyone needs motivation!
The Mapping Motivation Series 