Managing the Motivation Equation

Learning professionals can leverage motivation theory to reduce learners’ intention-action gap and achieve stronger post-training outcomes. But first they must make learner motivation a core competency — for themselves and their teams.

Many organizations needlessly leave learner motivation to chance. As a result, some training solutions fail spectacularly. Often, learners find ways to do anything but learn. However, there’s a more subtle problem that plagues even the most popular courses: After training, learners may report that they loved the course; they may even demonstrate that they have mastered the content. Still, these seemingly satisfied learners never apply their new knowledge and skills. They soon fall back into old habits, often because they lack motivation.

Therefore, chief learning officers often ask, “What makes training sticky?” It’s the million-dollar question that distinguishes successful learning programs from ineffective training boondoggles. Certainly, learner motivation plummets whenever the training deploys weak instructional design or ineffective delivery methods. However, neither strong design nor cutting-edge delivery methods can guarantee learner motivation.

Therefore, learning professionals must simultaneously understand the dynamics behind learner motivation and manage them for both formal and informal learning. Learner motivation cannot be an afterthought that receives a hasty plan just before the implementation phase.

Learner motivation requires a coherent strategy at every phase of the learning process. Whenever an organization identifies a learning need, one of the first questions should be, “How will we motivate our learners to change?” The answers to this question must shape the entire training solution — its design, development, rollout and post-training support strategy.

Many organizations lack precise ways to define, manage and measure motivation. Worse yet, organizations often rely on imprecise or antiquated theories of motivation. One model, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, introduced in 1943, offers an interesting way to think about individual needs and behaviors, but it fails to provide a reliable predictive model of human motivation. As an example, a 2007 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics study showed that the poorest Americans (lowest quintile) donated 4.3 percent of their income to charity while the richest (highest quintile) donated 2.1 percent. Maslow’s model would predict the opposite behaviors.