INTRODUCTION

Certainly much has been written about motivation. To this extent Drucker's observation is correct. But what is less clear – and this is Drucker's concern – is the nature of our understanding. Although we actually do know a good deal about motivation, our knowledge on closer inspection is quite uneven. We know how to arouse people to greater effort, especially for short periods of time – how, for example, to arrange incentives for factory workers so that production improves and absenteeism falls, and even how to rearrange the social organization of schools so that students are more willing to learn for its own sake. But knowing how to motivate people is not the same as knowing what motivation is. Here Drucker makes his point. Whatever is being aroused by the clever use of rewards and incentives – namely, motivation itself – remains mysterious and elusive. Motivation, like the concept of gravity, is easier to describe (in terms of its outward, observable effects) than it is to define. Of course, this has not stopped people from trying.

The first goal of this book, then, is to introduce the basic principles of human motivation and consider various attempts to define its essential nature. The second goal is to explore how the lessons to be learned from research on motivation can be applied to the task of educational change and reform.