Earlier this fall I finished reading Simon Sinek’s Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. Besides being inspired and challenged in my own leadership, I was deeply taken with his vision for effective marketing or branding: the idea that starting with why the organization exists is the most effective way to inspire excellence and a loyal following.
I was first introduced to Simon Sinek by one of my former students. He was working on his Senior Thesis with me, and his topic was the negative ramifications of the smart phone. So naturally he shared with me a YouTube video of Simon Sinek’s rant on millennials and smart phone protocol. I watched a few of his other talks and was impressed with his frank and insightful analysis of our smart phone addiction, as well as his heart for proper leadership and genuine purpose in business.
Of course, starting with why is one of the things the classical education movement does best. We’re always questioning the base level assumptions we’ve fallen into about the purpose of education. We’re always pointing up and out into this broader more holistic conception of education’s ultimate why. It’s not just about getting good grades or job-preparation; it’s about wisdom and virtue, passing on a rich heritage, and inspiring a generation of humble and winsome Christian leaders. The classical tradition has helped to focus our minds back on the big picture.
Parents and Teachers as Leaders
But I think one of the most important applications of Sinek’s idea is actually not to school leadership or marketing our big picture vision to teachers and parents, as important as that is. Instead, one of the most crucial places to start with why is the classroom or homeschool. At least as far back as my 2017 fall benefit address on rhetoric as leadership, it’s been my conviction that teachers are leaders in their classrooms. And in my experience behavior management systems are like the manipulative marketing practices that Sinek decries: less and less effective the more you use them.
Instead of reading books on classroom management, we should be taking our cues from leadership books from the likes of Sinek and Jim Collins, or old school gurus like John Maxwell and Peter Drucker. Of course, we could also read some of the great philosophers of education, like Aristotle, Quintilian, John Locke or Charlotte Mason (especially for her practice of habit training). But we’d come to much the same conclusion, that in the long run true classroom leadership beats our clever manipulations hands down.
The reason why can be summarized in the foundational principle of Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education: Children are persons. And as persons, children are worthy of the dignity and respect, the proper autonomy under authority, and the genuine and authentic leadership of those in authority over them that all human beings deserve. As creatures made in the image of God, we have an inherent dignity that puts to shame all tactics of pure manipulation. The behaviorist can with consistency treat children as mere animals to be poked and prodded with carrots and sticks, but the Christian must lead souls and inspire hearts.
Simon Sinek describes the value of true leadership in a way that reminds me of this principle:
“Great leaders… are able to inspire people to act. Those who are able to inspire give people a sense of purpose or belonging that has little to do with any external incentive or benefit to be gained. Those who truly lead are able to create a following of people who act not because they were swayed, but because they were inspired.” (Penguin: 2009; 8)
The call to this sort of leadership should fall upon the shoulders of every classical educator, every parent and teacher, who wants to see the children in their care inspired to act and not simply manipulated into it.
The Problem with Marketing Manipulations
First, let’s tackle the problem with marketing manipulations. In his book Simon Sinek is careful not to disparage marketing manipulations unduly. He makes the point that “there are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it” (17). He calls manipulations a “fairly benign tactic” and lists as typical examples things like: “dropping the price; running a promotion; using fear, peer pressure or aspirational messages” (17). All these things should be pretty familiar to us during this season of the year, from Black Friday to the post-Christmas, end-of-the-year sale binge.
The problem with such tactics isn’t that they don’t work. In fact, it’s important to stop for a moment and acknowledge that the reason companies engage in these manipulative tactics is because they do work. They help sell more products and human psychology is such that when they are used, we do en masse buy more. As Sinek puts it:
“I cannot dispute that manipulations work. Every one of them can indeed help influence behavior and every one of them can help a company become quite successful. But there are trade-offs. Not a single one of them breeds loyalty. Over the course of time, they cost more and more. The gains are only short-term. And they increase the level of stress for both the buyer and the seller.” (28)
Throughout the book Sinek details the stress and short-term nature of their gains and how overuse of marketing manipulations has crashed many a Fortune 500 company. His solution is for companies to focus more on why their organization exists, and then to filter all the how’s and what’s of the company’s products and services through that lens. Then people who share the same vital convictions as the company will be inspired by the integrity of purpose and product, the unity of the medium and the message. Inspired customers will then want to commit their undying loyalty to the company as an expression of their own identity and values.
Again, Sinek is careful not to overblow his case against manipulations, and instead tries to afford them their proper place:
“Manipulations are a perfectly valid strategy for driving a transaction, or for any behavior that is only required once or on rare occasions. The rewards the police use are designed to incentivize witnesses to come forward to provide tips or evidence that may lead to an arrest…. In any circumstance in which a person or organization wants more than a single transaction, however, if there is a hope for a loyal, lasting relationship, manipulations do not help.” (31)
This idea of a “loyal, lasting relationship” may strike you as a bit much for companies making certain types of products; after all, it’s just a car, a cup of coffee or a computer. But Sinek marshals the evidence of psychological research to convince you of this aspect of human nature. Look around. How else do you explain the buying habits of your friends and neighbors? We affiliate with Starbucks or Apple because of the type of person we envision ourselves to be, and not just because of the quality and “low cost” of their products.
But for our purposes it’s going to be most valuable to shift focus to how we use manipulations as parents and teachers, whether in the classroom or the home. What are the equivalents for teachers and parents of dropping the price, running promotions, using fear, peer pressure and aspirational messages? How do we sacrifice the promise of a “loyal, lasting relationship” for the short term gains of compliance?
The Problem with Manipulations in Home or Classroom Discipline
Common parental and teacher manipulations include but are not limited to the following:
- the guilt trip lecture,
- abstract letter grades,
- gold star charts,
- extra credit assignments,
- monetary rewards for high grades or good behavior,
- a merit system for good and bad behavior,
- detentions, etc. etc.
Of course, like with marketing, rewards and punishments have their place in parenting and teaching. They are endorsed, after all, by no less than the book of Proverbs in the Bible. However, those proverbs about “spare not the rod” are set with in the context of inspiring parental instruction. Simply open to the first chapter and you’ll hear of voice of rich communication and relationship:
8Hear, my son, your father’s instruction,
and forsake not your mother’s teaching,
9 for they are a graceful garland for your head
and pendants for your neck. (Prov 1:8-9 ESV)
In such a context rewards and punishments play a critical role in communicating the natural consequences of wicked and rebellious behavior. But too often parents and teachers can major on the manipulation and minor on this sort of inspirational communication.
John Locke is one of my favorite educational philosophers to address the problem of manipulative rewards and punishments. He makes the point that “beating… and all other sorts of slavish and corporal punishments” should be used only rarely, in situations of real rebellion and danger that are serious enough to merit it. This sort of statement, of course, was going against the grain of his culture. But he wasn’t the first classical educator to object to harsh and unnecessary corporal punishment. Quintilian, the famous Roman orator and educator of the 1st century AD, had already pointed out the negative effects on the psyche of young boys so treated, and argued for a more inspirational approach (see Institutes of Oratory, Book 1.3.14-16, pp. 19-20 in Honeycutt’s revision).
But Locke goes on to express the dangers of manipulative rewards so well that he is worth reproducing in some length:
“To flatter children by rewards of things that are pleasant to them is as carefully to be avoided. He that will give his son apples, or sugarplumbs, or what else of this kind he is most delighted with, to make him learn his book, does but authorize his love of pleasure and cocker up that dangerous propensity which he ought by all means to subdue and stifle in him. You can never hope to teach him to master it whilst you compound for the check you give his inclination in one place by the satisfaction you propose to it in another. To make a good, a wise, and a virtuous man, it is fit he should learn to cross his appetite and deny his inclination to riches, finery, or pleasing his palate etc. whenever his reason advises the contrary and his duty requires it. But when you draw him to do anything that is fit by the offer of money or reward the pains of learning his book by the pleasure of a luscious morsel; when you promise him a lace-cravat or a fine new suit upon the performance of some of his little tasks; what do you by proposing these as rewards but allow them to be the good things he should aim at, and thereby encourage his longing for them and accustom him to place his happiness in them? Thus people, to prevail with children to be industrious about their grammar, dancing, or some other such matter of no great moment [i.e. importance] to the happiness or usefulness of their lives, by misapplied rewards and punishments sacrifice their virtue, invert the order of their education, and teach them luxury, pride, or covetousness etc. For in this way, flattering those wrong inclinations which they should restrain and suppress, they lay the foundations of those future vices, which cannot be avoided but by curbing our desires and accustoming them early to submit to reason.” (Some Thoughts Concerning Education 34-35)
Here we have it in a nutshell. If we manipulate children with rewards to get them to do something else, we only attach them to the reward. And in a way, we flatter their lower nature, especially if we propose to them a reward that is less worthy than the attainment we are actually after. I love his comment that grammar or dancing are no very important things after all, especially when we compare them with the virtue and character of our children.
This topic always makes me think of my 7th grade math teacher. She was a dear old lady who proposed to give us gummy worms at the end of nearly every class period for the work we had done. I don’t see how gummy worms connect to pre-Algebra, but somehow a normal day’s work in her class seemed to her to deserve the reward of a diabetes-inducing sugar rush.
The problem with such manipulations is that they belittle the human consciousness by implying that what we really want is the little treat, rather than the elevation of mind and honor of exploring the secrets and mysteries of the world that God has made. It ignores the sort of curiosity that made the proverb-writer say,
“It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” (Prov 25:2 ESV)
We human beings are royal inheritors of all the knowledge of our ancestors. The job of the educator is to stir up that fire of curiosity that runs in our blood, not pamper our base cravings with sugar plumbs. But in too many classrooms today glory has been exchanged for gummies.
The Solution in True Leadership and Natural Consequences
In other words, the solution to the problem with manipulations is a healthy dose of real inspiration. And beside it, rewards and punishments should take the secondary place as an expression of the natural consequences of conduct, enforced more to bring the message home than in a Pavlovian behaviorist fashion. So first, let’s unpack the inspiration of starting with why in your home or classroom.
How often do you take time in the classroom or with your son or daughter to step back and reflect on the big picture? Do you start with why this subject, why this course of action, why this way of life is valuable, right, ideal? Without sowing the seeds of inspiration, it is unlikely that children will develop the motivation.
In his book Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us Daniel Pink uses the story of Tom Sawyer painting the fence from Mark Twain’s famous novel to illustrate the power of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. In short, Tom Sawyer is told that he has to paint the fence. While he himself is not very enthusiastic about this task, in a stroke of genius he pretends in front of his friend that it is the most exciting and enjoyable thing he could possibly do. And what a unique privilege he’s had bestowed on him by his aunt. In no time at all he has the rest of the boys paying him for the opportunity to paint the fence for him!
One of the most interesting research findings that Pink presents in Drive is that when you offer to pay children to do something that they had already been doing, like practicing their instrument or taking out the trash, they actually become less motivated to do it and do it less consistently. Extrinsic motivations, like carrots and sticks, can backfire by communicating to us that the activity is not intrinsically valuable. In fact, it’s something you wouldn’t want to do on your own unless you were paid to do it. That social message is heard loud and clear by children, who are intent on learning from parents and peers what is really valuable in life.
This principle means that parents and educators need to take the time to think through the why of everything we do in education, and then modify our methods and practices to ensure that they are in line with that. We can’t accept the grades and merits unthinkingly. And no, just because Harry Potter had a house system with merits and demerits, doesn’t mean it’s a favored feature of classical education. Believe it our not, we actually have to test out whether or not some “traditional” and “classical” methods are just as manipulative and demotivating as our modern ones.
At this point, the voice of Charlotte Mason speaks loud and clear with solid Christian guidance:
“There is a law by which all rewards and punishments should be regulated: they should be natural, or, at any rate, the relative consequences of conduct; should imitate, as nearly as may be without injury to the child, the treatment which such and such conduct deserves and receives in after life…” (Home Education 104).
Mason agrees with Locke (and Sinek) that we cannot do without rewards and punishments, and her principle for the proper administration of them is to consider the consequences which the natural order that God set up would bestow on such conduct. If we fail to do our work on time, often we must do not only that work but more to make up for the tardiness of that initial project. If we do our work quickly and well, we have the natural blessing of choosing what to do with our free time.
It takes discernment to conform our rewards and punishments to the analogy of nature in Charlotte Mason’s mind. We can’t have one simple fix-all to hand for every disciplinary issue or character flaw. A hammer is not well suited for a screw, and will cause much damage to the wall if so unnaturally wielded. But that is the complexity of leading human beings. If all we want to do is train dogs or horses, then a bone or a carrot will work every time. The personhood of our children demands more from us.
The principles of authority and obedience are fundamental for Charlotte Mason, but like Simon Sinek they are constrained to the proper ordering of why, leading to how, and then what in a way that respects the follower. As Charlotte Mason summarized it in the short synopsis of her educational philosophy,
“These principles are limited by the respect due to the personality [i.e. personhood] of children, which must not be encroached upon whether by the direct use of fear or love, suggestions or influence, or by undue play upon any one natural desire.”
Children must be inspired by true leadership, rather than manipulated by our marketing gimmicks into the good life. In my experience, it’s the only way that works over the long haul.
For a fuller answer to what true leadership looks like, download Patrick’s eBook on habit training.