Get Motivated!
Creative Leadership and Problem Solving | Online Exercise # 3
Introduction
Have you ever worked on a project for hours, perhaps days, in a row without noticing the passing of time, feeling hungry, or getting sleepy? Well, that’s called creative flow, and if you’ve had this experience, it probably means you loved the task, challenged your abilities, and were highly motivated to excel.

This week’s exercise identifies and shares intrinsic motivations. Our first goal is to reflect upon the connection between intrinsic motivation and your industry. Research indicates intrinsic motivation is a perquisite for creativity and innovation; so, understanding what you love and what challenges motivate you are essential skills for innovators.

In addition, the exercise introduces some simple questions you can ask collaborators and colleagues to determine their intrinsic motivations. The insights help decide what tasks to assign to each teammate and how, as a leader, you can help them be as creative and successful as possible. As Amabile’s research demonstrates, leaders can most effectively boost creativity by facilitating intrinsically rewarding experiences for teammates.

Finally, the exercise will provide the opportunity to further connect with classmates. It’ll be a lot of fun finding out why everyone came to Sheridan, and to learn about a variety of creative industries.

Process
Provide short answers to the list of questions. Your answers should be brief but detailed enough so that anyone can understand and appreciate them. Assume that your reader knows absolutely nothing about you or your industry. Copy the prompts into your post and write your brief responses under each question. Your discussion should be a minimum of 200 words.

1. What brought you to Sheridan College?

2. Introduce your industry. What do you love most about your industry?

3. What aspects of your work or training do you do just for fun? Or, what type of ‘work’ do you complete for its pure enjoyment?

4. If you weren’t already in your industry and/or studying at Sheridan, what would you do for fun and joy?

5. Assuming you had unlimited time and resources, what would you do that you can’t do now.

After posting your responses, read your colleagues’ posts and provide 2 affirmative comments to two different posts.

Evaluation
This online exercise is worth 5% of your final grade. Later, you’ll have the opportunity to revise and further reflect upon the exercise via the Portfolio.

For this submission, the online exercise will be evaluated via degree of completion by answering ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the following statements:

1. The post answered all five questions.

2. The post met the minimum 200-word length criteria.

3. The post provided enough context about the author’s industry so that people from other areas of practice could understand and appreciate the discussion.

4. The author provided affirmative comments on two other posts created by classmates.