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The Gift of Intrinsic Motivation

Dwayne Harapnuik — August 13, 2013 — 2 Comments

These past several weeks my two boys, Levi and Caleb, have spent most of their days riding Silver Star and Whistler Bike Park, Whistler Aerodome and other DownHill and DirtJump locations in British Columbia. This type of riding is not only extremely hard on the human body (i.e. Levi’s concussion and recent shoulder injury and Caleb’s ongoing aching hands, too many bruises, scrapes and scratches to mentions) it may even be harder on the bikes. As result there is extensive daily maintenance and the all too often broken component that needs to be replaced as a result of bad hit, wipe out our simply the harsh terrain.

Up until this summer I had been supervising and directing this daily maintenance. Taking on a new position at BCIT means that I am not going to be able to ride with my boys on a daily basis and help them with their bike maintenance and repairs. That is why a recent Saturday morning at Silver Star confirmed that the gift of intrinsic motivation that I have been giving my boys for several years has not only finally been fully received, it has blossomed into the wonderful sight displayed in these pictures.

Cluster Removal

Lockon Grip Fastening

Two typical teenage boys (17 and 15) are not only cleaning, lubing and adjusting their high end DH bikes, they are spending sometimes up to 2-3 hours a day doing full repairs and preventative maintenance which ranges from replacing spokes, truing and tensioning wheels to changing fork oil, brake bleeds, replacing suspension bearings and every other aspect of maintaining and repairing their very expensive bikes. Most importantly they are doing it on their own without having to be told or directed. The gift of intrinsic motivation has finally been received.

While the title and initial focus of this blog post suggests that you can give someone intrinsic motivation I must concede the fact that you cannot give anyone intrinsic motivation. This type of motivation comes from within. You can however create the environment and influence the circumstances in which intrinsic motivation will not only emerge but will grow into a driving force.

I believe that we can help foster the growth and establishment of intrinsic motivation if we consider and foster the following five key contributing factors.

Modelling
James Dobson has repeatedly stated that “Values are not taught to our children; they are caught by them.” I suggest that intrinsic motivation is similar to values in that is not taught to our children but has to be caught by them. Ever since my boys first started riding their bikes they have also learned how to repair and maintain them–it is just something that I/we have always done. In addition to maintaining bikes I maintain our vehicles, our home and just about anything that we own. The years of rotating tires, changing oil, fixing the dishwasher, renovating and updating our homes and everything else that the boys were involved in helping their mom and dad do on a daily basis contributed to showing the boys how they could “catch” the intrinsic motivation required to work through the mundane tasks that are part of everyday life.

Expectations
Effective modelling will also convey or demonstrate what expectations, standards and criteria need to be met. Knowing what is expected and fulfilling those expectations is extremely important for children and teenagers because it will help them to develop responsibility and accountability. As adults our work is judged and often connected to our income so developing the ability to meet or exceed expectations for our children is not only very important, their future careers may also depend on this ability.

One of the biggest challenges with expectations is being realistic. The performance standard for an 10-12 year old child will not be the same as a 15-17 year old teenager or an adult. The desired end quality should not be compromised but the path to getting to that quality will depend on the age and skill level of your children so be patient. Unrealistic expectations are the source of too many disappointed fathers and children so remember when your 12 year old son or daughter is striving to meet their father’s expectations remember that they are just a 12 year old boy or girl. Similarly there is a point when challenging your 17 year old son or daughter to step up and perform as adult is crucial to their development.

Trust
The key to trust is letting go and letting your children do the task, make their own mistakes and learn from the situation. All too often we want to swoop in and direct and correct and interfere with the learning process. Or worse we think that it would be more time effective and less stressful to do the task ourselves or worse still outsource the job. When we trust our children to make breakfast, repair the doorknob, fix the flat tire or, in the case of my boys, build their own bikes from scratch we are telling them that we believe in them and that we value their effort and contribution. A father’s and mother’s trust is a major contributor to your child’s identity and to their intrinsic motivation. Knowing that someone else trusts and believes in them helps them to trust and believe in themselves. This instills confidence which is a fundamental contributor to personal motivation.

Ownership
Little boys and girls want to be like their mom and dad and have their own tool belts, hammers, appliances, bikes, cars and so many other things. This is one principle that I wish I would have fully grasped and understood sooner. When Caleb and Levi searched out and selected all the necessary components and built their own DH bikes up from a raw frame it really changed the way they approached maintaining their equipment. They now have a vested interest. They understand the work involved in putting the bike together and what it would take to replace or repair those components. More importantly, my boys now not only want to maintain their bikes they do so on their own and even appreciate preventative maintenance because they know the work that went into building up their bikes.

Consequences
Broken spokes are like deer; if you see one you inevitably will see another. A bad landing, a rock or root can cause a broken spoke and cut into prime riding time. Unfortunately, a poorly tensioned wheel will be more susceptible to damage than a well maintained wheel. There is often nothing better than natural consequences to motivate a young man to take the extra time necessary to properly tension his wheels to limit the downtime that can ruin an otherwise wonderful riding day. The idiom “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is never fully appreciated until one is personally responsible for implementing that pound of cure. Letting your children suffer the consequences (as long as they aren’t life threatening) will be much more valuable to them in the long run than your intervening.

The lesson learned in the garage and on the mountain slopes, bike parks and dirt jump parks of BC have played a significant role in my sons’ acceptance of the gift of intrinsic motivation. As an intentional father it is my responsibility to create an environment at home, on the road and anywhere we are at where the above listed contributing factors will help my boys to grow into responsible men. Helping them with the gift of intrinsic motivation is just one part of this ongoing process.

Catching the Openness to Change

Dwayne Harapnuik — July 29, 2013 — 3 Comments

Several people who offered comments either directly on the Becoming an Intentional Father post, or via email suggested that there have been many benefits to “dragging” my family across North America. I have to agree that the several moves that we have made over the years have contributed to the positive formation of my boys character and to their grit and resilience. These moves have also opened up the boys to the fact that there is huge world out there that can be explored. We live in amazing time when one can easily take a car, train, ship or airplane and see any part of the world. Traveling to different locations on a vacation is also a wonderful way to see the world but until you actually live in a new location and immerse yourself in that culture you don’t fully understand the uniqueness of the different cultures, regions and people.

Change David Jakes

When I reflect on all the moves we have made and look at how my boys have grown I can see so many benefits. I originally wanted to focus my attention on the most significant character building benefits that a father wants to see in his children but after creating the list below I realize that I may be better to introduce each of these benefits in this post and then deal with them in greater detail in future posts. A positive result of our move is that the boys are much more:

Adaptable – they can now easily adjust to many different situations and circumstances.
Appreciative – they value what they currently have much more and value the opportunity that change brings and have also learned to appreciate what they can live without.
Accepting – they have learned to accept the uniqueness of different people and cultures and are less inclined to pre-judge.
Resilient – they have been able to bounce back to daily routines, responsibilities and “normal daily life” much quicker with each move.
Open to change – they are now embracing change and the opportunities that it brings and are a looking forward to the new adventures that are in store with a new move.

The moves have also contributed to a(an):

Expanded comfort zone – they have learned that they can sleep anywhere, use any type of bathroom, be open to trying any type of food and adjust to whatever circumstances we are in regardless of how uncomfortable it may be.
Expanded opportunities – they have learned that new locations offer new opportunities learn new activities (like air-soft, windsurfing, DH mountain biking, skiing, caving etc.) not to discount what is learned from the people and the culture in the new local.
Expanded mentorship – they have learned that wherever we go there are positive role models and mentors that can share a unique perspective on life.
Social networking (face2face not virtual) – they have learned that you don’t wait for people to friend you first in a face2face setting but you have to step out and take a leadership role and make the first moves regardless how uncomfortable this may be.
Expanded physical challenge – they have learned that you can live in 40 C heat or cold, with fire ants, poisonous snakes, scorpions and black widow spiders and inhospitable terrain.

Jim Dobson has stated that values that children learn about life are not taught rather they are caught from their family and their circles of influence. Prior to our first move many years ago I had been aware of Dobson’s perspective on how children learned values and had hoped that the moves were were planning to make would result in the boys catching the right values and making the most of these opportunities.

While the circumstances of moving to new towns, cities or countries have provided the circumstances were these positive attributes can grow the key aspect to having values being caught by your children is that you possess them yourself. When my wife Marilyn and I model and live adaptability, appreciativeness, acceptance, resilience and openness to change and so on, our boys have the opportunity to “catch” these values as Dobson suggests and make them their own. Don’t think that Marilyn and I have been perfect models. We have our ups and downs but for the most part we have been consistent in being open to change and new opportunities and I think it is paying off. How?

Our boys are starting to model these attributes back to us. The most recent move to BC has been very challenging because I had to narrow the scope of my job search to the lower mainland of BC and also had to limit the job opportunities to one that paid enough but didn’t require the type of time and commitment physically and mentally that a senior executive position required. When the BCIT position came up I almost didn’t apply because it was for a 6 month temporary contract and I wanted something more certain. Caleb’s attitude to the opportunity reminded me that I need to be more open to change and to the opportunities that were presenting themselves. He stated:

“I think you should take the temporary BCIT position. It gets us to the lower mainland which is where we want to be and once you are there you will be able to find other opportunities. It may even be easier to find a new job when you are in BC because companies see that you are already there and won’t need to move you. Dad, I know you will find something.”

He was right, I needed to move out of my comfort zone and step out in faith and trust that new opportunities would present themselves. He was also right; there are all sorts of opportunities that I can see now that we are here. It is exciting see that growth in my boys and even more exciting when they encourage me to be all the things that I have helped them to be.

In Intentional Parent accepting, adaptable, appreciative, challenge, Change, comfort zone, opportunities, resiliance

Becoming an Intentional Father

Dwayne Harapnuik — July 19, 2013 — 7 Comments

Involve and Challenge Me and I Learn!

My journey in becoming an intentional father started when my first son was born just over 17 years ago and my second son was born two year later. Until they were 10 and 8 I worked from home and was available for my boys and my wife. During that time I was an unintentional intentional father because of the circumstances that contributed to my working situation and my family life.

Before I go on I think need to define what I mean by “intentional father” and “intentional fatherhood”. An intentional father is a man who makes a conscious reflective and consistent effort at being a genuine father for his children, immediate and extended family and for society in general. An intentional father is a man who thinks long and hard about what he does and believes about: his work, the choices that he makes regarding how money is spent, leisure and entertainment activities are pursued and what type of example and legacy his life provides his family. An intentional father works at being a father and sees this responsibility fall directly in line behind his responsibility to his God and then to his wife.

My wife and I have been blessed with two healthy, strong and caring boys who have grown into wonderful young men. As I indicated earlier I had been relatively successful early on at a being an intentional father but my circumstances and situation contributed, as much if not more, to my being a good father than my reflective thoughts and actions. I worked hard at developing my relationship with my boys, strove to be a good example to them and invested significant time in their lives. About 18 months ago I realized that the formative years for boys extend well beyond the typical infant/toddler to young child ages of 0 – 7 or 8. The teen years are perhaps equally formative in shaping boys into men.

I had read a study that looked at the impact of time fathers spent with their teenage sons and was shocked to see that the average father spent just under an hour a week with his 15 year old son. I knew that I wasn’t such a father and simply looked back at my past record and could easily point to several hours a day spent with my boys. But my position as the Vice President Academic at Concordia University College of Alberta was consuming 60-70 or more hours a week and I was becoming one of those fathers who was not spending the time with his sons that they deserved and needed to grow into positive young men who would contribute to society. The study revealed that fathers have the ability to call their sons on things that mothers or peers aren’t able to and the commitment of time also tells the young man that he is worthy of his father’s time. The study also revealed that was a strong correlation between the time a father spend with his sons to their being more successful academically, socially and financially. On the negative side, the study revealed that the less time fathers spent with their sons the less socially adjusted they were and the more likely they were to get into significant trouble and even spend time in jail. This study was the slap in the face that I needed to wake up but it took an even bigger slap to get me to make a significant adjustment.

In the winter of 2012, the faculty at Concordia University had voted to unionize and we had started working on the collective bargaining agreement in the late spring. This was a very uncomfortable adversarial situation that required that I spend significant amounts of my time working out the details of the first faculty contract. I changed my family vacation to accommodate the faculty association demands and cut short my boys downhill biking trips significantly so that I could be available for the negotiations. My heart ached the night I had to tell my boys that I would be flying back early from the bike trip to resume the contract negotiations. This was the point I realized fully that I was not a change agent who was going to be able to help Concordia move into the 21st Century and help build the most effective digital learning environment for our students. Rather, I was an academic administrator/bureaucrat who would have to spend the next several years working with a group of faculty more interested in their rights and the details of the collective agreement than in what the students needed and deserved. I must acknowledge that there are some exceptional faculty members at Concordia who genuinely care about their student’s need.

When I interviewed for the position I repeatedly warned the faculty, staff and senior administration that I was a change agent and could help move the institution forward only if there were enough people interested in innovation and progress. A good leader should be able to move an organization forward but only if there is even the slightest desire for progress and change. As Seth Godin, author of Tribes points out a good leader also recognizes when it is time to move on. My heart ached even more when I realized that I was spending so many hours with several people who didn’t respect me and the leadership team (once again not all faculty members were disrespectful) and I was only able to give minutes to wife and boys who loved and cherished me. The night I left for my abbreviated holiday with my family I silently muttered a pray that I would find a way out of this horrible situation.

A couple of weeks later when I returned early from our family biking trip I was greeted by President Krispin who informed me that the University Board had met and decided that I was not the best person to handle the union negotiations. They acknowledged that I had brought about significant change and improved student services, marketing and recruitment and laid the foundation for the academic plan but the union saw me as an impediment to moving negotiations forward. The Board also believed that while I had won over the students, the staff and administration, the faculty were not comfortable with me as a change agent so we discussed our options and I decided that it would be best for me to resign. On the one hand this hurt my pride because I had been so successful at implementing so many changes and improvements in a very short period and had only started with the union negotiations. I knew that I would also succeed with this part of my job as well. On the other hand this was a huge relief, because I didn’t want to commit so much time and effort to a group of people that didn’t believe they needed to move into the 21st Century and that had no respect for my passion, skills or my office.

This was also the point where I committed to becoming an intentional father.

From September 2012 until now I have had the most amazing time with my wife and boys. I have worked closely with Levi and Caleb on several projects, their school work, biking and other sports, read books together and in general renewed my relationship with them. The boys have grown and accomplished so much in this past year and learned how important relationships with friends and family can be. Their band, My Last Lie, played several concerts and they recorded their first single (Hate You). An elderly neighbour across the street lost her husband and Caleb stepped up and helped out with snow removal and other chores, Marilyn checked in on her and did her shopping and all of us were available to help out. Marilyn’s good friend lost her mother and she was available for her in this difficult time. We all spent more time with my mom, sister and brother and worked as a family on several projects. Levi qualified as a Lifeguard and got his first part time job as a rink supervisor in Highlands. All the while I was there for all these events and milestones and continually reflected on my role as a father and considered what my boys were learning from me and how effectively I was modelling man and fatherhood.

I have finally come to grips with the responsibility that I have to raise my boys to be positive young men who can contribute to society. To do that I have to put their needs before my desires–that includes my career plans. What example am a setting if I tell my boys to follow their dreams and do what it takes to succeed but I am not willing to support their dreams by my actions? A man is not judged by his spoken words but my his unspoken words and for the past few years my actions were shouting out that it is okay for a man to drag his family across the continent to pursue his career at the expense of his family’s needs. Sure I put in a token effort but it wasn’t enough. When we were in Texas we spent a few weeks up in Colorado downhill biking each summer but a few weeks each year doesn’t a professional make. And just when my family was getting settled with life in Texas we headed back up north to Edmonton so that I could make my next career move. Once again a days travel away from the mountains and no closer to supporting my boys dreams…until now.

During this amazing time of reflection and growth I was looking for a new work opportunity and we as a family decided that the lower mainland of BC is where we needed to be. If you want to be a professional downhill mountain biker, you need to go where the mountains are and where you can grow in the sport. There is no better place to be than the North Shore and Whistler. I turned down several lucrative and career building opportunities because they would have taken me back to the US, the Middle East or other parts of the world. While these opportunities would have been great for me, these potential moves would have been devastating for my boys. Downhill biking does not happen in the deserts of Qatar or south west Texas. We finally decided that we would move to the lower mainland of BC after spending the summer in the mountains at Silver Star in Vernon and also at Whistler and trust that an opportunity would present itself.

When the temporary position came up at BCIT I almost didn’t apply because it was for a 6 month term and I initially believed I needed a bit more stability and could do better. Who was I kidding; I wanted stability but had uprooted my family several times over the past years moving from Edmonton, to Lethbridge, to Texas and then back to Edmonton, all the while pursuing and advancing my career.

This is where I finally get to the intentional father part. The move to BCIT and BC in general is a step of faith and this move is not about me. It is about my family. The boys get to pursue their dreams in Silver Star, the North Shore and Whistler and we all get to be closer to my wife’s family. I have always known that I can work anywhere so I have leveraged my skills and abilities to get us to BC. This also means that I am having to step back from being a senior executive and take on a position that doesn’t consume all my time.

This step back is also one of the hardest things that I have done because it has shown me just how arrogant and proud I have been about my accomplishments. I had been using my career as my source of my identity and self worth and I have finally put myself in a position where this is no longer the case. Coming to grips with the fact that I have to continually and intentionally weigh all my decisions against the measuring stick of “how will this benefit my wife and boys” has been one of the most important turning points in my life. I am now working hard on my journey to become an intentional father. In the coming months I will be writing about my journey and look forward to your comments and feedback.

In Intentional Parent, Parenting fatherhood, growth, leadership, resposibility, time