Motivating Positive Performance

Understanding Motivational Needs

Apr 15, 2006

Motivating positive performance can be challenging. Recognizing that you are working with individuals that have different motivational needs is a crucial step.

Understanding the various motivational needs behind behaviors can give great insights. As a leader, it will help you respect differences and assign workload/portfolios based on what needs motivate each member of your team. Understanding how individuals differ in their prioritization of needs will help you understand lack of motivation, lethargy and/or resistance or, on the other hand, enthusiasm, energy and/or commitment to tasks. Yes, this will add to your workload. However, the pay-off in group morale and productivity can be tremendous and that can lessen the need for mediation and therefore lessen your workload over time. Look at your team members as individuals and determine their individual priority of motivational needs.

Incentives that may motivate or reward one person, may not work for someone else who has different needs. This must be recognized so that the one-size-fits-all approach is not used when creating incentive plans. Giving everyone a pay raise or bonus may only motivate and reward some of the team.

Staff will find certain incentives or tasks that fit their needs very motivational. For example, if someone has a great need for learning they may procrastinate on tasks that are routine or mindless and call them boring. On the other hand, give the same person a project to start up a new department or project and they start working on it immediately. In this example, a possible solution is to hire an assistant to help them with their routine tasks and assign them research projects or start-ups.

If this is not a viable option, they will require coaching to help them see that routine tasks are your/the company's priority and need to be completed to meet expectations and to fulfill their job duties. If the task is your need priority and not theirs, expect there to be some resistance to completing the task. Hopefully, you are working with professionals who understand that not all tasks will fit their top motivational needs.

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The copyright of the article Motivating Positive Performance in Training/Professional Development is owned by Joni Rose. Permission to republish Motivating Positive Performance in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.