What Motivates You?

Motivation is concerned with why people behave the way they do. In the workplace motivation is normally focused on performance and controlling or directing people to work more effectively. Why people do what they do is a question that dates back centuries and has challenged managers everywhere to find ways to help people engage in their work to produce better results. There are a number of key thinkers that have produced theories of motivation: Maslow created the hierarchy of need, Macgregor gave us X Y theory and more recently there have been a whole range on personality 'tests' like Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) developed to help in the understanding of what makes people do what they do.
All of these theories and tools have a place in detemining what makes people tick and how this key determinant will affect how they act and interact with others, perform a particular role or conduct a task. Making use of such tools is one way in which managers can seek the best ways to motivate their teams - knowing what makes each person energised to pursue a goal or objective should make it easier to find incentives to move that individual forward and keep moving them towards new goals.
The difficultly many people encounter is that the systems used by organisations to set goals and objectives does not allow for highly individualised goals or objectives. When goals become too broad or too narrow they either become too general to have meaning or are so focused that only a few people will engage with them. To motivate people we need to find solutions that are flexible while supporting the broader organisational goals. A combination of very personalised goals with broader over-arching objectives for the team will help. So too will each manager's ability to listen to each individual in his/her team and help create challenges that the person really will want to achieve. It takes time to Understand and to Value each person's motivations but to do so will bring about excellent team communication, more collegiate working and a better appreciation that we are all different in our needs and wants.