The effect of motivation on individual and team performance.

Motivation is the desire to do things and the drive towards a goal. It includes external and internal factors to keep people consistently interested and committed to a task, responsibility or subject, or to put effort to achieve an objective. Motivation is a fundamental ingredient in setting and achieving goals. Motivation influences which consequences are reinforcing and which ones are punishing. Motivation often boosts performance and enhances initiation and determination in activities. People who are motivated are likely to start a task and pursue it to the end. Employees who are not motivated skip meetings and training workshops and may not perform to their best in their responsibilities. Employee motivation can be increased through employee empowerment and recognition.

Motivation is used in the workforce not just to attract individuals to that organization but to keep them there. Numerous studies have shown that group motivation has a positive correlation to a better work environment. A lot has changed within the job environment over the past years. Society is changing drastically and the way in which jobs are done is changing and motivating techniques are changing.

Formerly, people were motivated by material gains, while they still are today, people want meaning and purpose in their lives so the motivating or team leader should give the team a positive purpose. A team leader or manager should encourage them verbally by letting them know that what they do is important and is contributing to others within the company.

Many people give up when the team faces problems. They might conclude that there just aren’t any solutions and they stop looking because of lack of motivation. These team members can be motivated by communicating an unbending belief that problems have solutions and that the members of the team are the kind of people who can find the solutions.