3 Simple Strategies to Motivate Your Team & Enhance Performance

We all know that workplace performance is impacted by employee motivation. When motivation is lacking, performance can suffer, and when motivation is high, performance is enhanced. So, the solution to improving performance is to increase motivation, right?

Yes and no.

It depends on the type of motivation and the type of work being performed.

Motivation: There’s extrinsic motivation, which is experienced when an individual engages in an activity because of external factors, such as monetary incentives. Then, there’s intrinsic motivation, which happens when an individual participates in an activity for its sake, finding it inherently interesting.

Type of Work: If employees do work that is systematic or repetitive, extrinsic motivation can positively impact performance. However, when the work involves creative, problem-solving skills, extrinsic motivation can actually diminish performance! Instead, in this case, intrinsic motivation is the key to augmenting performance.

Chances are, most of the work your team does is in the creative, problem-solving category. So, let’s talk about three simple ways you can increase intrinsic motivation, per self-determination theory.