This article might be described as a great big disclaimer to Management and Motivation Part 2 - 7 Motivating Factors. In that article, I described several basic motivational factors I have observed in people over the years.
Reality, however, is rarely that simple. Here, I hope to add some texture to that discussion by discribing some exceptions and special circumstances where people are motivated differently than they might be otherwise.
In my last article, I explained that motivating people is a personalized task that has to be tailored to the individual you are working with.
Here are 7 different ways that people are motivated. These are certainly not exhaustive, and there are probably variations of each one that could be discussed further. But these are some of the more common motivational factors that I have seen:
One of the essential skills for good management - whether it be people management or project management - is the ability to motivate people. Countless books and articles have been written about motivational tips, tools, and techniques, but I would like to focus on the idea that people are motivated in individually different ways, and whatever motivational techniques you may use, the key is not to master a technique and use it on everyone; The key is to tailor an individual technique for each individual person.
As a follow-up to my last article about management as a skill, not a career path, I would like to also point out that project management skills are not the same as people management skills. Just because someone is great at one type of management doesn't mean they are naturally great at the other.
Management is a skill of its own, not an extension of being good at a particular job. Just because a person is the senior member of a team does not mean he/she should be made manager of that team. And just because a person does not have all the skills to perform a particular job does not mean he/she could not manage a person doing that job.