Attempting to motivate others is a complex task. Unfortunately, no universal motivators are available that are guaranteed to work on anyone, anywhere. That said, we do know a lot about what works and doesn’t work in terms of motivating others. The following suggestions summarize the essence of what we know is likely to be effective.74

Recognize individual differences. People have different needs. Don’t treat them all alike. Moreover, spend the time necessary to understand what’s important to each person. This will allow you to individualize goals, level of involvement, and rewards to align with individual needs.

Use goals and feedback. People prefer to have goals. If you’re in a position to assign or participate in setting goals for others, help them to set hard and specific goals. These are most likely to motivate. In addition, individuals are most likely to be motivated when they get feedback on how well they are faring in the pursuit of their goals.

Allow people to participate in decisions that affect them. If you are in a position to influence the level of participation, actively seek input from the person you seek to motivate. Employees are especially likely to respond positively when allowed to participate in setting work goals, choosing their benefit packages, solving productivity and quality problems, and the like.

Link rewards to unsatisfied needs. Recommendations #2 and #3 apply most directly to managers or team leaders trying to motivate their employees or team members. Effectively linking rewards to unsatisfied needs is a more generalizable action: It applies to motivating colleagues, friends, spouses, customers—as well as employees and team members. It builds on recommendation #1 and individual differences.

Depending on your position in an organization and your resources, the rewards you control will vary. For example, senior-level executives typically can control pay increases, bonuses, promotion decisions, job assignments, and training decisions. They also can usually control job design such as ­allowing employees more freedom and control over their work, improving working conditions, increasing social interactions in the workplace, or modifying the workload. But everyone can offer others rewards such as recognition or providing sympathetic and sensitive help with problems. The key is identifying what needs are dominant and unsatisfied, then choosing ­rewards that will help satisfy those needs.

Link rewards to performance. The rewards you choose should be allocated so as to be contingent on performance. Importantly, the person you’re trying to motivate must ­perceive a clear linkage. Regardless of how closely rewards are actually correlated to performance criteria, it’s perception that counts. If individuals perceive this relationship to be low, motivation and performance will suffer.

Maintain equity. Rewards should be perceived by people in the organization as equating with the inputs they bring to their job. At a simplistic level, it means that experience, skills, abilities, effort, and other obvious inputs should ­explain differences in performance and, hence, pay, job ­assignments, and other obvious rewards.

1. As a manager, what will you need to know about goal-setting theory as a motivation tool?

2. What challenges do managers face in motivating ­today’s workforce?