What Motivates Performance?

Andrew Woelflein
Sep 30, 2025
1 min read

Motivation is an important intangible factor that has a dramatic impact on results. Motivated individuals, teams, or organizations achieve great results while the unmotivated deliver sub-par results.

But what drives motivation in an employee, a project team, a company, or even an athlete?

There are several factors that help foster motivation:

Clearly defined and communicated objective
The objective is worthy which fosters buy-in
Willingness to apply sustained effort to achieve success
Knowledge on how to achieve the objective
Recognition & reward

Self-motivation is the best form of motivation. Motivating through fear or threats can provide short-term results but is counter-productive longer term.

What factors do you think motivate people and organizations to perform?

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