Understanding of motivation

“From your understanding of motivation, working groups and leadership, explain why motivating a group may be different from motivating an individual.”  As you know, motivation is an important thing in our life. It can apply to different area such as motivating people to achieve the goal. Besides, there are many difference between motivate groups or an individual and motivating different area have different effort. In this essay, it’s going to discuss why motivating a group may be different from motivating an individual.

First, it’s going to define motivation, leadership and working groups of motivating a group and an individual. Second, it’s going to mention the characteristic of motivating groups such as group members of performance would be affected if someone is motivate a group. Thirdly, it’s going to talk about the characteristic of motivating an individual. At last, it’s going to talk about the why motivating a group may be different from motivating an individual.

Motivation, as you know, is a big topic in business management. In this essay, it’s going to talk about the difference between motivating groups and motivating an individual. In 1976, Campbell & Pritchard stated that motivation is a “Has to do with a set of independent/dependent variables relationship that explain the direction, amplitude, and persistence of an individual’s behavior, holding constant the effects of aptitude, skill, and understanding of the task, and the constraints operating in the environment”

Campbell & Pritchard, 1976. Motivation is present every life function. For example: hard-working during work is motivated by the high salary. Therefore, In Herzberg’s motivation- hygiene theory, he stated that if people get a higher status and responsibility in the work, they will be motivated by there factors. Many studies have observed that groups and individuals motivation has a better result with a better work’s salary.

Leadership is the most important thing in a group. It’s because if a group is without a leadership, the members of the group cannot work normally as they can’t solve the problem or achieve the goal effectively. In 1950, Ralph Stodgill mentioned that leadership is used to influence the followers to achieve the goal. The responsibility of leader, therefore, is used to influence followers to change their mind to sign up the leader’s vision of the future, inspire them to overcome problems from the goal, produce positive changes or dramatic changes and develop strategies to assist them to achieve the goal. A group thus cannot lack of leadership. Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an organised group in its efforts toward goal setting and goal achievement

Working groups mean that a group of members work together to achieve the goal. In a group, there are no limited members. It means any number which you want. Moreover, working groups develop particular characteristics, affecting not only the behaviour of the individuals within them but also their relation to other groups in a company or an organization. Besides, groups have to have interactions between the group members to generate some ideas to achieve the goal. Finally, group performance contributes to the success of the organization. Teamwork is key, working productively within a team is very important; individuals that do this are essential to a company to ensure its success. Organizations ensure that every individual recruited id a good ‘team player’ in team skill building activities.

‘To an ever-increasing extent, modern management has become focused on the idea of the team. Management consultants propose organizational retracting to facilitate teamwork; directors make policy statement about the importance of the team of the organization; and senior managers exhort their junior staff to encourage team working in their departments.’ Hayes (1997, p.1) Now, it’s going to mention the characteristic of motivating groups motivating a group. If people motivate a group, the group members would influence each other in different area. First, motivating groups can affect the perceptions of its individual. It’s because there is a force to motivate members to express their perception within the group. As people know, different members have different perceptions. It will generate different ideas. Their ideas, therefore, would be improved through the communication. At last, it can achieve the best goal effectively.

Besides, if new members join a new group during motivating a group, they can share their perceptions from outside to the original members. It can make the ideas more diversified. After that, the goal will be much better. In 1984, Serge Moscovici stated a social representations theory that “when individuals join a new group, its members will construct and transmit complex and unfamiliar idea to them, in straightforward and familiar ways. It’s because it should make members what is going on around them.” Therefore, in the transmitting complex and unfamiliar idea process, the new members can share their perceptions from outside to achieve the better goal.

Second, motivating groups can affect the performance of its individual. It’s because every members can influence each others’ performance. For example: a person who is going to present a complex, unfamiliar task will be improved by the observation by the others who can point out the mistake of the task and solve it. After that, the person can improve or reduce the mistake and get a better performance effectively. In 1965and 1980, Robert Zajonc stated that “whatever the person do well, he or she likely to do it even better in front of an audience (other members), whereas what he or she normally find difficult to do, he or she will find virtually impossible to do when others watching”. Therefore, it’s obviously to know that motivating groups can help its individuals’ performance much better.

Besides, the biological concept of synergy can explain these phenomena. Synergy is the positive or negative result of the interaction of two or more components, producing an outcome that is different from the sum of the individual components. In the positive synergy, it means that a group of individual working together would get a better result. A popular shorthand term for this is 2+2=5. When it applied the above condition, it can immediately know that motivating groups will get much better performance through the interaction.