Learning Team a Group Incentives

Learning Team A Group Incentives

Lombardi (2003) stated, "In today's business world group motivation plays a huge part in the success of an organization" (p. 76). Teamwork, effective work teams, and team building are popular topics among today's organizations. Many organizations are spending big money to bring in outside consulting firms to improve outcomes by teaching their leaders to more effectively motivate their staff. Effective group motivation contributes to the accomplishment of organizational goals, and can ultimately play a part in improved customer satisfaction scores. The purpose of this paper is to discuss Team A's identified incentives based on the individual results following the completion of the Group Motivation Inventory assessment. The Group Motivation Inventory exercise includes 25 questions used to analyze motivation levels of group members. Based on compiled test results Team A's average score is 93.2, which is measured as moderate motivation.

Team Member Incentives

In order for a group to perform and accomplish goals effectively, members must be both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated. Members of the team need to work together in identifying and achieving a realistic goal. The team must clearly communicate expectations and each member must be willing to actively participate in completing the task or assignment.

Team A unanimously chose the use of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards as the motivational incentives identified in their individual assignments. Monetary reward was an extrinsic incentive identified by the team. Other extrinsic rewards the team is hoping to achieve after graduation include the potential for salary increases and promotional opportunities at our current or new places of employment. Many companies believe that cash rewards are an effective motivator and offer bonuses for signing on with their company, project completion or reaching high quotas.

Team A also identified various forms of intrinsic motivational incentives. Recognition, praise, and public acknowledgement were among the dominant forms of intrinsic motivators. Noncash/non-tangible incentives such as team performance rewards that involve competition/rivalry can be helpful in terms of initiating motivation. Another intrinsic motivator is accomplishing a challenging project or task, which can be driven by competition. Some researchers suggest that intrinsic rewards have more power than extrinsic rewards such as cash, in group settings (Engleberg, & Wynn, 2010, p. 152).

Intrinsic motivation factors encourage the team to want to excel to have recognition and receive praise for the work in reaching the goals of the team. With Intrinsic motivation it is the internal will power or longing to achieve goals without the need of outside influences or incentives. An additional example of intrinsic motivation occurs when a person is content with his or her self for doing a job well done on his or her part of the team project. In order for the team to achieve this type of motivation each person would need to possess