Group Motivation Essay

This chapter has talked about how to get people motivated and what it takes to meet the member’s needs. â€Å"Group motivation provides the inspiration, incentives, and reasons that move group members to work together to achieve a common goal† (Engleberg & Wynn, 2010, p. 138). Engleberg and Wynn (2010) stated, â€Å"Without motivation, we may know what we need to do and even how to do it, but we lack the will and energy to do it† (p. 138). Some members may not have high achievement needs; instead, they focus on meeting the needs of others. Many people work in groups for several reasons. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (Engleberg & Wynn, 2010) there are two categories of needs: satisfiers and motivators. The satisfiers are people whom like to give people material things; however, the motivators are a good essential to the group more so than the satisfiers. These categories are broken down into eight personality types. Some of these can be both positive and negative influences in group motivation. The extrovert personality encourages interaction and provides frequent feedback† (Engleberg & Wynn, 2010, p. 142). Engleberg and Wynn (2010), â€Å"intuitive personality encourages creativity, visioning and brainstorming within the group that will help the members to be better prepared and present a better product†. According to Engleberg and Wynn (2010), the feeler strategies include discussing impact of decisions and how they affect others, as well as, encouraging cooperation and harmony, also the judger provides agendas and set realistic deadlines while setting standards and expectations of the group. The thinker strategies for motivation are to encourage the decision making. The thinker’s personality could be both positive and negative. All these personalities combined will make a group strong, keep the members grounded and focused, aid in group decision making and help settle conflict with discussion rather the arguments. Also, these personalities contribute to positive team cohesion forming a tight bond, sense of responsibility and group unity. The negative personality types are introvert, sensor and sometimes the thinker. The introvert personality believes the group does not use their time wisely. The sensor believes that groups can be easily distracted and lose focus on the task at hand. The perceiver personality type is similar to the sensor personality but is also different. Perceivers believe that people in groups procrastinate and rush the task at hand last minute resulting in failure. These personalities are more negative than positive and could cause conflict, disagreements, and division between group members causing the group cohesion to deter. Cohesion affects groups in both positive and negative ways. Some groups may share common views and agree on a specific topic, but most group members share different views and have to come up with a way to agree to disagree. As a result, groups could become divided into counterparts or smaller groups due to disagreements and conflict. This is where maintenance roles come into play are needed to settle the situation. The harmonizer of the group will help the resolve conflict while the observer tries to express everyone’s point of view so that everyone understands. The compromiser would get everyone to agree to disagree to settle conflicts while the gatekeeper would try to get the silent person to speak out which may settle everything. Group maintenance roles are important and help keep team cohesion positive. The different roles will assist groups in settling conflict, motivating one another lend a helping hand when needed and keep the lines of communication open amongst group members. In conclusion, group motivation is a good asset for working in groups. The first reason would be because it helps the team member work better together. It is easier to get the assignments done. As a group people need to have a sense of the following thing so that they can feel that they belong in a group, a sense of meaningfulness of choice and be competence of the thing they are doing for the group and making progress knowing that as a group you are getting something accomplished. In addition, you should get feedback from your other group member good or bad as a member of this group. The group should always encourage its member to do better and perform at the very top of their ability to be number one because the rewards are great at the end for the group.