If You Want a High-Performing Team, Start With What Motivates Them

When organisations talk about high performance, the focus usually lands on outputs.

We think performance can only be measured by hitting targets, productivity, deliverables, and KPIs. But in practice, that is rarely where high performance is nurtured. Very few people are truly motivated by targets and KPIs; it’s both much simpler - and more complicated - than that.

What motivates your team can be seen much earlier in the process, before any external targets ever come into play, and the proof shows in how people feel about their work and what drives them day to day.

Performance is about so much more than just capability. The best managers understand that it’s a process of carefully blending their team’s ability, environment, and motivation to get the best results. This is the first of two blogs focusing on nurturing high performance among your team, and what that truly means when we step away from simply looking at the deliverables.

In this blog, we’ll focus on how high performance is linked to motivation at a far deeper level than you might first realise, and how you - as the manager - can identify what motivates your team and work to ensure you’re giving your team what they need, while also delivering for your organisation.

Employee and team motivation is often the piece that is assumed to be fine when working on improving capability and structure, rather than taking the time to understand what’s going on on the very first rung of the ladder. In truth, making these assumptions can be what causes you to miss a vital piece of the puzzle when striving for more within your team.

Performance is rarely the problem

Most teams don’t struggle because people don’t know what to do; they struggle because the conditions around them don’t consistently support them to do it well. This struggle tends to show up in similar ways across the board, regardless of team size or industry.

● Effort varies between team members

● Performance feels inconsistent rather than reliable

● Team members disengage rather than speak up

● Managers feel like they are constantly “chasing” standards

The issue is very rarely that your team as a whole isn’t capable; it’s usually that there are pockets of low motivation, or lack of engagement that managers can’t (or won’t) see.

Employee engagement is the foundation of high performance

Your employee engagement score is often talked about as part of the company culture or a similarly intangible aspect of the business. But in practice, it's highly visible, showing up very practically in how work gets done, and how your employees function:

● Do people take ownership or wait to be told what to do?

● Do they contribute ideas or hold back, even if they’re asked?

● Do they actively try to solve problems, or do they escalate everything?

● Do they stay with the company long term or quickly start looking elsewhere?

It’s easy to think that engagement scores are abstract, but they’re deeply behavioural and indicative of future performance in a way that might not be seen in other metrics. For managers, this means that you should have a clear understanding of your employee engagement, long before it’s noticed by higher management on a survey.

People are not motivated in the same way

A mistake I see managers making time and time again is assuming that motivation, or rather - how people are motivated - is a ‘one size fits all’.

It isn’t.

People are typically driven by different things. For some, achievement and progress are a key motivator, whereas for others, responsibility and influence, or relationships and a sense of belonging, are what drive them.

While most people will be driven by a mix of these factors, there’s usually one that plays a

bigger role in their motivation. Where managers run into difficulty with their teams is when they apply the same approach to everyone, assuming what works for one will work for all.

It might feel like you’re simply being consistent by applying the same feedback style, methods of recognition, or challenges to your team, but when you do so, you’re actually showing them that you don’t feel it’s worth learning about them and what makes them tick.

This is especially true if you’re also actively engaging with them on those things. If you’re asking them how they prefer to have successes recognised, or what type of stretch goals work for them, ensure you’re applying those things. Feeling like their manager is simply paying lip service to understanding them will do more to break down team morale and engagement than simply not bothering in the first place.

What this means for managers in practice

Despite how this might sound, it doesn’t mean that every last communication and process needs to be individualised or overcomplicated.

What it does mean is that you need to pay attention to the patterns your team shows you.

● Who responds well to challenge?

● Who needs reassurance before they stretch for a more ambitious goal?

● Who prefers to work alone vs who is energised by a team?

The highest-performing managers tend to both implement and understand this instinctively over time, but wouldn’t it be great if you could fast-track your leaders' learning so they could minimise the trickier and higher-risk parts of the trial-and-error process?

The one consistent factor in team performance is the manager. The phrase ‘you don’t leave a bad job, you leave a bad manager’ rings true here; the experience your teams have when working in your organisation will depend almost entirely on their manager. Your managers aren’t controlling performance or their teams output, but what they are doing is shaping their teams day-to-day experience.

They’re doing this through:

● clarity of expectations

● quality of feedback

● recognition and reinforcement

● tone and emotional consistency

● how problems are handled in real time

Performance issues within a team will rarely show up for the first time as part of a formal review process. They’ll be visible much earlier in the everyday interactions that you almost miss - if you know where to look.

So how do you actually spot what motivates your team?

Understanding that people are motivated differently is one thing, knowing how to recognise it in real time is where the exceptional managers pull ahead of the ‘ok’ managers.

Motivation rarely shows up in a neatly packaged, obvious way. It shows up in small signals and everyday behaviours that are easy to overlook if you’re not actively paying attention to the team around you.

The good news is, you don’t need a long, formal process to start noticing it - all it needs is for you to be more intentional about what you’re looking for.

Start with how people respond - not just what they say.

Watch what happens when someone completes a tough assignment to a high level.

Do they want it shared widely, or are they more comfortable with a quiet “well done”?

Do they immediately ask “what’s next?”, or do they take satisfaction in the recognition itself?

Pay attention to how your team approaches their work.

Who actively seeks out stretch and challenge, and who prefers stability and clarity?

Who gravitates towards collaboration, and who does their best work independently?

Who steps forward in meetings, and who contributes more thoughtfully one-to-one?

Look at how people react to feedback.

Some people want it direct and to the point.

Others need context, reassurance, or a sense of relationship before they can take it on board.

If feedback isn’t landing right, it’s often not the message that’s wrong; it’s the way it’s being delivered.

Notice where energy shows up.

People don’t have to tell you what motivates them; they’ll show you. If you’re paying attention.

What kind of work do they lean into and show passion about?

What do they volunteer for?

What do they talk about with enthusiasm, versus what do they avoid or delay?

And just as importantly, notice when that enthusiasm and energy drops. A dip in motivation is often one of the earliest indicators that something isn’t fully aligned within the team, whether that’s the work itself, the environment, or how someone is being managed.

Ask, but then actually use the answer.

Most managers do ask questions about preferences, goals, or development. But only a few will follow through in a consistent manner.

If someone tells you they prefer private recognition, don’t continue praising them publicly.

If they tell you they want more stretch, don’t keep tasking them with safe, repetitive work.

While these might sound like simple, even obvious, points, they’re often the first things to slip when managers are stretched, distracted, or focused purely on outputs. Yet these small moments of observation and follow-through are often what separate managers who maintain team performance from those who consistently elevate it.

How you gather this insight will always depend on your management style, your team, and the wider organisation. For some, it will come through regular one-to-ones. For others, day-to-day conversations, team dynamics, or simply paying closer attention to behavioural patterns will work best.

The method matters far less than the consistency.

If you want high performance, understanding what motivates your people cannot be treated as optional. It’s part of the job.

Bringing it all together

You don’t need to overhaul everything to build a high-performing team. But you do need to shift where your focus is.

Once you start to understand what motivates your people, leadership becomes based more in fact than guesswork. Decisions can be rooted in knowledge, instead of being a shot in the dark, and high performance becomes an obvious, consistent end result rather than something you have no idea how to replicate.

At Mint Manager, we specialise in management and leadership training. Our in-person workshops help your leaders build a company culture that support teams to perform at their best. For more information, see our Training page, or get in touch with us here