Alright, so appreciation is important for pretty much everyone. But what else motivates people? What else encourages them to do their best time and again? What makes it worth your colleague’s while to cover when you’re out of the office, or worth your friend’s time to babysit for you, or worth your uncle’s effort to teach you the basics of book-keeping for your freelance business, or worth your librarian remembering to put your favourite books under the counter for next time you’re in?

Get under people’s skin and understand what drives them – what motivates them. They’re all different. Yes, that makes it tricky, but it makes it interesting too. Personally, I enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to make a particular person feel good. I have one colleague at the moment who can be tricky in meetings, but she’s easy to handle so long as she feels important. That’s what does it for her. It’s not difficult, or untrue, to make reference to how crucial her input is, or what a difference it will make to have this task done thoroughly, and she’s happy to oblige so long as she feels essential to things.

I know people who are motivated by money, of course, but it’s the primary motivator for far fewer people than you might think. Some people want status – they’ll do anything for a fancy job title. Or job satisfaction. Recognition is another very common one, which is related to appreciation but not quite the same thing – they need to know you’ve noticed, and often that other people have noticed too.

A fair number of people want responsibility more than anything else. In due course they’ll probably want the money and status that might go with it, but they’re not the key things. What they really want is to feel trusted with something that matters. They want to prove to you (and maybe to themselves) that they’re up to being put in charge of something or someone bigger than before.

Most people have more than one motivator, although one will generally be stronger than the others. So often linked to responsibility, but definitely not the same thing, is challenge. Some people get bored unless you give them the chance to do something new or different or bigger or more difficult than before. If you want to keep them onside, let them get their teeth into something meaty.

I can think of a few people I’ve encountered over the years, at work and among friends, family and acquaintances, whose main motivating drive is freedom. They want to be given a destination and left alone to get there in their own way. (Come to think of it, I’m like that myself.) Autonomy is hugely important to them, whether they’re functioning alone or running their own team, and they’ll be happy to work with you so long as you back right off and leave them to it. Often they know what they’re doing. If not, they can be tricky to handle but it can be done. Keep the project within their capabilities, or establish very clear parameters.

As you can see, it’s not hard to motivate people once you’ve identified what gets them out of bed in the morning. Just give it some thought and you’ll be halfway there already.