Nowadays no one denies the importance of training and development within companies. Competition is fierce and it has been proven time and again that the right training and development strategy can provide the competitive edge. Today it seems that more companies than ever are concentrating on developing schemes. Appraisal interviews are performed in the vast majority of companies and job descriptions are normally the basis on which new employees are found for vacant jobs. But is this alone the key to success? Do these schemes always work and is this the most effective way of developing staff? How many employees see an appraisal interview - at best - as waste of time and then look at their job descriptions, thinking that they must be working for the wrong company? This essay introduces readers to the basics of motivation and critically guides them through the training cycle. This finally leads to the conclusion that training has little effect when those being trained are not motivated or cannot at least see some form of personal benefit of the training. Hereby one of the most underestimated aspects of training is identified: the effectiveness of motivation.