motivation

3 performance review politics that always trump merit

When performance reviews were created the goal was to collect and share observed performance feedback that would sustain good performance or the observed feedback needed to improve performance. The performance review would then inform merit increase in salary or bonus based on performance feedback. The goal: a pay increase or bonus based on merit. Transparent for all [...]

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Tagged as: leadership, manage, motivation, performance management, performance review, workforce performance

Controlling bosses cause poor work

A boss gets things done through others. An ability to influence others to meet a goal is critical to get things accomplished. Some call management influence, others call management coercion. Influence or coercion, controlling bosses cause employees to strive towards goals that are opposite to the boss. Bosses are managers, bosses manage resources: time, money, and [...]

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Tagged as: management, motivation, motivation to work

4 questions leaders need to ask … themselves

Leaders at the top of the organization are accountable to deliver results. Some leaders believe results come from questioning others. Here are 4 questions leaders need to ask themselves, before they begin to ask anything of others: When’s the last time someone disagreed with me in a meeting? What am I teaching? Am I getting [...]

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Tagged as: leader, leadership, motivation, strategy

Engagement needs both context and perspective

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet … “, iambic pentameter aside, I appreciate Mr. Shakespeare’s point. However, when I look at a word that is recently trending in a lot of companies and organizations, like the word engagement is, it seems context, perspective, and the value proposition truly defines how sweet the [...]

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Tagged as: communication, engagement, health care, leadership, market, motivation

Fistful of beans 08/24/2011

3 of things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Bored People Quit — Rands in Response blog People who quit say: “I don’t believe in this company.” Bored people quit. The author of this post is neither an HR professional nor an organization development/behavior professional, this author simply manages people. I say [...]

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Tagged as: bias, boss, engagement, human resources, manage, management, Mercer, motivation, New York Times, SlideShare, social media

The final frontier of competitive advantage

Competitive advantage: the final frontier. Today only 2 areas remain for competitive advantage: talent management and project management Put another way, an organization has 2 ways to beat their competition: their ability to motivate people and their ability to reliably deliver projects. Talent as a hard asset Hiring the right talent and keeping that talent [...]

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Tagged as: competition, hiring, motivation, organization development, organization performance, project management, strategy, talent

Fistful of beans 04/20/2011

5 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Scrap Learning and Manager Engagement — CLO Magazine Most organizations overlook an important aspect of development that often makes it many times more effective — manager engagement. Training tends to lose its power with time. Employees forget what they’ve learned or let their newly acquired skills [...]

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Tagged as: Asia, Barbara Cairns PhD, Bloomberg Businessweek, CFO, Charlie Rose, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Learning Officer, China, CLO, economy, fistful of beans, learning, Lee Kwan Yew, M&A, magazine, Make Training Stick, mergers and acquisitions, motivation, Talent Management

Fistful of beans 04/13/2011

4 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Managing the Motivation Equation — Chief Learning Officer Leveraging motivation theory can reduce intention-action gap. What is the intention-action gap? Outside work the intention-action gap can be saying you will call you mother every Sunday, but rarely do. At work the intention-action gap can be saying [...]

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Tagged as: accounting, AIG, Bloomberg Businessweek, Chief Learning Officer, Chrysler, Fannie Mae, Federal Reserve, Freddie Mac, General Motors, magazine, management, Mortgage-Backed Security, motivation, Talent Management, Treasury, Trouble Asset Relief Program

Fistful of beans 03/23/2011

4 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Talent Does Not Live by Technology Alone — WriteforHR Globalized competition and the current economic climate should have revealed the realization of the right talent, in the right location, at the right cost as one of the biggest competitive advantages to organization performance. A talent management software [...]

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Tagged as: Bloomberg Businessweek, Chief Learning Officer, choice, fistfl, Inc., magazine, motivation, The Economist

In review: Motivation management is resource management

January 2011 in review. A roundup of blogs from the previous month: Motivation management is resource management — Leaders, managers, and coworkers are all under intense pressure to manage their motivation to, firstly, show up at work and, secondly, deliver to their expectations and, yes, and to their organization’s expectations. Juggling our own professional motivation [...]

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Tagged as: ability, assessments, development, evaluation, information, motivation, resource, risk

Motivation management is resource management

In this age of cheaper, faster, better, resource management is critical to organization survival. The resource that is the biggest organization challenge to manage is motivation. To drive organization health both internal, employee, motivation as well as external, customer, motivation need alignment. Each day when the closing bell chimes, whether that bell chimes in your [...]

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Tagged as: customer, employee, knowledge, market, motivation, project management, resource

Fistful of beans 12/15/2010

5 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Twitter for Talent — Talent Management Magazine A great take on social media and social networking productivity benefits and insights that can be used to round out formal performance and talent rating and ranking processes. 2. Saul Griffith’s House of Cool Ideas — Inc. Magazine Saul Griffith is [...]

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Tagged as: Boston Globe, Crash Course, Fast Company, fistful of beans, Inc., innovation, mergers, motivation, non-profit, Saul Griffith, talent, Twitter

Your star performer creates employee resentment

In school, those model students who shine above others and are always ready to “help” others risk more than a roll of their classmates’ eyes in the working world. In organizations the model employee willing to help others risks outright employee resentment. How you identify and manage these star performers may impact more than just [...]

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Tagged as: collaboration, human capital management, human resources, motivation, project, team, team player

The key to change is circular reasoning

Innovation is based on circular reasoning and the key to innovation is change, but change relies on community, but what does community rely on? Let’s try to break into this circle [stay with me, further down the list reveals why I started on 2.]: 2. Can’t have community without transparency 3. Can’t have transparency without [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, community, innovation, Likert scale, motivation, Peter Block, risk

4 performance myths dispelled and no more performance reviews

September’s Talent Management magazine writer Mr.Harold D. Stolovitch provides a reality check within his Human Performance column titled Dispelling Performance Myths: High job satisfaction results in high performance When employees select their own work goals, their motivation to achieve them is greater Personality inventories used for selection purposes are strong predictors of job performance success [...]

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Tagged as: management, motivation, organization performance, performance management, Samuel Culbert, talent assessment

The key to innovation may be better employee hygiene

Today’s drive for continual innovation, as it is taught, as it is written about, as it is sought, and as it is crowd sourced has a lot to do with early pioneers in management theory. For example why is hygiene important to innovation? Innovation needs motivation and motivation needs hygiene to succeed. The humanistic management school emphasizes, [...]

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Tagged as: Abraham Maslow, fear, Frederick Herzberg, Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory, Herzberg's Two Factor theory, innovation, leadership, management, motivation, od, organization development

What for-profits can learn from non-profits

For-profits commonly look down upon the management and staff of non-profits as woefully inefficient. Non-profits are hounded relentlessly to operate more like for-profits. An Economist article, Profiting from non-profits, writes about the reverse flow of innovation for-profits can gain from non-profits. When I mentioned non-profits, charities might come to mind first, but non-profits covers: hospitals, [...]

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Tagged as: cost of culture, for-profit, motivation, non-profit, private, strategy

In review: A key to why so many companies blow it in social media?

August 2010 in review. A roundup of blogs from the previous month: A key to why so many companies blow it in social media? — Do companies blow their social media efforts because they are afraid to fail, preferring to fall back on old marketing rules? The comments section offers a chance for Jonathan Salem [...]

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Tagged as: bureaucracy, cost of culture, hygiene, moral hazard, motivation, organization performance, performance review, project management, risk, small business

2 priorities for competitive advantage

In addition to sales and finance, there are 2 complimentary organization priorities that leaders should focus on to achieve and sustain excellence: understand motivation deliver projects in a routine manner Organizations can stake out a competitive advantage by doing things cheaper or doing things better. Motivation and project management are 2 ways an organization can [...]

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Tagged as: competition, competitive advantage, involvement strategy, motivation, project, project management

Create firm value, build talent during a downturn

Where many leaders chose to cut staff, cut talent management programs or to cut both to reduce costs, a Deloitte Consulting year-long study of 1,800 executives at large companies around the globe found retaining key employees, increasing the hiring of rivals’ future stars, and increasing programs to develop high-potential employees and corporate leaders are strategies to [...]

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Tagged as: Deloitte Consulting, leadership, motivation, opportunity, organization performance, retention

In review: Organization sabotage and the butterfly effect

July 2010 in review. A roundup of blogs from the previous month: Organization sabotage and the butterfly effect — As a manager, running a team takes more than lining people up and pointing to the finish line. People are all not only motivated by salary. A leader or a manager may feel sabotaged when their [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, content, economy, innovation, investment, James Fallows, leadership, management, motivation, organization, project, talent, tax, The Atlantic, venture capital

The Great Spare-Time Revolution

Free time, spare time, where to find any time? Here’s a staggering thought for those who feel they have no spare time: it is estimated all the Wikipedia articles, edits, and arguments about articles and edits represent around 100 million hours of human labor. 100 million hours! Where do people find that time for a [...]

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Tagged as: Clay Shirky, Daniel Pink, leader, leadership, manage, motivate, motivation, time

More workers voluntarily quit their jobs

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal presented More Workers Are Considering Quitting Their Jobs This is the boomerang effect of companies cutting payroll costs to the bone, redistributing work to the smaller remaining staff, and leaving an environment where workers feel “lucky to even have a job”. This leaves little left for motivation and the result of [...]

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Tagged as: cost of culture, fear, management, morale, motivation, organization development, organization performance, portfolio management, return on talent

Human capital portfolio management and simple math

A venture’s viability really comes down to a bet on a team to deliver. It is the interpersonal process where venture performance is most impacted. Modern portfolio theory allows investors to maximize return and minimize risk. The goal is to estimate both the expected risks and returns, as measured statistically, as an accumulation of investments. Why use [...]

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Tagged as: asset, human capital assessment, management, motivation, portfolio management, risk, strategy, valuation

Googled: the cost of culture

What does culture really costs a company? Is it worth investing in culture or passively letting culture form, also known as luck-based leadership? What is the cost of culture, in profit or loss? I found this one company a great example: Maternity leave: 5 months full salary Paternity leave: 7 weeks full salary Plus new [...]

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Tagged as: Abraham Maslow, benefits, cost, cost of culture, Frederick Herzberg, Google, Googled, Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory, Herzberg's Two Factor theory, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, motivation

All projects are human capital projects

The valuation of a company usually involves 4 areas: physical capital, financial capital, intellectual capital, and human capital Valuation is a combination of science, art, and straight voodoo (Enron anyone???). Voodoo aside, when I recast these valuations from a new angle, I see each relies, in their entirety, on people: physical capital – people are [...]

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Tagged as: assets, capital, Enron, enterprise application, financial, human capital assessment, knowledge, motivation, project work, risk, skill, stakeholder

Organization strategy and development – party like it’s 1969

How do organizations survive? The only way an organization survives is to grow. Like people, an organization grows and develops by developing new skills, knowledge, and abilities. An organization’s strategy is nothing without an organization’s development. Most professionals have an image of what marketing, sales, accounting, or human resource professionals do, but fewer are naturally [...]

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Tagged as: adapt, change, cost of culture, Edgar Schein, motivation, od, organization development, Richard Beckhard, strategy, Warren Bennis

Viral marketing and Twitter gone right – the comment & the blog

On my last blog I received a comment I thought deserved a longer response than should be posted within the comment section. So, I decided to pick up the comment and carry it onto a new post. The blog comment david_becker: I disagree with this article as this is a “contest” and not a viral [...]

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Tagged as: Adecco Group, communication, customers, goals, Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory, motivation, motivation to work, Twitter, viral marketing, Will it Blend

The bully in the corner office

I challenge myself to write blogs that might start a conversation either leading to change or to sustain what is working. I want to present an idea to provide a spark for action or follow-through. Anyone can come up with an idea, that’s easy, the hard part is to take an idea into implementation. My [...]

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Tagged as: bully, communication, cost of culture, diversity, fear, leaders, leadership, motivation, organization development, political correctness

Diversity facade, part 2: diversity hijacked

On 2 earlier blog posts I write 1) that motivation is the bottom-line success and 2) diversity is about opportunity. In this blog I want to dig into how diversity can negatively affect motivation. First, let’s look at 2 definitions*: Of, relating to, or supporting broad social, political, and educational change, especially to redress historical [...]

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Tagged as: diversity, fear, HR culture, motivation, political correctness, strategy

The bottom line: motivation

Your organization is only effective when they feel like it. Have you coached your management and executive team on how to motivate people around your vision? The bottom line is motivation, their motivation, not yours. A leader holds management accountable to understand, commit, and own their role to translate your vision to their team. Your [...]

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Tagged as: ability, bottom line, executive, Frederick Herzberg, goal, Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory, Herzberg's Two Factor theory, leadership, manage, motivation, plan, profit, vision

Diversity facade, part 1

Intelligence does not guarantee insight. However, diversity does. The very leverage of knowledge is dialogue. And dialogue, a true exchange of ideas and opinions, is only possible in an environment that welcomes and fosters diversity, not the diversity facade, but the diversity lever of possibility. Although diversity can be a sensitive and often incendiary issue, [...]

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Tagged as: buy in, cognitive, cost of culture, diversity, fear, goals, knowledge, motivation, plan, planning, qualitative, strategy

Communication in the age of saturation, part 1

The goal of communication is to be understood. Typically, the first piece of communication advice is: know your audience. When you know your audience – their interests, their lingo, their needs – you better relate to their communication style. When you know their style you can write and speak in a way that they understand. [...]

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Tagged as: audience, communication, email, filters, motivation, Twitter, web 2.0

Buy in

In organization change I always avoid the term buy in. You may hear the term in some variation of the following: now we need to get [insert stakeholder here] to buy in. I have never been comfortable asking anyone to “buy in” to a strategic plan, a new product launch, or an organization change. ‘Buy [...]

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Tagged as: buy in, communication, development, leadership, motivation, organization development, stakeholder, values

Leading and managing

Managers manage. Leaders lead. Are these roles so different? A manager is charged to manage their resources against a budget. Does this allow a manager to maximizing their talent, to cultivate creativity in their team, or to take risks? The manager needs to deliver to their budget and align their resources to successfully enable their [...]

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Tagged as: change, communication, leader, leadership, manager, motivation, skills, vision

Leaders and fishing

I focus a lot of root-cause analysis on how a leader affects their organization. Though it may seem people are responsible for their own motivation, this assumption is far too variable to count on for results. People, rightly so, have their own view, their own filter, their own experience, and their own goals. These rarely [...]

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Tagged as: China, communication, fishing, leaders, leadership, manage, motivation

Quick Bio

Toby Elwin has lived around the world and worked globally with, and for, some of the most highly-respected leaders and organizations in their fields.

This site, and thoughts, are rooted in the role leadership and talent have on an organization's motivation to influence, achieve, and sustain.

Toby's work combines systems theory, organization development, marketing, and portfolio and project management from more than 15 years in post-merger integration.
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Blog Archives
Biggest Influences – So Far

See Influence page for more detail:

The Modern Firm: Organizational Design for Performance and Growth by John Roberts

The Workforce Scorecard by Mark A. Huselid, Brian E. Becker, and Richard W. Beatty

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein

The Future of Ideas by Lawrence Lessig

The Truth About Thriving in Change by William S. Kane

The Motivation to Work by Frederick Herzberg, Bernard Mausner, and Barbara Bloch Snyderman

The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott

Working with Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

The HR Value Proposition by Dave Ulrich

The Strategy Paradox by Michael Raynor
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