Bob Nelson Quotes

What you measure and reward is what you're going to get.

The things that get rewarded, get done

I've also long since realized that the way to really engage children is to give out prizes; it's amazing how it concentrates their minds.

Incentive prizes work.

The best way to make employees happy is to set realistic goals and achieve them. The big job is to make sure those small steps are pointing us in the right direction and demonstrate at the end of the year that they all add up to something pretty great.

The cost of praising someone is nil - but every psychological study shows the payoff is huge.

You've got to change incentives for good behavior as opposed to just disincentivizing bad behavior.

You must reward the kind of behavior that you want.

The most valuable advice I can give is plan for your success. Write down your ideal goal, creating checkpoints for yourself along the way that align with the end goal. Set up rewards for achieving both little victories and big ones.

There will always be people who think that money and benefits and even just having a job should be thanks enough. There are also those that think they do a great job without anyone having to thank them. But study after study has shown that no one is immune from the motivating effects of acknowledgement and thanks.

A goal without real consequences is wishful thinking. Good follow-through doesn't depend on the right intentions. It depends on the right incentives.

Setting up a system that rewards you for meeting your goals and has penalties for failing to hit your target is just as important as putting your goals down on paper.

One of the greatest motivating factors is the pat on the back, although with some individuals, you have to make the pat a little lower or a little harder.

Typically, if you reward something, you get more of it. You punish something, you get less of it. And our businesses have been built for the last 150 years very much on that kind of motivational scheme.

Most of us are not pure self-starters; most people need role models, they need coaches, they need exemplars, they maybe need some discipline or some rewards. We need to be motivated.

Praise your children more than you correct them. Praise them for even their smallest achievement.

Let the master praise him, and say, 'Here ye do well.' For, I assure you, there is no such whetstone to sharpen a good wit, and encourage a will to learning, as is praise.

I like to think I set aspirational but reasonable goals and encourage my team to achieve them.

I suppose if it has a practical purpose, I appreciate a pat on the back. I suppose it's rewarding, ultimately.

There is no real magic to being a good leader. But at the end of every week, you have to spend your time around the things that are really important: setting priorities, measuring outcomes, and rewarding them.

I guess other people's compliments motivate you.

Ballplayers, like everyone else, like to get told they did something right.

The only way to get people to like working hard is to motivate them. Today, people must understand why they're working hard. Every individual in an organization is motivated by something different.

Correction does much, but encouragement does more.

I gave out stars whenever an appropriate situation presented itself.