Dr. Bob Nelson

Few people have had the influence on the field of management and motivation as Dr. Bob Nelson. He is president of Nelson Motivation, Inc., a management training and consulting company located in San Diego, California that specializes in helping organizations improve their management practices, programs and systems. He is a co-founder of the National Association for Employee Recognition and previously worked closely with Dr. Ken Blanchard (The One Minute Manager) as his principal writer, co-author, chief of staff and vice president of The Ken Blanchard Companies for ten years.

Only a few professional speakers can claim to have sold as many books as Dr. Nelson: some 3 million books on management and motivation, translated into over 25 languages, including 1001 Ways to Reward Employees (now in its 2nd edition and 54th printing), The 1001 Rewards & Recognition Fieldbook, 1001 Ways to Energize Employees, 1001 Ways to Take Initiative at Work, Managing For Dummies and The Management Bible.

Dr. Nelson appears frequently in the national media including recently on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Money magazine, NPR and BusinessWeek. He has also appeared numerous times on CNN, MSNBC, and PBS and has been featured in The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Fortune and INC. magazines and numerous other publications to discuss how to best motivate today’s employees.

Bob has been speaking for more than 20 years and has spoken thousands of times to over 800 companies (many on a yearly basis). He has also performed hundreds of public seminars with American City Business Journals, Lumacore, Get Motivated Seminars and Wyncom’s “Lessons in Leadership” to live audiences in excess of 80,000 people. He has worked with or consulted for almost two-thirds of the companies on the Fortune 500 list.

He holds an MBA in organizational behavior from UC Berkeley and received his Ph.D. in management from The Peter F. Drucker Graduate Management School at Claremont Graduate University in Los Angeles, where he worked closely with the late Dr. Peter Drucker on his doctoral studies.

Keeping Up in a Down Economy

Most employees today feel overworked and underappreciated. During times of change when we are asking them to do more with less, they report feeling less valued and more stressed for their efforts than ever before. Add to that a merger, layoff or hiring/salary freeze and employee stress can quickly turn to fear and their focus can turn myopic. Ironically, keeping morale high, keeping employees motivated and focused are the very keys companies need to emerge stronger and increase profitability during tough times. This strategy, which is often overlooked and much misunderstood, can now be clear as Dr. Nelson will show your leaders how to build morale, inspire initiative and gain competitive advantage, through your greatest asset: your people. The decisions you make and actions you take during challenging times can steer the course of your company and your people for years to come. In fact, research shows that great companies use challenging times as an opportunity not just to survive, but also to get ahead. When most companies are stuck in a downward spiral of fear, stress and negativity, Dr. Nelson will show you how to create a positive, motivated and focused workforce.

Creating a Culture of Recognition

The number one reason why managers don’t use recognition is because they report, “they don’t know how.” Dr. Bob Nelson closes this gap and shows you how to create a culture of recognition. Far from being a “fuzzy notion,” Dr. Nelson shows how recognition represents the single most validated principle for driving desired behavior and performance in today’s work environments. Compared to the average company, employees in a recognition-focused company are 5 times more likely to feel valued, 11 times more likely to feel completely satisfied, 7 times more likely to stay, and 6 times more likely to invest in the company. This talk will expand your thinking of what recognition really means and what you can do to build it into your culture. Dr. Nelson will help your organization create an exciting, positive work environment that produces more focused, competitive employees that better serve the strategies of the firm. When you invest in educating your managers about the power of recognition and how best to harness that power, you are investing in your company’s greatest asset: its people.

Inspiring Exceptional Performance

Do you want to inspire exceptional performance? In this talk, Dr. Nelson will share his research and strategies for getting all employees to take initiative and be more innovative in the workplace today. Dr. Nelson shows how to overcome obstacles that employees are likely to encounter when pursuing new ideas and persevere with those ideas they most believe in. He will focus on the small things that can be done to start to make a BIG difference in your workplace as well as strategies employees can use for “keeping commitment to their commitment.” Attendees will leave this session with a practical plan and techniques for immediate implementation back on the job. Dr. Nelson shows how organizations today can create a competitive advantage through its employees by tapping into the energy, ideas and creativity of every member of the organization.

1001 Ways to Energize Your Employees

Every employee has the potential to be great. Bob Nelson, author of 1001 Ways to Energize Employees, reveals the secrets for taking the breaks off your organization and unleashing the potential within every employee. Bob will explain how today’s companies are obtaining a competitive advantage through its employees by focusing on five key areas that help increase motivation that is inherent in the work itself: interesting & important work, information & communication, independence/autonomy & flexibility, growth & learning, and employee involvement. Every organization needs to tap into the potential of each of its employees in order to succeed today. Doing so will help not only to minimize turnover, and positively impact the bottom line, but will move the organization closer to being an “employer of choice.”

"I would like to commend you on your presentation at the Central New York Chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management's Professional Development Day. Your dynamic presence at the podium and eminently practical advice on reward and incentive techniques hit on the fundamentals of motivation a forthright and easy-to-understand manner. Your presentation is a must for all human resource professionals interested in creating empowering reward systems, or simply searching for easy-to-do and cost effective ways to motivate employees. Again, thank you for delivering such a dynamic and powerful presentation!" — Society for Human Resource Management, Central New York Chapter

"Bob Nelson was fantastic! Excellent choice for a speaker! He's both informative and motivational... The information was very valuable and critical in planning the 2007 R&R strategy for our group." — Bank of America, Charlotte, NC

"Bob Nelson's mind is phenomenal and his generosity in sharing lavish! We're just developing our Employee Recognition Program, and I feel like we've discovered a pure gold mine of ideas that will take us to dizzying heights! Thanks!" — City of Newcastle, WA

"Bob Nelson was a very energizing, entertaining, genuine speaker. He gave us lots of very specific, good, practical recognition ideas." — Frederick Memorial Healthcare, Frederick, MD