The link between performance and learning

Good performance is what most companies expect. Great performance is a goal that most leaders try to meet with the team(s) they lead. Seems obvious – and still a goal that many leaders struggle meeting. One reason might be lack of awareness of the importance of motivation. Boehm (1981) argued that motivation is undoubtedly the single greatest influence on how well people perform. Most productivity studies have found that motivation has a stronger influence on productivity than any other factor.

….. and yet, despite all the talk about brainpower and intellectual capital, few managers grasp the true nature of the knowledge creating company – let alone know how to manage it. The reason: they misunderstand what knowledge is and what companies must do to exploit it (Nonaka, 1991).

In the book Theories of the Growth of the Firm (1959) Penrose argued that a firm’s rate of growth is limited by the growth of knowledge within it.