Dr. Bob Nelson is considered one of the leading authorities on employee recognition, motivation and engagement. He is president of Nelson Motivation Inc., a management training and consulting company based in San Diego that specializes in helping organizations improve their management practices, programs and systems. He is a co-founder of Recognition Professionals International and worked closely with Dr. Ken Blanchard (co-author of The One Minute Manager) for ten years.
Dr. Nelson has sold 3.5 million books on management and employee motivation, including 1001 Ways to Reward Employees (now in its 55 printing), The 1001 Rewards & Recognition Field book: The Complete
Guide, two books on employee initiative: 1001 Ways to Take Initiative at Work and Please Don’t Just Do What I Tell You to Do—Do What Needs to Be Done!, Keeping Up in a Down Economy, and his most recent book: Ubuntu! An Inspiring Story About an African Tradition of Teamwork and Cooperation (co-authored with multi-million copy bestselling author Dr. Stephen Lundin of the Fish! book series).
He has appeared extensively in the national media including CBS’ 60 Minutes, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, NPR, and has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, Fortune, BusinessWeek and Inc. magazines to discuss how to best motivate today’s employees.
He received an MBA in organizational behavior from UC Berkeley and earned his PhD in management with Dr. Peter Drucker (“The Father of Modern Management”) at The Peter F. Drucker Graduate Management School of the Claremont Graduate University in Los Angeles, where his doctoral dissertation was on “Factors that Encourage or Inhibit the Use of Non-Monetary Recognition by Managers.” He teaches organizational behavior for the Rady School of Management at the University of California in San Diego.
