Praise and Trout: What I Learned Fly-Fishing with Charlie

What I most needed to know about recognition I learned on a trout stream with Charlie.

I’ve been researching employee motivation for as long as Charlie has been alive. I’ve charted the patterns from millions of employee survey responses and their performance data. I’ve interviewed everyone from military commanders to front-line retail workers about it. I’ve written book chapters and guest columns on the psychological phenomena.

But to see the underlying simple facts of human motivation – to appreciate why a person perseveres in a difficult task or gives up – nothing beats coaching a kid so he succeeds at fly-fishing.

My Forbes column on the lessons to be learned from trout and a kid pursuing them can be found here.