Motivation is a topic of perennial interest. As organizational leaders begin a "war for talent," they need to consider new ways to motivate people to stay. Since much research indicates that people often make decisions to leave because of how their supervisors treat them, it only makes sense to consider ways of improving managers' treatment of workers. This article focuses on this issue.

Motivation is a complex topic. Students of management are often required to become familiar with the many motivation theories that have been proposed over the years. They include Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory, Expectancy Theory and Equity Theory. Managers are often faced with finding practical ways to motivate people. In the earliest years, managers wanted to motivate workers to achieve higher productivity.

In more recent times, managers have grown increasingly interested in finding ways to motivateand challengeworkers to keep them from seeking more challenging opportunities elsewhere. In short, motivation has become of interest as much for its retention value as for its productivity improvement value.

In modern thinking about talent management, retention often takes the center stage. Much has been written about it. Rothwell (2007) developed an instrument to measure how often organizations are using the existing 100 best practices and research-based approaches to retain workers. It is, after all, pointless to devote much time and effort for recruiting, selecting and developing High Potential (HiPo) talent without taking decisive steps to protect that investment by retaining those HiPos. But less has been written about retaining current leaders than about retaining the most promising next generation successors.

HRM Review Magazine, Motivation, Organizational Leaders, Motivation Theories, Herzberg's Thoery, Expectancy Theory and Equity Theory, Corporate Leadership Council, Listening skills, Asian Cultures, Motivational Programmes.