TOMO: THE UNIVERSAL SECRET TO HIGH-PERFORMING CULTURE
THE POWER OF TOMO
basis for their dominance; tomo is what distinguishes the
most celebrated and innovative companies.
In the 1980s for example, Toyota helped transform a General
Motors (GM) plant that was plagued by absenteeism, turnover,
alcoholism and drug abuse by redesigning its culture to
emphasize play, purpose and potential—with 85% of the same
workers. The plant went from being shutdown to enjoying 49%
higher productivity and outperforming other GM plants.
Ironically, GM leaders thought replication would be as simple
as copying the look of the factory; they ordered a manager to
photograph “every square inch” and apply it to other GM plants.
The skeptical manager knew that culture wasn’t something
you could copy; “We can’t copy employee motivation, we can’t
copy good relationships between the union and management.”
Every company must build a great culture for itself.
The keys to a high-performing culture are universal. Regardless of
locale, companies must ensure that their culture isn’t motivating
people using reasons peripheral to the work. They must structure
their core systems and processes to enable people to work toward
their personal goals, see the impact of their contributions, and
above all, experiment with and enjoy the work.
Of course, creating high performance is not just about
encouraging play, purpose and potential; companies must
simultaneously minimize the destructive, indirect motives to
bring out the best in their people. They must structure all the
components of their culture, from recruiting and identity to
performance management and compensation to that end.
Total Motivation
We call this phenomenon total motivation, or “tomo” for
short, and it is the key to growth and sustainability in any
market. One study found a whopping 60% difference in revenue
generated per hour between high tomo call center employees
and their low tomo counterparts. Our own survey revealed a
30% disparity between high tomo frontline salespeople and
those with negative tomo in a 1,500-branch financial institution.
In addition to salesmanship, tomo has an incredibly strong
link with customer experience, another important measure
of adaptability. We saw the correlation—from 0.63 to 0.98—
among the biggest players in airline, banking, retail, and
cable industries to name a few. Each industry was led by the
usual suspects: Southwest Airlines, US Bank, Nordstrom,
Starbucks. But unlike previously, there was now a data-driven
Lindsay McGregor and Neel Doshi. Authors of the New York Times bestselling book, Primed to
Perform: How to Build the Highest Performing Cultures Through the Science of Total Motivation. They
are also the founders of Vega Factor, a startup that helps companies transform their culture through
process design, training, and technology.
88 Emerging Markets Business Summer 2016 • Issue No. 1