Primed to Perform

It is the science of Total Motivation — why people work, and how that predicts how well they work. The book shows that organizations built around play, purpose, and potential outperform those driven by pressure and inertia, and it lays out the specific systems leaders use to build that culture on purpose.

Neel Doshi and Lindsay McGregor are the co-founders of Factor and Vega Factor, and the New York Times bestselling authors of Primed to Perform: How to Build the Highest-Performing Cultures Through the Science of Total Motivation.

Their research — cited in the foundational textbooks in the field and hundreds of academic publications — has shown how motivation drives performance, and how organizational systems drive motivation.

Together, they have spent over 40 years applying this research to transform Fortune 500s, non-profits, and government institutions.

Neel, an MIT-trained engineer and Wharton MBA, brings a rigorous analytical lens to organizational challenges, while Lindsay, a former McKinsey consultant with an MBA from Harvard and a B.A. from Princeton, focuses on making the science of change actionable and compelling.

Based in New York City, they are dedicated to building a future where every organization is AI-native and people-first.

Any leader accountable for performance through other people: executives setting strategy, managers running teams, and HR and transformation leaders designing the systems around them. If you are trying to make a culture more adaptive rather than describe it, this is written for you.

Start with the individual survey on this page — it takes a few minutes and returns your ToMo score with a read on which motives are helping and which are getting in the way. For a team or organization score, reach out and we will set up the measurement across your group.

Yes, and you should. ToMo moves with the work — a reorg, a new manager, a change in how goals are set. Most leaders re-measure quarterly so they can see whether what they changed actually moved motivation.

The Harvard Business Review articles in the research section are the easiest starting point, and the guides and tools are built to be run in a team meeting. If you want to go wider, our newsletter and workshops give your organization a shared language for it.

Yes. The authors and industry experts deliver keynotes and workshops tailored to the challenge your audience needs to solve — leading through AI, motivating accountability, and leading organizational change. See the speaking events section for formats and availability.

Bulk pricing is available for teams, book clubs, and organization-wide rollouts, and we can pair a bulk order with a session for the group. Get in touch with your headcount and timing and we will put together the details.

Yes — signed copies are available for bulk orders and for events where Neel or Lindsay are speaking. Contact us and we will let you know what is possible for your date.

The research and tools section collects the diagnostics, guides, and playbooks that turn the ideas into practice, and the survey gives you the baseline to work from. New material goes out through the newsletter first.

The Total Motivation framework builds on decades of peer-reviewed work on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and it has been tested across thousands of employees in industries from retail and banking to airlines and technology. Our work is also cited in ongoing academic research on AI and human performance systems.