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roddwagner.docxTD Magazine . 70.5 (May 2016): p68+.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Association for Talent Development (ATD)
https://www.td.org/Publications/Magazines/TD/About-TD
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Rodd Wagner
Author
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Rodd Wagner is a Forbes contributor and bestselling author. His most recent book is Widgets: The 12 New Rules for Managing Your Employees as if They're Real People. Wagner advises senior executives and is an expert on employee motivation and collaboration. He is vice president of employee engagement strategy for BI Worldwide.
DO YOU SEE COMMON TRAITS IN GREAT MANAGERS?
Great managers are people who are motivated by the prospect of making other people happy. They recognize that, by virtue of being managers, they are positioned to have a substantial influence in other people's lives. They invest themselves both strategically and emotionally in giving their employees the best experience possible.
From a business standpoint, they also realize that this is the best way to run the department, the workgroup, or the enterprise. But it usually goes to something deeper. It's a very serious stewardship to them. Those who are religious talk about it in spiritual terms. Those who are not so religious talk about it in humanistic terms.
There is an understanding as a manager that "Employees are relying on me. Depending on how well I discharge my responsibility, they can have not just a better or worse time at work, but a better or a worse experience in life during the time they are reporting to me." Good managers take that very seriously.
Every time I find a great manager and start to talk to him or her, I know it's going to go in that direction-and when it does, I just think it's so cool. Particularly now that I have one child in the workplace and a couple of others who are not far behind, it's taken greater meaning for me.
WHAT INFLUENCES DO YOU THINK WILL PLAY IN THE AREA OF EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION IN THE COMING THREE TO FIVE YEARS?
We're in a strange time. On one hand, we are making advances in neuroscience to understand how people think. On the other hand, many employees are frustrated. Their managers don't take them out for coffee once a week or so and talk with them. We have exceptional insights, what's going on inside an employee's brain. But we're not taking advantage of the simplest kinds of things that we can do to make that employee's life better. I don't know that that dichotomy is going to go away.
I believe that, increasingly, the focus will be on employees knowing their own happiness and directing their own engagement.
I wrote a piece [in January] for USA Today about predictive analytics. I think that companies increasingly will be trying to predict what their employees or prospective employees will do. The science is moving ahead quite quickly and it's going to move faster than the ethics will keep up with it. There's going to be some really ham-handed abuses that will occur.
Predictive analytics also will be used in a cool way where people who, let's say, are introverted or whose credentials aren't as well-known to the managers, nonetheless throw a flag in the computer that says, "Hey, did you look at so-and-so over here? The algorithm says she might really be able to succeed in this particular job." Maybe by using those empirical tools we will be able to start looking at people who otherwise we would overlook.
The third thing that may occur in the next three to five years depends on the [2016 U.S.] election. There's backlash out there that business, writ large, has left behind an awful lot of people in some companies and are treating people like widgets, like disposable assets.
Depending on who wins the election, I think there's going to be some legislation that could affect everything from minimum wage to overtime hours to data privacy. Legislation is inherently clumsy relative to the market system. But a lot of people are feeling the market lacks humanity.
WHAT DO YOU ENJOY DOING TO KEEP YOUR LIFE BALANCED?
I am regular runner. I have a one-year-old golden retriever who is more than happy to come running with me whenever I want. I tend to be in a 5K or 10K race at least once a month. I've done one half-marathon. Occasionally, I go do something crazy like a Tough Mudder.
I love to camp and fly-fish. I've got three kids. My daughter works for an advertising agency. I've got a son who is an aerospace engineering major at the University of Minnesota. And I have a 16-year-old son who plays hockey and is a sportsman. So each of my kids is a unique person with varied interests.
This last summer, my wife, three kids, my son-in-law, and I-along with the puppy who was four months old at that point-went to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area for the better part of a week. Six people and a dog; it was an interesting adventure. When we find time, we go off and do some kind of a crazy adventure. These things keep me sane.
Rodd Wagner was interviewed by Patty Gaul, writer/editor, Association for Talent Development.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Gaul, Patty. "Rodd Wagner." TD Magazine, May 2016, p. 68+. Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A453916661/AONE?u=udel_main&sid=AONE&xid=7b3d21f7. Accessed 16 July 2019.
