"Your people are not your greatest asset. They’re not yours, and they’re not assets. Assets are property. You don’t own your people. Many of them don’t trust you. Some don’t like you. Too many won’t stick it out with you. And the ones you need most have the credentials to walk out fastest if you treat them poorly."
- Widgets, page 1
"The choice of what kind of attitudes your employees bring to work is yours. Because people so strongly reciprocate what they receive, a company gets the engagement it deserves. Because engagement is so closely tied to results, a company also gets the performance it deserves."- Widgets, page 24
If someone treats you with disrespect or ignores your needs, how does that make you feel? And are you likely to go out of your way for them? Of course not. But for some reason employers think that because they pay your salary, they are exempt from this innate human instinct: do onto others as they do onto you.
As Rodd explains, the reciprocal employee is at the heart of the 12 new rules. If you treat your staff right and show that you care about them as individuals, not as replaceable widgets, they will be your biggest advocate and do more than you ask for. And since they are often the ones interacting with your customers or on the frontlines of your business, this true engagement and loyalty will translate to higher profitability too.
"Whether someone finds purpose in his or her work is largely a consequence of how that employee is treated, how he or she is made to feel important, how genuinely the enterprise’s leadership talks about the mission of the company, and whether leaders do anything to cheapen that meaning."- Widgets, page 116
The first six rules deal with everything from truly understanding your employees (Rule 1: Get Inside Their Heads), to paying them fairly (Rule 3: Make Money a Non-Issue), to being a “cool” place to work (Rule 5: Be Cool) and being transparent in all your communications (Rule 6: Be Boldly Transparent).
Rule 7 is Don’t Kill the Meaning. Having our work have meaning matters. We all want to know that we are adding value beyond someone’s bottom line, and this is not limited to nonprofits or people with a “noble” calling. If an employee is treated right and made to feel they are contributing to the company’s mission, then it won’t matter what function they play. It also won’t matter whether the company’s mission is to provide a service or product since their employees will care about making that meaningful to themselves and to their customers. Think of the Starbucks barista or the salesperson greeting you when you walk into The Container Store. Both of them understand the meaning behind their jobs and it shows, both in their attitudes towards their work and employers, and in their attitudes towards their customers.
"Employees are more motivated in jobs where their opinions matter. People are more committed to doing things that are at least partly their own idea, rather than having their goals and the way they do their work dictated to them by the higher-ups."- Widgets, page 165
The remaining rules touch on giving employees a future (Rule 8: See Their Future) and recognition (Rule 9: Magnify Their Success) as well as letting them collaborate (Rule 10: Unite Them).
Rule 11 is to Let Them Lead. Everyone want to have a voice and an opportunity to influence how they do their work since we all have our own preferred work rhythms and styles. A good manager is not afraid to allow their staff this autonomy: by assigning them tasks but allowing them to decide how these will be completed, he/she recognizes their staff’s individuality and will therefore ensure they are at their most happy and productive when completing these tasks. And these employees will be happy to come back to work and to keep producing for that manager instead of wishing to be elsewhere.
For the employees who want to step-up and take on more, encourage this as well. This will allow you, their manager, to spend more time coaching staff instead of doing the work yourself. By being seen as someone who develops staff and has set his department up for a successful succession, you are more likely to be viewed as promotable yourself.
“Happy employees create happy customers. It’s been said enough that it seems trite. To watch it happen is actually quite profound. People are emotional creatures. Emotions are contagious. Happiness is an exceptional powerful force. The executive who understands it, and genuinely wants to create it in his or her business, is substantially more effective than those who worry about spoiling their employees.”
Rodd Wagner is the New York Times bestselling author of the new book “Widgets: The 12 New Rules for Managing Your Employees As If They’re Real People.” A contributor to Forbes, he is one of the foremost authorities on employee engagement and collaboration. Wagner’s books, speeches, and thought leadership focus on how human nature affects business strategy. He currently serves as vice president of employee engagement strategy at BI Worldwide.
