Nancy Rothbard

Engagement pays. In Gallup’s research across more than 180,000 business units, the most engaged units outperformed the least engaged by 23 percent in profitability and 18 percent in productivity. They also had lower turnover and fewer safety incidents. Nancy Rothbard shows organizations how to build that engagement, and she begins with a mistake leaders make all the time. They judge commitment by what they can see, and they “jump to a lot of conclusions,” she says. The colleague who skips the Saturday team lunch may be deeply committed to the company. Employees read every policy as a message: a benefit that clashes with how someone likes to work can lower their satisfaction even if they never use it. Rothbard helps audiences read their people accurately, fit policies and team life to the people they have, and build accountability “not just to the task, but to other people.” She also helps them judge which ideas will work with their own people, and how to adapt the rest.

Rothbard works directly with the people who run companies, on the issues in front of them now and the ones coming next. She co-directs Wharton’s Owner/President/CEO Program and directs its High-Potential Leaders program for rising managers. Companies in a range of industries have worked with her on motivation, teamwork, leadership, and the changing nature of work. She also helps run Wharton as its Deputy Dean.

Rothbard’s message is uplifting. People get through hard stretches together. Work keeps asking more of them, downtime is scarce, and AI keeps speeding up change. For her, what carries a team is the connection between its people. A paper she wrote, “OMG! My Boss Just Friended Me,” examines how people decide which colleagues, the boss included, to let into their personal lives online. “When people care about each other, they work harder,” she says. “They don’t want to let each other down.” She calls time spent getting to know colleagues “not wasting time.” Research she conducted across 68 fire stations shows what the right culture can do for people under strain. Where a station’s culture combined fun with real care, firefighters quietly carrying strain from home took fewer risks off duty. She shows teams how to make room for that kind of connection, including fun that people choose to join.

Rothbard won Wharton’s Teaching Excellence Award eight years running. She has written for Harvard Business Review on workaholism and on drawing the line between work and home. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have covered her research. Her passion is the future of work and how technology is changing the way we live and work. Her talks draw on several of her studies at once, with each insight building on the last. “Anytime I go into a company, I learn something,” she says. She welcomes a short call beforehand to hear what an organization is up against, then builds the talk around its people.

WHY AUDIENCES WILL BE BETTER OFF

• Attendees learn how to assess and improve the engagement of their employees.
• Attendees find out whether they keep work and home apart or blend them, and stop misreading colleagues who do it differently as less committed or standoffish.
• Audiences leave with one question for any new benefit, flexibility policy, or remote-work rule: what message will it send to people who draw the work-home line differently?
• Attendees make room for colleagues to get to know each other, and learn her dos and don’ts for what to ask of a friend at work.
• Anyone who plans a team event learns why forced fun doesn’t recharge people, and why the next outing should be an invitation, not a requirement.
• Attendees learn why it matters what kind of workaholic someone is, and what sets apart the ones who love their work.
• Anyone who hires learns why industry experience doesn’t always turn into performance, and why fit and adaptability decide whether that experience shows up in their work.