Jeanet Wade’s focus is always on building healthy teams and healthy bottom lines. Because of her passion for people and insights into the basic human needs that must be met to fully actualize the potential of a team, she quickly became known as the go-to resource for how to have effective, healthy teams that allow the business to harness their people energy and maximize their “Return on Individual.” This is what she shared with us in an exclusive interview.
Why did you decide to write your book, ‘The Human Team: So, You Created a Team But People Showed Up?’
I’ve always been passionate about “great places to work” and fascinated by humanity. And, frankly I’ve worked in plenty of environments that were not healthy for humanity. I wanted to create a tool that would help leaders change workplaces so that people could bring their full humanity into the workplace and be healthy and fulfilled. The tool I created is a framework for understanding and meeting human needs for self-actualizing in a group. (Think something similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs but for teams.) I call this framework The Six Facets of Human Needs™ and it is used to activate the human potential of teams so that they can self-actualize as a high-performance, healthy group of individuals working together to create exponentially more than they would be capable of alone.
What is the secret sauce to team health?
If humans/people are engaged and happy, the team and organization are healthier (culturally, financially, and productively.) Most organizations try to create engaged, happy teams through nurturing events and exercises without taking steps to ensure their basic needs are being met daily, but nurture alone can’t lead to team health. The Six Facets of Human Needs™, Clarity, Connection, Contribution, Consideration, Challenge, and Confidence are all essential elements of sustainable team health.
What is the most important factor in developing a healthy team?
Human beings are complex so there is no single factor that is more important than others. What IS important is to build a culture that provides for these universal human needs then give the humans on your team the time and attention to leverage the potential of human complexity.
How do you define leadership?
A leader’s first responsibility is to recognize and activate the potential of the humans on their team. Great leaders are the coaches and guides who see humans as unique individuals with unique talents and understand humanity as a whole and are committed to creating environments where inherent needs are met so that people can come together to achieve the desired result for the company and also flourish as individuals.
Looking back on 2022 what would you say are your top three learning experiences that you took away for yourself but also for your company?
1. It’s never boring. Businesses are made up of humans and humans are fascinating and complex. Change is constant and we need to simplify our ability to adapt.
2. People are the key more than ever before. A human driven economy was predicted a decade ago and the recent pandemic only put that on fast forward. We are living in a time when people are the 10X multiplier in organizations.
3. Too many leaders and managers are grappling with the symptoms and not getting to the root issues.
Click Here For Your Copy of “The Human Team: So, You Created A Team But People Showed Up!” https://www.amazon.com/Human-Team-Created-People-Showed-ebook/dp/B08X25JDWX/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=