Jeanet Wade is 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.” Her best-selling book, ‘The Human Team: So, You Created a Team But People Showed Up’ discusses the key elements that any Business Leader, or Entrepreneur must have in place to build the foundations of success in their corporate culture. We had a chance to catch up Jeanet to discuss her book and to gain a deeper understanding in her processes. This is what she shared with us.
Why did you write The Human Team: So, You Created a Team But People Showed Up?
Primarily I wrote the book because during my years as an employee I had so many experiences where I could not reach my potential due to toxic workplaces, and as an Expert EOS Implementer™ I find over and over that creating healthy workplaces and teams is one of the biggest challenges business leaders face.
I combined my experience and passion for creating healthy teams and created a tool to help leaders change workplaces so that people can 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 like 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 did you learn while writing your book?
The biggest lesson as a writer was that you must set context for a single topic and not try to “boil the ocean.” I knew this was a topic that needed to be presented in a simple, accessible, and actionable way and that meant I had to learn to focus and be brutal with myself about what to leave in and what to take out. There was so much more to say and so much more in the research, but I chose to include only what was within that single focus of using The Six Facets of Human Needs™ as a tool to create healthy teams.
You mention toxicity in the beginning of your book. How do you define a toxic workplace?
A workplace that has low trust, high stress, and negative side effects on the people is toxic. The degree of toxicity is directly proportional to the degree there is low trust and high stress. Of course, that describes far too many of our business environments, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Toxicity in the workplace has become so prevalent that the U.S. Surgeon General issued a statement on the risks posed by toxic workplaces.
How does a company foster a positive work environment?
Before we can foster something, we have to create it. The key is to taking steps at all levels of the business to address The Six Facets of Human Needs™ and ensure that people have what they need to thrive and realize their potential individually and as teams.
Who are three mentors to Jeanet Wade?
Gino Wickman, Founder of EOS®
Dixie Gillaspie, Coach and “Visionary to the Visionaries”
Marshall Wade, Co-Founder of Business Alchemist
