Bestselling Author Jeanet Wade Talks About ‘The Human Team: So, You Created A Team But People Showed Up!
Jeanet Wade’s focus is always on building healthy teams and healthy bottom lines. As the first Expert EOS Implementer™ in the St. Louis region, facilitating, teaching, and coaching the Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS®) to leadership teams at privately-held companies, she developed a reputation for helping clients get Traction® on their Vision by leveraging her experience in marketing, innovation, and management. Because of her passion for people and insights into the basic human needs that must be met in order 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.” Let’s talk about what inspired you to write your first book, ‘The Human Team: So, You Created A Team But People Showed Up!
What inspired you to write your book, The Human Team?
I’ve always been fascinated by human behavior and potential and passionate about the intersection between performance, fulfillment, and mental health. I’ve been working with teams all of my career, often in a leadership position, and I’ve been coaching high-performance teams as an EOS Implementer® for over ten years. The three parts of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) are Vision, Traction, and Healthy and I found that most of my clients were greatly challenged by creating the “healthy” aspect of business.
I wrote The Human Team to share a framework I call The Six Facets of Human Needs™ which I use 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 was the specific moment that made you realize your coined phrase, “How people work is how they work at work?”
I was working with my coach, and our conversation centered around universal human needs and how leaders have been led to believe that they need to either frighten people into doing their jobs or nurture them into feeling like doing their jobs, but they don’t know how to meet those universal needs so that people CAN do their jobs while being healthy and fulfilled. As we talked we were referring to those needs as “just how people work,” and realized it is true. As humans, our needs are part of how we naturally work, and that nature doesn’t change just because we’ve been hired to do a job.
If you had to do something differently as a child or teenager to become a better writer as an adult, what would you do?
I would have read more. When I was growing up I looked at books as homework assignments rather than an opportunity to explore new worlds and new ideas. As an adult I discovered that I loved to read and that reading sparked new ideas and perspectives. As a writer that’s exactly what I love to do – introduce people to new ways to think and new ways to look at the world. Of course I read a lot now, but if there is any advice I would offer to young aspiring writers or entrepreneurs is to read, not only to learn from what is between the cover of the books but to learn how to express ideas in a way that readers can understand and relate.
Do you view writing and teaching as a type of spiritual practice for your life?
I would say my writing is an extension of my teaching. Teaching, the opportunity to see people grow in knowledge and ability and go out into the world – in their jobs, relationships, even their play – having gotten what they needed to get more out of their lives is so on-purpose for me that it is a kind of spiritual practice.
What is the one thing you would like to be most remembered for?
Having opened doors for people to be more human and more rewarded for being human at work.
