Um My name is De Lovely Gibson. I'm coming to you from Atlanta, Georgia. Thank you for joining. Um I've been enjoying the conference thus far. I hope you have been um a little bit about my background.Um, as we talk about high performing teams, I have been a people manager for about 20 years. I've built teams from scratch as well as inherited teams. Um and I have been part of the teams that have been high performing as well as the team where I'm just like, what are we doing? How are you gonna get there? Um So I wanted to kind of talk a little bit about this concept. I've been developing over some time. Um That takes something you probably have seen from sociology or physiology class about being in college or maybe when you took your PNP exam, um we're going to apply it to the workplace and, um I think you find, I hope you find it interesting and uh we can have a discussion about it either here as well as after the conference as well.

Um But uh first things first, um, let's talk about how do we define a high performing team, high performing team is we are working well together, we are delivering, we are a team that other people look to, to say, wow, they're doing such great things. Um, what better team than the US soccer team, um, or football, depending on where you are in the world. Um, that's a team that I wish I could be on. Um, I don't play soccer very well, but clearly they work well together, they are executing on their goals, they have great energy. Um And definitely are seen as a team that people revere in their space and industry. Um They're a team that other people want to be like uh and they're a team that people can say, hey, we could probably learn from them um because they're doing great things, they're trailblazers in this space. Um So that's kind of like how we are defining a uh a high performing team. Um And we think about that in the workplace, whether you're in a commercial space or in a technology space, those are the teams that people say, yeah, give it to team a, give it to. So, and so's team, they're gonna kill it.

Um When they have those big moments, they celebrate when they have those big failures, they learn, uh they rally around each other. Um And you know, that's really a good way to, to kind of put a pulse check on how well you're doing with your team, whether you're a leader or whether you're in that performing team. So if we think about the people on our team, we use the words like team and organization or squad or pods. And sometimes we forget that team is made up of a bunch of individuals. Uh That's John, that's Jenny, that's the lovely, that's uh Cameron. Um And it's really important to not forget that your team is made up of individuals. And once you really kind of remember that, remind yourself and understanding all those individuals make up this great hole, you really help understand why it's important to connect with people on an individual level and really focus on what their needs are because stacking on meeting those needs just really makes the whole group excel.

So if you remember um back in maybe college or maybe when you took your P MP exam, if you are a project management professional, you may have remembered Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Um And, you know, this is something that I always go back to when I think about. Wow, what is the key motivators for these individuals? Um And uh go online, you can research this. Um I just grab one of the images off the website. Um But really, you're starting at the bottom with the biggest broad piece of your needs and their, their physiological needs. They're the food, water, warmth, rest, you know, I don't know about you. But if I don't have my rest, a really grumpy lady, you, you just don't wanna bother me. Um safety needs, you know. Um Am I gonna be able to get to and from work really safely um uh belonging and love needs? You know? Uh Do I have my family? Do I have my friends uh my village, my community esteem needs, you know, prestige. Maybe it's the, you know, degrees behind your name, maybe it's uh the award you have on your desk um or just accolades from the people around you all that leading to self actualization and really maximizing your creativity. So what I like to do when I take this concept uh and hierarchy of needs is really take it and put it in the workspace and really build on from this basic needs, physiological needs and self fulfillment needs and really think about what that looks like in the workplace as I approach each of those individuals on my team.

So what that kind of looks like and we're gonna look at this for a little while. I don't know why these little people are in the background but they can stay. So um first of all, when you think about your, your, your teeth, that's they said they're working on new uh products, new technology. Um One of the things that they have to deal with when they first walk into the door is the basic needs. Uh That's their workspace. Um Today with COVID workspaces could be the dining room table, it could be an office. I saw somebody working in their closet this morning. Uh Cause I said that's the only place they could go without waking up the house. Um So if you want to think about those things that's important, you know, and checking in on your team, like, hey, do you have a place to work and understanding what that place is and just having the empathy that if that workspace may not necessarily be, you know, the desk or an office, you know, if it's the dining room table, like, OK, I understand what you're dealing with.

That would be stressful too. I really appreciate you getting things done. But having that empathy to say, OK, that workspace is important. And if there's anything that you can do to make sure that that workspace is better, whether it's, you know, having a monitor, an extra monitor, making sure that the hardware is working, making sure that they have phone, uh making sure they have access to the platforms that they need to do their job.

Um And make sure that they have the secure codes, you know, to, for, for sso um those things are really key just to be able to do the basic function. When you have teams that are completely disenfranchised, they've completely checked out, they're jaded, they can't access tools online.

They have old laptops that don't work. Um How many times if you had the oldest machine on the floor and you've got to do something special to get the K key to work or the shift key to work where you got to jiggle the mouse. So these things really can add to the frustration that you have every day. And when you remove those, you also move people to be like, OK, I can focus on what my goal is. I can focus on what I need to do and I'm not worried, admired about the little trivial things that are kind of basic needs to get the job done. So check in with your team, make sure they have those basic needs, make sure that they have access, make sure that their hardware is up to date. Make sure that they have access to those technology platforms. It's very frustrating when you're trying to do things and you're using an Excel spreadsheet for something that you really use should be using some better software platform. It could be freeware, it could be something that the company already offers, but making sure that you check in and make sure people, people have the basic needs to get their job done. So second is the physiological needs.

So you've got your team working at a good click because every team can come every day and just work, they can just, they're gonna come get their paycheck, they're gonna do what they're supposed to do. But now we're stepping into, are you recognize them? Are you recognizing them for the things that they are doing. Are you saying, hey, we need to be connected as a team. Are you giving people ownership and autonomy of the things that they have to do? How many of you have had that micromanager who has to check in every moment on everything that you're doing? And it's frustrating. You're tired of it. You hired me to do a job, I'm trying to do that job. But you wanna check how I cross my T and how I dot My I and the color of all my powerpoint slides. Um And you're not giving me that autonomy to do it. Um I've worked with someone in the past who actually used to write upside down and backwards. It used to drive his management crazy. Um But I was like, I had to sit down with the manager and be like, what do you care how he writes his notes when he's in a meeting? That's for him to understand? I never get an upside down and backwards email from the guy.

That's just the way that he writes. It drove this person crazy, but it's like, get out of their space. Make sure that you recognize them for the things that they should be recognized for. Don't get sidetracked by the little parts and pieces that really have nothing to do with how well they may be getting the job done and when they get the job done, say job well done, you're killing it, you did a great job. I cannot stress stress that the teams that are doing well are getting kudos that you're doing well. They have clarity about, hey, what's our goal? We hit that goal. Great job. Um You did that, you own that, you took it, you ran with it, you know, as a leader, we can provide direction, but it's really important for us to unlock people's potential and their desire to do the work well, and that's how you do that, making sure that they get that recognition, they have that ownership and they're connecting with their teammates.

So I wanna pause about talking with your teammates and how that is so important. I'm one of those people that I will go to work and I'll be heads down and I'll kinda get focused on some things and I have to set reminders sometimes to step up and look at the team and say, hey, how are you doing? How's it going? What's, what's really important, especially today when there's so much social injustice and unrest around that coming to the top and forefront of every piece of social media, the television, every email, every phone call, you have to make sure that you're connecting with your team that you're creating the spaces where your team can get together and WSA and talk about what's happening and what's going on.

You don't necessarily have to have a political conversation in every work meeting, but having those places and spaces where you can say, hey, what's going on? How are you feeling? You know, it's Monday. I don't know about you, but I took in two days of the news over the weekend. You know, how are you doing in? What can I do to help you move on to focusing on work, you know, with a little bit more bandwidth to focus on getting to the goal, understanding that no one can actually put it away wholeheartedly. But sometimes we have to shift our focus and really get back to the hands of business goals, commercial goals, revenue goals, but having some empathy about what people are having to deal with when they come into that workspace every day. Um And then finally, it's when you actually get to that self actualization. So you met my basic needs. Now, I've got those recognition and those physiological needs that I need um which don't take for granted any of those things. Um It could be something as easy as a name. Uh My name is De Lovely. It's got a funky spelling when I see my name misspelled, I just wanna just drop everything and just start fresh tomorrow. It's a little thing.

But when I have a team around me that understand that's important. I'm like, OK, they're, they're with me. They, they, they feel my pain, they're ready to rock, we're ready to unleash my bad. Let's go when you get to that self actualization space and you're ready to be super creative and you're ready to look at your performance for any input as well as output. That's when you're really getting to that high performance, that's when you're really getting to everything that I touch. I wanna make great because my team, my leadership around me has said, look, what do you need? How can I remove those options? Um How do we stay connected as a group? How do we share in our successes? How do we share in our failures? How can we learn from our failures? Being afraid to talk about failure, being afraid to over uh recognize, put you in that space where people don't necessarily know if they're coming or going. My best leadership lets me know where, where I stand, we're going, great things are moving. Mm No, that wasn't so awesome.

We need to, we need to, we need to course correct. You know, being uh very clear in those spaces, being deliberate in those spaces and really being able to say guys think, let's put our thinking caps on, let's think outside the box and it's OK for your eye to be your idea, to sometimes be a little left field. But when we actually listen to those ideas and take into account, something that may not necessarily be in front of our face, but maybe down the road, I don't know how many times people on my team has told me about something that I necessarily couldn't see, you know, as a leader.

Sometimes you're 30,000 ft up and you don't even see the road 10 miles out. You know, because it's like a little dot From where you're sitting, but that's really in someone's purview and being able to say, hey, let's, let's remember that. You know, I want to talk a little bit about that. Maybe you can write a couple of sentences down about what we should be focusing on. And I'll talk about that in the spaces that I'm gonna be in and giving credit to your team when they come up with those ideas and when they say, you know what I wanna approach this differently, um It may be a little bit uncomfortable for the rest of the team, but let's diagram this out.

Let's have a dialogue, let's have a small dialogue and then go to a big dialogue. Um and really thinking about ways to be creative and allow people to be uh to guide their performance as well as their input, how they're gonna learn who they're gonna go to as well as their output, what they put out there, um How they put it out there. Um Not everybody's com communication style is yours. Um And giving people some of that bandwidth to be able to like, hey, I'm gonna present things a little bit different. Uh I've worked in a few marketing organizations where I'm just like, I would have never presented it that way, you know, as someone who more has the coms and the it background, I'm wow, when people can say, you know what, let's think about it differently. Some of the presentations I've seen today, like, wow, I've never really thought about presenting it that way and that's people really performing at a high level. Um And they do that when they have people around them, their leadership and their teams really supporting that way of thinking differently.

Um So just remember that when you get into that space, um I know that some of the people that have been part of this conference are not necessarily in that leadership space. So when you think about what can I do when I'm maybe not a leader? Um How can I make sure that my team is performing? Um And I, I understand that sometimes you may just still be trying to figure out how you can perform well, you know, you're like, I'm doing my job. How do I know if I'm really performing well? Are you really confident about the work that you're putting out there? Do you stand by at 100%? Do people come to you and say, wow, you know what? I love the way that you're getting this stuff done. Can you show me? I love your passion around what you're doing. Can you show me I'd love to run something by you. Can you give me your feedback? Um Is this something that you think that we as a team can get behind um, and being able to be a cheerleader around that, uh depending on, um whether you're a junior in that, in that group or you're more of the senior leaders in that group. It really is, uh it, it really is gonna be to just depend on your confidence to kind of step up and say, hey, this is what I actually demand as someone who is part of this team to make sure that we are a high performing team.

Um I wanna just check into the conference uh questions really quick. Uh What are the some, what are some things to do to foster connection with you? Oh OK. So one of the things that I love to do is bring my silly and crazy to the workspace. Um When I think back in my career about the leaders and the teams that I really admired, they can bring themselves to work, whether it's your love of music, whether it's your love of food or fashion, being able to have those conversations in the space to break the ice and say, hey, you know what guys before we get into this agenda, let's talk about this.

Let's talk about that. Let's have five or 10 minutes to really just have that camaraderie and just said, leave work aside and remember that we come to work every day as people that work together that have lives that have social lives and being able to share that space, share that in that space is that way to start connecting.

And then from there, then it's like having the quick stand ups with your team, you know, five minutes, 10 minutes. Who's doing what? Who did? Great. Hey, this is what I'm hearing. Are you hearing the same thing? Then? It's, you know, maybe having those social events at the job, you know, you're gonna have coffee, you're gonna have, you know, Taco Tuesday, you're gonna have donuts. Um, recently I was on a team where I ordered one cookies for the entire team and drove around with the cart with milk, uh of dairy and almond and coconut, uh, gluten free cookies just so I could connect with people and we could have camaraderie and we could be like we work, we perform, we do awesome stuff all the time, but it's ok for us to be personal in the workspace.

It's ok uh for us to be people in the workspace. Um I love the idea about the yoga class. I definitely see that in the workspace. I've h I've seen breathing exercises. I've seen um uh quick walks around the campus. I've seen um corn Hall, H Hula Hoop. Um Sometimes I'll come into the office with pom poms and get everybody excited about what we're doing. Keeping that excitement, keeping that vulnerability leading with empathy and having empathy for your team. Those are what really get us to the greatness. Um, they really help people say, you know what? Yeah, I gotta come to work and work every day. But am I gonna give it my best because I'm getting all my needs met. Am I gonna really put out the best? And I'm gonna really put out the best that they don't even know the best yet and I'm gonna beat the best. All those things culminate when you really think about people at that people level, what their needs are, basic needs and physiological needs are to make sure that they're working at their greatness. Um Are there any other questions before we wrap? I love having this conversation with people, you know, hit me up on linkedin, send me an email. Um I, I do love talking to groups about this.

I think it's really, really important for people to understand that it's not just about work, work, work, it's not just about setting goals and purpose. It's really getting to what people need on a basic and physiological level. Um Because oftentimes you're getting already 80 to 90% of what they need of, of what you need at work, but you need your team to be 100% and making sure you address those can get you there with your team. Um But thank you so much. Um Here's my contact information, reach out to me on linkedin, reach out to me on Twitter. Um It's been a pleasure and hope to see you and continue talking to you guys throughout the conference. I'll definitely be on over the next couple of days. Bye bye now.