What does a high-performing marketing team look like to you? My strongest example is spearheading Deliveroo’s international marketing team from 2016 to 2018. It was a special experience and a career highlight, characterised by an energising atmosphere and flywheel growth, with committed teammates launching cutting-edge campaigns in pursuit of an inspiring goal.

But it also came with downsides. The office was buzzing from 8am well into the late-night budget meetings (over takeout obvs), firefighting last-minute briefs, and responding to emails on holiday.

Both as a former employee, and now as a trainer for the UK’s fastest-growing marketing organisations, like Google, McDonald’s and WPP, I know high-performance can come at a cost. Why? A dangerous cocktail of unsustainable workload and demanding stakeholders, while desperate to prove our worth, and hit unreasonable targets.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Before the pandemic, we glorified this hustle culture. But expectations are shifting. According to Deloitte’s 2025 research, Gen-Z entered the workforce demanding the “holy trinity” – money, work/life balance and meaning.

Meanwhile for millennials, the taste of greater flexibility during Covid means we resent having to give up its luxuries, like working from home.

To explore what high-performance means for marketing today, I gathered 10 leaders from brands like Procter & Gamble, Ocado and Franco Manca at The Lucky Saint in London to  ‘unconference’. No, that’s not a typo – an unconference has no hierarchy or speakers. Guests define the topics as peers. Think concurrent breakout room discussions where team strategy meets group therapy.

Five clear themes emerged to challenge how we think about success for modern marketers. Let’s dive in.

1. We need to redefine ‘performance’ and ‘potential’

Our legacy definition of ‘performance’ equates with presenteeism – where commitment is judged on hours logged and work comes first. At Deliveroo, we called this “bleeding teal”. The same goes for ‘potential’, which traditional talent frameworks bias for ambition in an upward trajectory.

We even coined a label for those who reject that model: ‘quiet quitters’. But, as Caroline Gorrie, media innovation director at P&G, sees it, young marketers have “got so much of it right. We’re the mugs – millennials are f***** because we’re such inherent people pleasers.”

Deloitte’s 2024 research shows nearly half of Gen Z (13- to 28-years-old) rank work/life balance as their top priority, compared to 38% of millennials. But perhaps us 29- to 45-year-old millennials are catching up. Randstad’s latest global Pulse survey finds 59% of people surveyed would rather time flexibility than higher pay.

The new definition of high-performance from our unconference leaders is grounded in output versus input. It’s the quality of what you deliver, not how loudly or how long you’re seen delivering.

Likewise, potential exists beyond classic linear progression – someone can have huge promise and move sideways, dive deeper, or stay put.

If we don’t modernise our standpoint, we risk alienating top talent to roles and companies that empower balance not burnout. It’s time to stop confusing stamina and the desire to climb the ladder with success. Our employees have moved on – have employers?

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2. Motivation is as individual as we are

One size does not fit all when it comes to employee engagement. According to Deliotte, only 13% compete to ‘win’, while most (32%) work to live, 25% prefer purpose, 18% favour professional mastery, and only 13% most value tangible rewards, like salary.

So, if your company’s motivation strategy consists of “drinks down the pub”, you’ve got a problem.

The goal is to uncover what sparks each person’s career “get-up-and-go” – that’s how you drive ROI – Return On Individual. That’s what we call potential at my training consultancy Badass Unicorn.

As marketers, we personalise our ads. So, why wouldn’t we do the same for our employer value proposition… at least at a boss-level? After all, isn’t our most important asset our people? When leaders tune into reportee “thriver drivers”, they can tailor development and benefits to match. Gallup meta-analysis shows engaged teams deliver major productivity gains, so ignore this at your peril.

3. Gear up for the AI superhighway

Like it or loathe it, we’re working through next industrial transformation: the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Just like the revolutions before it, there’ll be winners and losers – McKinsey predicts up to 800 million, nearly a quarter of the global workforce, may need to change jobs by 2030 due to automation. As Nic Yeeles, vice-president of product and design at home extension company Resi, stressed at the unconference, “we have a real responsibility as leaders to protect our teams”.

There’s no denying AI can turbocharge performance – MIT Sloan found generative AI can boost a highly-skilled worker’s performance by nearly 40%. But there are risks. Thom Greybe, creative director at Ovo Energy warned of “AI Slop – where everyone’s stuff starts to look the same”. Just scroll your LinkedIn feed for evidence.

Over-reliance is obvious, too. Our group despaired at the familiar “line” that’s visible proof of ChatGPT’s influence.

The solution isn’t rejection or blind adoption — it’s conscious integration. As Asmita Singh, interim head of Rimmel London, concluded, we must “help our teams unleash their human capital value thanks to technology”. From clear usage policies to creative experimentation, AI should be part of an ongoing conversation that replaces grunt with genius.

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4. Teams that twerk together work better

By “twerk”, we mean create shared rhythm, not an awkward office disco. High-performing teams don’t just follow rules – they co-create how they show up for each other.

Alex Ayin, growth adviser, asked the team collectively, “what do we look like when we’re performing at our best, and what’s stopping us from doing that every day?”

Anika Gohil, learning and development business partner at Publicis Groupe, shared how she introduced “healthy habits”, team-defined principles that set the record straight on what’s expected: “We work flexibly around our busy lives, but make up the hours we take off to show integrity while delivering group goals.”

At Kind Snacks, Gina Head, head of sales and category, built on this by introducing us to a “team contract”. It defines the give and get between her and her reports. For instance: she commits to weekly one-to-ones; they pledge to prepare an agenda. If someone slips, they revisit the contract and ask, “How do we think we’re doing?” This is the kind of shared accountability that turns culture into code.

5. Embrace but don’t hide behind inclusion

Amy Edmondson’s Harvard Business Review study shows there’s strong correlation between high performance, psychological safety and diversity. I believe psychological safety could be the antidote to marketing’s mental health crisis, where one in two marketers report feeling overwhelmed (58.1%), undervalued (56.1%), emotionally exhausted (50.8%) and disengaged (48.2%) in the past year.

When marketers feel seen and supported, it’s not just a nicer place to work, they bring their best ideas, grit and drive. Some naysayers worry that inclusion has become an excuse for slipping standards, but Asad Dhunna, founder and CEO of The Unmistakables, made a crucial distinction: inclusion shouldn’t mean immunity.

“There’s a lot of people who hide behind the banner of inclusion. Some just aren’t good at their jobs – it’s a talent challenge – and we must get better at calling it what it is: a performance issue,” he said.

High standards and inclusive design aren’t in conflict; they complement one another. With Deloitte estimating that 10–20% of people globally are neurodivergent – and that neurodiverse teams can be 30% more productive – designing for different brains isn’t an edge case; it’s essential.

Asad champions a “targeted universalism” approach: addressing specific barriers that certain groups face, in service of a universal goal that benefits everyone. For example, slides revamped for dyslexic colleagues help the whole team digest information faster. As they say, a rising tide lifts all boats.

So, what does ‘high-performing marketing team’ really mean? According to the guests at Badass Unicorn’s unconference, it’s not about doing more. It’s about doing what matters, better. These teams harness each person’s unique potential, embrace agency, and use every tool in their box— from AI to empathy — to unlock capability. The future of performance isn’t harder, faster, or louder. It’s pluckier and more human. That’s how we move from nine to five to nine to thrive.

Alice ter Haar is founder of Badass Unicorn, a training consultancy inspiring teams at brands like Google and McDonald’s. She previously spent 10 years as a marketer before demotion and redundancy led her to pursue a career in helping marketing leaders turbocharge their people.

A podcast of the Unconference conversations can be found here.