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In building teams, leaders need to understand that people are highly tuned to receive the story of Us. Herein lies an opportunity for leaders to connect with and influence teams at a deeper level. Great leaders widen the Us story so that every person in their group feels a genuine sense of belonging.
We can make people feel a deep sense of belonging immediately by giving an induction to the individual with an Us story, an induction to the history of the team or project and allow them to connect with that history and Us story personally. Even a personal conversation with the leader to explain the new recruits role within the tribe really helps.
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His only adjustment when working in individualistic cultures such as in the UK and United States is to have two conversations early on rather than one: “Firstly, about what we want to achieve together as a team; secondly, why this is good for each individual … I strongly believe you focus on building a healthy environment, and then we fine-tune performance from there. Humans need to belong, it is an element of performance. “We try to signal to players that this is a place where you belong. You are respected, this is a safe place, we want you to be yourself and express yourself.” We are wired to be extremely pragmatic and highly strategic in how we toggle between Us and Them. Eastwood grew up in an area where traditional schools were delineated between Catholics and Protestants. But when a regional sports team was created then both Catholics and Protestants would come together as a unified tribe against the region to the North of them. The heroes in our stories personify the best version of Us. The villains fall into two camps: Them, but also the individuals within Us who are selfish - those who put themselves before Us and thereby risk our safety, stability and status.
People are scared of having emotional conversations … some leaders will run a mile from that. But when there’s a lot of emotions, it’s great, we can learn to optimise that. Teams need emotional energy.” To feel a sense of belonging is to feel accepted, to feel seen and to feel included by a group of people, believing that we fit in, trusting we will be protected by them.Belonging is a must-read for anyone interested in building a long term high-performing team' - Stuart Lancaster
We may become more aggressive, though we are likely to target that at those people who owe perceive as having lowered status than us. The author interweaves his own story and heritage into the book, and introduces us to the important idea of ‘whakapapa’. Eastwood defines this as, “When the sun is shining on us, we must be guardians of our tribe and of each other. This is how I have come to understand whakapapa.” Belonging is a must-read for anyone interested in building a long term high-performing team.' - Stuart Lancaster Slowly we have lost touch with our primal instincts as a creeping shift has taken place from ‘our’ purpose to ‘my’ purpose with individualistic societies in the Western world. These values - getting ahead of everyone else - work against our need to belong. They push a mindset of seeing ourselves against rather than with others.Youth suicide is a huge concern in Aotearoa and the world in general. If this book’s concept of belonging and the marvellous metaphor it uses to convey whakapapa could be taught to all children, surely fewer of our rangatahi (precious young) would question their place, their value, their purpose on Earth. And more people would understand their obligation to be 'good ancestors'. The powerful metaphor it introduces to explain the meaning of ‘whakapapa’ (a concept held by Aotearoa New Zealand Māori) is so clear and meaningful, it surely can be used to make a difference. This concept is universal but in many cultures undervalued or even obscured by modern life. Initially a navigator’s strength came from their ability to simultaneously carry in their hands both a grand vision and an intimate understanding of the detail. For Eastwood’s ancestors the grand vision was new land, and the intimate understanding of the detail was the sun, the stars, and the constellations - all of which were used to navigate at the time.
Players for a team, for example, may be given their national team shirts and asked to write on them what it personally meant to play for that team. This visual activity is effective. We leak energy and focus by obsessing over the unsafe environment and relations around us and the pressure builds. A more inclusive approach is possible. It can be as simple as a belonging cue like coming over and sitting with a teammate at meetings (as a senior) through to asking for everyone’s views in team meetings. At this stage a paradox plays out. We enter self-preservation mode as our mind begins to think about surviving rather than succeeding.
But there is another world. Where the hormone soup recipe is wrong and doesn’t allow us to be at our best. Clearly here is no performance benefit in this. Cath Bishop (left) and Katherine Grainger when the British women’s rowing pair were world champions. Photograph: Fiona Hanson/PA
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