The power of belongingness in creating psychological safety and performance

Every organisation is looking for that aspect of competitive advantage that will secure their future, take them to the next level and maximise performance. Ideally, it’s something that doesn’t represent a massive or risky investment to obtain and where they can be confident about the return.

In this search, how we do often overlook the most basic and obvious things? One of the most fundamental and basic human motivations might just be one of those under-leveraged opportunities!

Humans have a fundamental need to belong. It is hardwired into our brain structures, thought processes, social structures and behaviours. Consciously building strong levels of belonging at a team level was found to be the single largest factor explaining performance differences in work by Brad Deutser.

Helping managers to create healthy belongingness in teams can increase performance, retention, commitment, engagement and job satisfaction. It is also a core building-block to gaining the benefits of psychological safety – a concept popularised by Amy Edmundson. This is where people feel secure that speaking-up, asking questions, introducing alternative perspectives, offering part-formed ideas and admitting to mistakes will not met with humiliation or punishment. Sounds great, right? So, where’s the catch…

Workplaces can unintentionally drive a range of counter-productive and unhealthy belongingness behaviours – leading to people being cautious, fearful or protective. Our practices can lead of people being overly independent or dependent – when the sweet spot is interdependence. Belonging takes time, effort and skill to create.

Here’s four tips on helping your managers to build team belonging:

1. Create a purpose and identity. Belongingness is about who we feel a connection with. However, it is also about what our shared purpose, identity and beliefs are. Being explicit about these can strengthen a team.

2. Dial-down hierarchy. Who is in charge is important but only rely on this when it is absolutely legitimate and necessary. This allows other the space for stepping-up and avoids dependency and learned helplessness.

3. Support managers to become more open and curious about other’s ideas, contribution, questions and even mistakes. Thriving workplaces recognise there will be mistakes – as long as these are intelligent and occur because the situation was complex or new – this is a learning opportunity more than it is a failure.

4. Understand individuals. Leading and managing people based on their unique needs, rather than set-piece approaches, builds trust and a belief about them being personally valued as part of the team. This is going beyond treating everyone the same – but still treating everyone fairly. Often managers, and organisations, mistake standardised approaches for fairness and equality.