Belonging is complex and fragile

I’ve written somewhat about “belonging” (the 4th pillar of DEIB) recently, and previously in the past on here and other mediums that afforded me more anonymity when I thought that was important to my well-being.

But like many things, times change, I’ve changed, and I’m too tired to hide myself away anymore.

A lot of thoughts have been swirling about my head for a while, as they are wont to do, with a brain that is always processing, always folding new state, and new experiences in on itself. At some point, under that cognitive gravity, a thousand disparate thoughts and experiences begin to accrete, and slowly condense into something more nuanced.

I’ve been thinking in particular recently about what, for me, defines belonging, and what, again for me, stands in the way of me feeling like I belong.

Now, I’ll start by saying I have a wealth of life-experience at feeling “other”, as a trans-person, as a neurodivergent person (ADHD + Autistic), and as someone with chronic health issues, there have been so many times I’ve felt I didn’t belong.

But contributors to a lack of belonging can be both overt, and covert.

I’m not going to make this a treatise on my life as a person at several intersections, but I’ve had my share of time in the trenches where no matter what I tried, I didn’t feel I belong. I can at least, like any human being, synthesise a concept from my own experiences, and the observations of others gained during my life.

I think that belonging is a lot more complex than we think, and we as groups are often oblivious to the ways in which belonging is inherently fragile, and subject to invisible systems and structures.

I think a lot underpins belonging, so please bear with me while I try to articulate my personal thoughts.

Equity as a contributor to belonging

Let’s start with “Equity”.

Merriam Webster defines equity as:

justice according to natural law or right; specifically : freedom from bias or favouritism

I often hear people say “We have a flat structure.” when equity is raised.

Firstly, flat structures are never truly flat because of group dynamics, and therefore don’t provide equity naturally.

Any group of employees is divided invisibly into multiple groups:

• Level of stability: Tenured and non-tenured employees / employees on contract / employees on probation.

• Pre-existing groups (cliques): Groups formed externally to the workplace (people who worked together at other companies, connected through other activities).

• People with shared experiences/demographics.

People clump together.

There is a natural tendency for humans to form groupings based on similarity of experience, sameness. One might even argue that in the absence of an externally imposed hierarchy, social and group dynamics fill that void.

The reason I’m talking about this with regard to equity, is that often humans are not as free from bias or favouritism as we’d like to think we are. Humans are by their nature, I have observed, protective of the groups they are a part of. We will trust people more within our groups than those from outside it, even if the groups are not explicit.

This isn’t a critique of flat structures either, as these issues manifest in any group. It is however a call out to be more critical of our own implicit bias.

Familiarity breeds trust, but it also breeds bias.

Inclusion as a contributor to belonging

Inclusion is also a key contributor towards belonging, as well.

Merriam Webster defines inclusion as:

the act or practice of including and accommodating people who have historically been excluded (as because of their race, gender, sexuality, or ability)

But also as:

the act of including : the state of being included

Inclusion isn’t just hiring people, and it isn’t just tangibly inviting them explicitly to participate, inclusion should be the default, the norm.

Inclusion is:

• People knowing they are welcome in a space, and it is knowing that they have the agency to contribute and offer value. Not everyone knows they are included (I tend to need it either to be the environment default, or it to be spelled out to me that I am — many neurodistinct and marginalised employees feel this, especially after experiences of exclusion as the norm)

• Transparency, knowledge equity, dismantling artificial structures in the sharing of resources and information, that exclude others. (Selective inclusion is exclusion, depending on what side of the divide one sits).

• Accessibility, and employees not being restricted in how they work, learn, or communicate, because if we force someone to work a way that is contrary to their best interests and well-being, we are preventing them from reaching their full-potential, and potentially causing harm.

• The acknowledgement that people are different and we need to trust them to know what will support them, and be ready to assist them, or help them to explore it.

• People having the opportunity and agency to decide their contribution, and not having that decided arbitrarily by others.

But without psychological safety, none of this matters

Wikipedia defines Psychological Safety as:

Psychological safety is the ability to show and employ oneself without fear of negative consequences of self-image, status, or career. It can be defined as a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking. In psychologically safe teams, team members feel accepted and respected.

Psychological safety fails when:

• You have to hide a part of yourself away to be accepted by a group, because not doing so causes members of the group to treat your differently, or other you.

• Asking a question is met with hostility, condescension, or suspicion. Autistic people tend to ask a lot of questions, because the why of things is important. It’s not a challenge.

• Raising issues or concerns is met with criticism, negative consequences.

• Attempts to participate in activities or offer new ideas are shutdown.

• Attempts to communicate issues, or articulate your needs are not taken seriously, or are met with negative consequences, or treated like some kind of special favour.

• Someone is treated as if they are not trusted, not up to the task. (see guard-railing).

• You don’t feel safe enough to even express that you don’t feel safe.

• You feel unseen and unacknowledged.

Psychological safety underpins belonging, and psychological safety (and it’s measure) sits with the person only.

We cannot tell others to feel safe.

Our actions and interactions create safety, whether as peers or leaders.

My thoughts on what makes me feel that I belong

In the end, this for me describes the nexus at which I feel I belong somewhere. I’m not saying this is true for everyone, but this is where I’ve arrived at. It’s still doesn’t quite articulate for me how complex the interplay is for these concepts.

They feed into each other.

We all need some introspection, and empathy, and to always evaluate whether or not we are creating a space where everyone can belong.

Belonging isn’t selective, or predicated on shape-shifting to fit in, or not rocking the boat. It isn’t a product of who we know, of time served, or of experience level.

It’s absolutely a product of fairness, non-conditional inclusion and trust that we are valued as human beings, with all that brings to the table.