At the start of any event I lead, I will tell participants that their most important goal is to make their companions’ enjoyment their priority. I say – ‘you are responsible for other people wanting to be here; honouring that is the most important task you have’. The goal is to delegate the responsibility of others’ enjoyment. Ultimately, it is people’s job in a group to make others feel they belong.
When people feel wanted within a group, they are more likely to be their best self. This applies to colleagues in the workplace as much as companions within a team-based game. When they feel unwanted, they are more likely to show their worst traits, and to eventually (or suddenly) leave. As a result, anything that increases people’s sense of feeling valued in a team will not only lead to individuals wanting to stay in that team, but to them working more productively and creatively.
The benefits of belonging
Belonging is a primal need for humans – if we feel as if we’re part of a group or system that does not want us, it is an existential crisis that we have to manage as a matter of near (or total) emergency. Abraham Maslow, in his famous Hierarchy of Needs, placed social belonging as the third most critical human need, trumped only by the need for survival and the need for safety.
Harry Harlow somewhat contradicted Maslow by escalating the importance of belonging. In his experiment, hungry baby monkeys chose between moving toward wire mesh models of monkeys holding bottles of milk, or fluffy, realistic replicas of their mother. In effect, the monkeys were being forced to choose between survival or love. The monkeys significantly preferred the latter, valuing a sense of belonging over their need to survive.
Daniel Coyle, in his book Culture Code, puts the importance of belonging above all else in terms of its impact on a team’s efficiency. In a shocking experiment, he shows how teams of primary school children could outperform groups of lawyers, teachers or scientists in terms of their ability to act effectively as a team. Coyle put this down to the children’s lack of need to do what he terms as ‘status management’. In other words, the children don’t know enough about status and groups to worry about losing their place. Instead, they focus on the task, and outstrip their seniors as a result.
How you can make others feel wanted
It is tempting to think that making others feel like they belong is a simple task, maybe even one that you’re inherently capable of. While that is somewhat true, it still needs work. Here are some of the ways in which one can include others while in a group setting:
- Be Intimate. Sitting closer to people, making eye contact with them, addressing them and using their name are all obvious ways in which you can increase intimacy. This includes physical touch. Intimacy comes with the risk of overstepping, which is much of why it has such a powerful effect upon others. With positive physical closeness comes the message that ‘I’m prepared to take a risk with you’. You are prepared to enter into a physical level of relating because you are confident that interactions will be consensual and welcome.
- Be Influenced by them. Or more importantly, don’t conceal how they influence you. If you find a joke of theirs funny, laugh. If you find an action of theirs problematic, voice it. If you agree with a sentiment or proposal of theirs, show support. One of the most primal needs that people have is to feel that they can have an impact on the world. And one of the worst things we can do to another human is deny them impact upon us.
- Give them airtime. Avoid anything that closes down how much that person is the focus of the group. This includes interrupting that looks to divert or close down someone’s train of conversation (opposed to positive interrupting, where you build upon what the other is saying). Also avoid monologuing; if you find yourself talking at length, then you are likely trying to inhale space from others. Rarely do long explanations lead to more understanding in the listener.
- Make ‘em Laugh. Humour is one of the most powerful ways in which people bond. Having someone in a group that causes laughter and fun is one of the best ways to make people feel close and included. Of course, this doesn’t include humour that has a victim, which works to the opposite effect.
The impact of not belonging
Earlier we mentioned ‘status management’. This is a term used by Coyle to describe what is more commonly known as crab bucket mentality. That is, the situation whereby people become so concerned to make sure that they don’t end up at the bottom of the bucket that they simultaneously climb atop one another, push each other under and all fail to make progress.
When a member of a group starts to feel at risk of not belonging, they will scrabble to gain ground over others. In team and work settings, this often manifests as them forcing opinions and ideas on the group; not to move issues forward, but to appear valuable. They begin to lose focus on the goal. A confusing aspect of this behaviour is that, in a room where many people are jostling for the airspace and credit, it can disguise itself as a productive meeting.
A more desperate tactic for rejected members is to reject those they feel are rejecting them. You can do this by inverting the belonging rules above – by not addressing people, sitting far from them, not responding when they talk, leaving them out of jokes and humour and working to take focus onto yourself. At worst, people who feel a fear of losing their place in a group will turn to fight or flight behaviour; threatening others, or leaving entirely.
In turn, these behaviours spark a fear of not belonging in the other, and a downward cycle begins. Once we are on the descent in a group, we start to become worse versions of ourselves. We become less productive, less creative, more rejecting and basically less likeable.
We have all had the experience of not liking someone else within a team. This is one of the biggest challenges of being with others – how do you employ inclusive behaviours with someone that you don’t want to include? Next time you encounter this feeling, consider this – what if this difficult person is being difficult because they feel unsafe within the group? What if the behaviours you’re seeing are the result of their own fears, and not representative of them at their best?
It would be a long shot to say that you can make poeple like you solely by making them feel included. Sometimes a sense of being rejected runs so deep within a person that they will keep their defences no matter how much work you do to include them. Nonetheless, the bottom line is that people are more likely to be welcoming and more productive if you show them care and attention. Counter-rejecting will only worsen the situation.
How a leader fosters belonging
I say leader here, and not manager. Partly because I want to include contexts such as games and friendship groups, and partly because I feel that anyone can lead, whereas managing is a bestowed role (a role that involves leadership, when done well).
In a group, a leader focuses on ensuring others feel safe. That doesn’t mean rescuing them, or directing them, or telling them that they are safe. It involves the behaviours above. The step beyond that leaders should take is holding the rest of the group accountable for each other’s sense of belonging.
Hence, when I run games and events such as those at GetQuesting, I give people the initial challenge – you must work to make everyone else feel wanted. Reinforcing this rule is constant work from the start. When a leader sees cliques and rifts within a group, they should work to address them through the people involved. Notice I do not call out disputes here – conflict doesn’t indicate rejection, just the risk of rejection. Non-threatening conflict is a healthy sign of people feeling like there is a chance that the other person can be reasoned with and is worth reasoning with.
Reflections on ourselves within groups
We have all experienced a group setting in which we felt at risk of losing our position, or felt hopeless at the prospect of never being included. We likewise have all encountered others facing the same existential fears, and no doubt struggled with their ensuing behaviours. With this in mind, consider the following questions:
- What are the good behaviours I show when I feel wanted by a group?
- What are the less helpful behaviours I show when I feel rejected in a group?
- Who do I know that is likely feeling rejected in a group I’m part of?
- What could I do to help them feel more included?
Keeping these questions in mind, you should start to see a better side of the people that you work or play alongside. With enough people pulling in the same direction, those groups and teams will work better, do more, be more creative and, most importantly, care more.
References
Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370–396.
Harlow, H. F. (1958). The nature of love. American Psychologist, 13(12), 673–685.
Coyle, D. (2018). The culture code: The secrets of highly successful groups. New York: Bantam Books.
GetQuesting
If you are in the south of England and interested in having GetQuesting run an event for your team or friends, then visit the booking page to let us know!