Everyone within a company plays a role in culture and one of the most important things things they can do for the positive is to create a sense of belonging.  In fact belonging is so important that our brains equate potential social rejection to the same level as potential death.  I think that is astounding and has a myriad of negative consequences if we do not tend to our teams need for acceptance and belonging.

I shared an excerpt from Daniel Coyle’s book; Culture Code today:

The key to creating psychological safety is to recognize how deeply obsessed our unconscious brains are with it.  A mere hint of belonging is not enough; one or two signals are not enough.  We are built to require lots of signaling, over and over.  This is why a sense of belonging is easy to destroy and hard to build.  The dynamic evokes the words of Texas politician Sam Rayburn: “Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.”

My challenge to the team this morning was to think about what they can do to create belonging for their co-workers - Not just once, but on a consistent basis.  Creating that feeling can’t just fall on my shoulders or the executive team. For our team to truly feel safe and create a culture where people feel like they belong, it requires everyone to participate.

Last night at our annual Lip Sync Battle (Yes! we do a company Lip Sync Battle, which we’ll talk about at another time), Lewis Shingleton, one of our party pilots, reflected on the fact that four years ago at the Footers Lip Sync Battle, he dressed in drag for the first time.  He has now gone on to win multiple contests and is a very successful Drag Queen here in Denver.  He credited the environment at Footers that allowed him to take a risk and he was grateful that he was accepted for who he was by his fellow team members.

Lewis “LuLu” Shingleton

“For our team to truly feel safe and create a culture where people feel like they belong, it requires everyone to participate.”

I’m proud of our sense of belonging that we have here at Footers.  Like most things though, if you don’t tend to it, it can go away very quickly and there is always opportunity for it to improve.  So todays message was a reminder for us to think about what we can all do to create more safety and belonging for our team.  Hopefully this sparks you to ask yourself; What can you do within your organization to make your co-workers feel like they belong?

*Each week I share a leadership message with our team and we are honored to share it with you via MIBE Tribe.  MIBE (the acronym for Make It Better Everyday) Tribe delivers education on heart leadership and intentional culture building for the hospitality industry.