book.chapter Cultivate belonging

High performing teams feel like a tight-knit family, not just an organization. Team members feel they belong and connect deeply, with a chemistry binding them together. They have confidence their teammates support them. To build great teams, foster safety and belonging. We may assume packing talent together ensures collaboration. Peter Skillman, a designer and engineer, tested this idea. He instructed several four-person teams, including university students, lawyers, managers, and kindergarteners, to build the tallest structure possible from given materials. The adults strategized by examining materials, brainstorming ideas, identifying the approach with most potential, and executing the best idea. The kindergarteners grabbed materials and started building, standing close together, abruptly taking items if they saw better uses. Their technique was "trying stuff together." We might expect the adults to excel, but actually the business students averaged structures under ten inches tall, while the kindergarteners consistently hit twenty-six inches. As Daniel Coyle explains, "We focus on visible individual skills. But skills don't matter. Interaction matters." The kindergarteners outperformed by working together better, not greater individual talent. Teams' magic comes from this collaboration. When MIT's Human Dynamics Lab analyzed successful teams, most described themselves as "families," not teams. Great teams share almost addictive chemistry. A Navy SEAL said, "Things just feel right...These guys are my brothers." Researchers identified five factors driving families' belonging, present in effective teams. Summarized: everyone feels safe and connected, able to contribute with respected input. There's no formula for building safety, but patterns to recognize. Overcommunicate listening with full attention. Share fallibility, especially as a leader, inviting education. Embrace messengers of bad news or criticism, needing their honesty. Give sneak previews of future connections, firing people to work harder later. Effusively thank privately and publicly, igniting cooperative behavior. Have demanding hiring processes assessing fit, contribution and performance. Eliminate bad apples fast with low tolerance for unrealistic self-assessments. Create collision-rich spaces for hanging out and ideas. Ensure all have a voice through inclusive meetings and reviews. Pick up trash, as leaders at McDonald's and UCLA did, signaling "we're all in this together." Capitalize on threshold moments, like new hires at Pixar asked to sit with directors, told "we need your help." Avoid sandwich feedback confusing negatives and positives. Above all, embrace fun, the most fundamental signal of safety. High performance cultures are energized, not happy, focused on solving problems together. Leaders must deliver tough feedback without dissent. Researchers found "magical feedback" for boosting performance: "I'm giving you this feedback because I believe in you." This signals: you are critical to this special group with high standards we expect you to reach, and this is a safe place for your best work alongside others seeking the same. As Coyle explains, "Belonging happens from the outside in. Our social brains light up receiving almost-invisible cues: We are close, we are safe, we share a future." Creating safety means delivering targeted signals at key points. We assume performance correlates with verbal intelligence and communicating complex ideas. But words are noise. Performance depends on behavior communicating: we are safe and connected. As Coyle summarizes: "Embrace Fun. Laughter...is the most fundamental sign of safety and connection."