Five Crucial Actions That Build Unity And Foster Performance

“Given the research-validated outcomes and demonstrated financial impact belonging offers, organizations should make cultivating belonging a personal leadership imperative across the world,” says Brad Deutser, author of the new book, Belonging Rules: Five Crucial Actions That Build Unity and Foster Performance. 

Furthermore, belonging predicts job satisfaction, engagement, and effort over and above employee’s perceptions of organizational culture or strategy, explains Deutser. 

So, what exactly is belonging? It’s: 

• Belonging is where we hold space for something of shared importance. It is where we come together on values, purpose, and identity; a space of acceptance where agreement is not required but a shared framework is understood; where there is an invitation into the space; and intentional choice to take part in; something vital to a sense of connection, security and acceptance. 

As you read the book, you’ll discover vital information about the five Belonging Rules: 

1. Turn into the power. Meet the demand for direct and intentional forays into the heart of power structures, forces, and accepted traditions.
2. Listen without labels. Hear what is spoken without judgement while engaging the unspoken with humanity and heart.
3. Choose identity over purpose. Create an ecosystem that recognizes both the complexity as well as the wholeness of identity, which defines the space for inclusion.
4. Challenge everything. Promote an open environment for inquiry, free of conflict, devoid of oppositional energy, and driven by a positive spirit of curiosity.
5. Demand 100% of the truth. Reject the more typical 80% of the trust in modern business, and instead require 100% of the truth 100% of the time. 

While employing the five rules within your business/organization, Deutser recommends you also master these critical leadership competencies: 

• Being mindful
• Demonstrating courage and grit
• Recognizing potential
• Communicating effectively
• Building relationships
• Displaying interpersonal savvy
• Learning from experience
• Navigating ambiguity
• Displaying creativity
• Inspiring Others
• Thinking strategically
• Leading change
• Embracing positivity

Brad Deutser 

Today, Deutser shares these additional insights with us: 

Question: Why is the business of belonging an imperative that every leader needs to understand? 

Deutser: Organizations are made up of people. Regardless of how fractured business focus can become, people are at the center of everything that brings business success. There is a fundamental human need to feel connected to others and the depth and quality of that connection initiates and fosters unity. 

Employees are demanding more, and they want leadership to be held accountable. Many business leaders are struggling with the rapidity of this shift. As I worked with hundreds of leaders in organizations large and small, across industries and with very different business models, I began to construct an approach that would both create and ensure belonging. That structure became The Belonging Rules. 

The recent groundbreaking study by the team behind Deutser's Institute for Belonging, incorporating the perspectives of nearly 15,000 employees, crystallizes this sentiment. Our results overwhelmingly indicate that an employee's sense of belonging outstrips both their perception of organizational culture and their salary as key determinants of engagement, satisfaction, and overall performance. 

Previously, employers believed the inverse to be true. As leaders, we’ve seen a decades long placement of culture and strategy at the top - but it is belonging that really drives performance. This is a significant shift in the attitudes of the workforce. 

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.