I hope you're enjoying the conference so far. I'll tell you that I certainly am. Good, Nandini. I'm glad. I hope I pronounced your name correctly.I have 18 after the hour. We'll get started in two minutes. Make yourself comfortable. Feel free to stretch a little bit if you'd like. Shake out your brain and your your body, and we'll get started in just a minute. If you are just joining us, I've invited folks to share the emoji that best describes the kind of day you've been having so far or the kind of day you had. I've had a great day so far. Thank you. Welcome, everybody. We are gonna get started in just about a minute. I've got 20 after the hour. I'm gonna gonna give folks about thirty more seconds.

If you have just joined us and have not yet shared, I will invite you to share the emoji that best reflects the kind of day you've been having so far. And I shared a big smiley emoji with with heart to eyes because it has been a great day for me so far. Let's go ahead and get started. I wanna start by asking you A question. Alright. I'm gonna give you about fifteen seconds to bring to mind a person in your personal network who is checked out. And as you do that, I'm gonna give you fifteen seconds, And I want to make sure that you're seeing the slide that has the counter on it. Alright, thank you. I love that little, yay. Alright. Just bring that person to mind. Now I wanna know, and you can respond in chat, how is it that you know that that person is checked out?

What is it you're seeing them do or hearing them do or not do that lets you know that they have checked out? Yes. They're constantly on the phone. They're unavailable. They are declining meetings or just not even responding. They're not there. They're not giving you attention. They're not paying attention. They're forgetful. They are not motivated to to, deliver results. Yeah. They're unsupportive and or they're not asking for support? Absolutely. Now I will say that I'm I'm not proud to say, but, I will say that there was a time in my professional career when that person was me that absolutely described me. And I'm gonna stop sharing for just a moment because I've shared too many windows. Whoops. Stop sharing that. There we go. So there was a time in my career when that person was me.

I joined this organization as their first global leadership position, and I used my best people skills to connect with the people I worked with. But I left that job after a year because I was never able to, to create relationships and and, join the circles that were really well designed, really, really well with, really well established with thick walls. And I left that position after an after a year feeling like a complete failure because I was never able to achieve what I had been brought on board to produce. Now what happened in that case was I by the time my colleagues figured out that working with me was gonna improve their professional life and the life of our clients, our software clients, I was the one that was completely disengaged. I was the one who was unsupported. I was the one who was no longer motivated to or driven to produce results. And peep that what happens when people are checked out is they either remain silent, as you've mentioned in chat, or if they are speaking, they are the loud ones that are sharing stuff that is not at all helpful.

That was my I was the silent one, but these are some of the consequences when there is not a strong sense of belonging and when there is a strong sense of disengagement in organizations, there are some real, real consequences. I got interested in identifying the positive benefits when there is a strong sense of belonging in an organization's culture. I want you to think about what think about teams that you are a part of or that you have been a part of in the past where you felt that strong sense of camaraderie, of community, of connection with your colleagues. There those are some real tangible, positive results. But there are also organizational, team, product, and personal consequences or costs when there is not a strong sense of belonging. And that's what, what we just talked about. Based on the the, really negative, draining, disruptive experience that I had in that organization, I got interested in what behaviors build a sense of belonging, and I went in search of that answer.

What I found was that there is a really, personal definition of belonging that, that we all have our own personal definition. So I came up with, a definition based on all of the research that I have, that I have consumed in search of the answer. I came up with this definition of belonging. Belonging is an outcome. It is it results in a sense of security and support, and those are what, what results when we feel welcomed in an environment, when we feel like when employees feel like what their contributions are, the, skills that they have, and the time that they sacrifice, are valued by their peers, by their leaders, and by the organization.

And that's what happens when we feel accepted, whether we are introverted or out or, extroverted, whether regardless of what it is that we contribute, we are accepted for what we contribute, and as a result we feel safe being who we are and contributing what, what we can as part of something meaningful that is bigger than us.

Right now, in my experience, because belonging is something is a construct that it's an emotion that we at once it's a universal, sense that we all can relate to, but it's also something we experience individually. I'm curious what what you would add to that definition, and I'll send you over to the chat window. What would you add to this definition of belonging to make it resonate with you? Think about times when you have felt like you belonged. What would you add to this definition? And go ahead and put it in chat. What I often hear from the the organizations I work with is if they someone feels trusted is a common common addition to this definition. Yeah, we're not dreading. Exactly. We're not dreading those interactions because we we do feel seen. We do feel we are seen.

We are heard for for who we are and what we have to say. Yeah, that not dreading, going into meetings. Yes, there is acknowledgment. We are on the receiving end of acknowledgment. We also, acknowledge others. When our contributions are, are valued, they're asked for, they're really listened to, and they're seen as valuable. And when we belong exactly, yes, when we belong, we have our own sense of belonging, we are much more able to feel like we belong in larger settings or in in varied settings. Yes, you all are are on the the money. What I found in, as I searched for the answers of what creates a sense of belonging in organizational cultures, I in my search for answers, I devoured all of the research I could find on on, what contributes to culture, engagement, and belonging. And it turns out that that that list of behaviors is a mile wide. It's really wide and really long.

But what emerged from that really long list are three themes that contribute to a sense of belonging. The first theme is that for employees to feel a sense of belonging in a workplace, we need to feel connected to the people we work with and to the organization we are contributing our skills and our talents to. That's the first theme. The second theme that emerged is that for employees to feel a sense of belonging, we need to feel respected. We have talents, we have skills, and we need to know that our colleagues and our leaders respect them. And the third thing that that, emerged from the research is that for employees to feel a sense of belonging, we need to feel protected. We are protected when we feel comfortable.

There is a level of trust, mutual trust, and deep relationships that support each other where we are, and essentially it puts into motion that entire definition of belonging that we just created. So for me, my search for answers and what behaviors build a sense of belonging was really important for me as a woman who was working in with software companies. While I'm not an engineer, I worked with engineers and others in, in software companies. It was really important for me as as often I was one of the few women at the table feeling for me to feel, a sense of belonging, I absolutely needed to feel connected, respected, and protected. So for me, landing in this foundation was really helpful, but it led to my next question because I wanted to get down I wanted to get beyond theory and construct to the behaviors. What are the actual behaviors that build a sense of belonging?

So I once I landed on these three themes, I went in search of, of answers to what behaviors help us feel connected, what help us feel con respected, and what helps us feel protected. Again, I couldn't find those answers, so I started doing research myself. I developed a survey that simply asks you, asks audiences, what's one thing that makes you feel connected to the people you work with? What makes you feel respected? What makes you feel, protected? So my research consists of a of a an anonymous survey that gathers, answers, asks several questions. But my research is also incorporating interviews because I wanna have I'm continuing to have ongoing conversations with people to dive deeper into what's going on in their environment in the situations where they do feel like they belong. And similarly, what's what's going on in their environment when they in situations where they don't feel like they belong?

To date, I have over 4,000 survey responses to what helps people feel connected, respected, and protected. So finally getting to behaviors that we could see, that I could see, was gold. These 4,000 survey responses are absolute gold because these were finally the behaviors that lead to people feeling connected, respected, and protected. My organizational work in the book that I published in January 2024 provides solutions for how to bring about those behaviors a little more often. And it turns out that like like, my my own thinking and maybe your thinking too, we tend to think that for us to help other people feel like they belong, we've got to do something really, complex, really far outside our comfort zone, possibly something expensive and something time consuming.

But the survey responses, the behaviors that build a sense of belonging, are actually really simple, and I'll prove it to you or share some some evidence with you. I recently worked with, with a biotech company, and we administered the the survey in house. And as, as I met with the senior leaders to go through the the themes that we saw in the survey responses, one of the survey responses was was this. The, the respondents said, I feel more connected to my leaders when you come talk to me in person instead of just sending me an email. I'm right down the hall. It would mean a lot to me if you came to speak with me. Alright. So what I did with the leaders is we brainstormed what we could do to make to spark this behavior, the come talk to me in person, instead of sending me an email.

We, we sparked we brainstormed and crowdsourced what leaders could do. And in this case, I invite you to to share and chat what you might do if one of your colleagues or one of the people that you lead, or somebody that, that you, that one of your leaders, what could you do to spark this behavior? In the conversation that I had with the leaders, we, summarized that one of the leaders said decided that she was gonna make a commitment to, at least once a day, she was going to see someone in person instead of sending them an email. Alright? So she made a personal commitment to not change her complete schedule. She didn't have to come in early or stay late or change the days that she came into the office. She made a personal commitment, small behavior. This isn't this spark.

First of all, the behavior on the left is an example of simple behaviors that create connection, and the behavior on the right making a commitment to see people to once a day going to see someone in person, is also a small behavior. Small sparks generate huge impact. So this is an example of what what, the response that can have a tremendous impact in helping others feel important and cared for. So we're gonna, dive into each of these three themes, and we'll talk a little bit more about the specific behaviors and ways that we can spark those behaviors. So the first is connected. For employees to feel a sense of belonging, we need to feel connected to the people we work with and to the organization we work with. I'll send you into the chat window. I want want you to think about what's one thing that contributes to you feeling connected to the people you work with? K?

Whether whether you work with them, you're co located in an office space or, work with them virtually. What's one thing that makes you feel connected to the people you work with? And we're gonna keep it just to the chat window. Yes, Melody, when we celebrate milestones together like birthdays, anniversaries, like work anniversaries, Yeah. When we get to to chat about stuff. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. When we get to have one on one talks. Yes. Keep them coming. It turns out that for employees to feel connected, we feel connected to the people we work with when we feel seen, you know, when we are not invisible. And sometimes that's the outcome of when we have one on one conversations or when we get to to celebrate milestones. We feel connected when we feel heard.

That means that we we have a voice, and we know that when we use our voice that people are actually really listening. And we feel connected when we when we see that the people we work with are interested in us as human beings, not solely as employees or colleagues or leaders or direct reports. So of the 4,000 survey responses, here are three common responses to, to what makes us feel connected to our leaders or our colleagues. Of the 4,000 responses, here are three. People say that I feel connected to the people I work with when they ask me how I'm doing. I feel connected to the people I work with when we spend time talking about our work, our lives outside of work. And when we've had some of those conversations, I feel connected to the people I I work with when they bring up something, this week that we talked about last week.

They remember that my daughter had a soccer game, or they remember that I was going to see a movie, over the weekend. What, what do you think the the, asterisk is for means for the first one? You can respond to that in chat. The asterisk there is me is a an indicator that we have to genuinely ask the question. It's not a performative, don't really mean it kind of question where you ask how you doing and then keep walking. So, these are three simple things that that help us create a sense of connection to the people we work with. And I will tell you that from the 4,000 survey responses, that that number two response when we talk about lives outside of work, is the number one response across all industries, across the entire world of responses when we spend some time talking about our lives outside of work.

Alright? And and maybe it's not even our lives, but it's when we spend time talking about non work stuff. So here are three, ways that we can spark a stronger sense of connection. These are the behaviors that we can implement, and I I invite you to think about this with the different audiences that you interact with, in your day. You whether it is particularly with the, with the women that you work with, whether they are more, regardless of where they are in their career and regardless of where you are in your career, invite someone to join you for a short break, whether it is a get up and and shake things out kind of break to step away from your desk, Maybe it's a lunch break, maybe it's a coffee break, maybe it's just a mental break.

So you can invite someone that you don't know very well or even someone you do know well, to to take a break with you and during that break you can talk about non work stuff. Spark number two to connect is is, you know that that awkwardness when you walk into a physical conference room or meeting room and you don't know where to sit? You can alleviate that awkwardness for someone by simply doing it, hey, how are you? You wanna sit next to me? Even if they they decline, but you've you've made that invitation. In a virtual room, if you are entering a virtual room, send a just send a chat message, either unmute and verbally say a hello or send a chat message telling them hello, acknowledging someone in the virtual space. The third way that we can connect with others is to say thank you, for something, anything that someone has done to help you recently.

So these are our three simple behaviors that we can spark a stronger sense of connection, and these can play specific in, increased importance and impact for the, for the women that we work with to create that stronger sense of connection. I invite you to think about which one might be which of these three sparks might be most doable for you today and you can either respond with the number in chat or you can you can shorten, just add a break. Which one might be most doable for you today? We got some threes, we got some twos. Twos and threes seem to be the winners. Good. Alright. Well, oh, we got a one in there. Good. Alright. Wonderful. Well, I invite you to, take a screenshot of that, and I invite you to I challenge you to, to give it a shot. For employees to feel a sense of belonging, we need to feel connected to the people we work with.

They all we also need to feel respected by our peers and by our leaders. I invite you to respond in chat. What's something that makes you feel respected in your work circle? What's one thing, whether it's a peer, doesn't matter who it is, but what what, leads to using, wow, I feel really respected here, And put that answer in chat. Yeah. When I feel appreciated. When someone says thank you and and you know that you that they let you know that you were helpful. Yes. When there are shout outs or kudos, when somebody compliments you or thanks you for your your, performance or your contribution. Yes, Laura. A smile. How much does it take to smile? When they listen, yes. They ask for your thoughts, your views, and they listen to them. Exactly. Yes.

When some yes, Melody, when we are are given the opportunity to, to use our voice and we're not spoken over, yes. Look at the the responses in chat. These are the simple things that help us feel respected, and we can do this for each other in, in our workspaces. And I I love the theme of how simple the behaviors are that help us feel respected. We feel respected when when we feel acknowledged for the contributions that we make, recognized for the contributions we are we are acknowledged at that we even exist. That's the smile. That's the thank you. We feel respected when, when someone expresses appreciation for what we do, for, for our contribution, and we feel respected when we feel valued.

You all hit this, with your your very own responses. When we feel that what we contribute and the skills that we have are seen as valued by our peers, by our leaders, and by the organization. Of, the 4,000 survey responses, here are three common responses to what helps other people around the world feel respected in their work communities. I feel respected when somebody asks for my advice. You all have responded. Your responses reflect these. I feel respected when somebody asks for my opinion or for my advice. I feel, respected when I'm invited to give input because my colleagues know or my leaders know the skills and the experience that I have, and they see it as useful, as helpful. And I feel respected by my colleagues, by my peers when they say thank you, when they express appreciation.

So here are three ways that we can spark those behaviors: helping others feel acknowledged, appreciated, and valued. One of the the best things we can do is to give someone our undivided attention. This means, this means closing down putting away our phone and not looking at it. It means closing down our email while we're in a virtual meeting or in a in a, face to face meeting. Giving someone your undivided, undistracted attention is such a powerful thing to be able to do. Another way we can help others feel appreciated, acknowledged, and valued is in a meeting.

This is something that we can all do for each other, is to point out a piece of somebody's recommendation and and highlight it. Oh, you know what? What I I really like about Melody's suggestion is this because I really think that hits the nail on the head or really taps into what what the client said that, they were looking for. So we can make a a point to agree with or highlight or, pull out and, draw attention to a even a part of someone's recommendation or perspective idea, that and and lend credence and support to it. Another way that we can spark, spark others feeling acknowledged and appreciated is to ask someone for their advice or to ask someone for their perspective about something you're dealing with, whether it's work related or not, because that helps us feel helpful and useful as, as some of you have have highlighted.

I will say that, the the spark number two, the pointing out a viable piece of someone's recommendation, I have, this story that where this piece of advice, this spark incredibly transformed a leader. What happened was there was a leader who had worked with a team, and had worked for an organization for a really long time. He had been there for for, I wanna say, eighteen years. So he had an a a huge amount of experience. What happened in his team meetings is his direct reports would would, make recommendations or would would propose ideas. And given his experience, his intention was to focus his team's energy by, by helping them, focus on what could work as opposed to what couldn't work. So while he was intending to be helpful, what he ended up doing was shooting down, parts of everyone's per perspective and recommendations.

While he was trying to be helpful, he ended up silencing his team because nobody wanted to put forth an idea because they figured he would just shoot it down. I worked with this leader to help transform his to shift his mindset going into his meetings, both with his peers and with his direct reports. I encouraged him to listen intently to every, to everything that was said during the meeting with the goal of finding at least one thing that he could highlight that, that, in a positive way and, express support for this idea. He struggled with this with this mindset, but as he eventually gained momentum and built the muscle to be able to do that, he started voicing positive feedback about the ideas his team and his peers were sharing. And gradually, his team and his peers started sharing more, and it it shifted. It shifted the entire relationship within his team and his relationship with his peers. So I because we were able to focus on the impact of him giving positive feedback about something, the people he worked with began to become more willing to use their voice when he was present.

Alright. I'm curious which, which one of these might be most doable for you today. Realize that it's subject subject to change. And Indira, I hope that the transformed leader story I just shared, was helpful for you. Good. We've got ones and twos. Yeah. Giving someone your most your undivided attention. Oh, love it. Wonderful. Great. Thank you, Stephanie. I'm so glad you you asked someone for advice. Third theme, for employees to feel a sense of belonging. That sense of belonging is influenced by how protected we feel, and, and that's when there are trusted mutual relationships. Employees feel protected. We feel protected when there is a sense that decisions are being made fairly and that people are being treated fairly. We also feel for us to feel protected, we need to trust that there is transparency, not necessarily a 100% transparency, particularly in in the growing uncertainty in many organizations, but when there is trust, we can trust, mutually, we can trust that you are being as transparent as you can given the situation, and there is trust that decisions are being made fairly and that everyone is being as transparent as possible.

All three of these characteristics work very closely together. Now in the research that I did in searching for answers of what behaviors help us feel protected, I first asked, what makes you feel protected in a work setting? And people really struggled to to respond, to tap into what makes me feel protected. But they would often say, I can tell you what makes me feel unprotected or vulnerable. And so that's actually the question I went with, and the results, the insights are fascinating. Here are three common responses from the the 4,000 dataset of what makes us feel unprotected, or vulnerable in a work situation.

When there's no grace, when I make a mistake and there is no I feel like there is no room for mistakes and nobody had, supports me in a mistake, or if somebody talks down to me or speaks disrespectfully to me and nobody says anything, or when I I feel unprotected and vulnerable, when I'm excluded from conversations that might affect my priorities, my goals, my projects, Not that I necessarily need to be involved in all of the those conversations, but I want to have a voice.

I wanna be seen. I wanna be heard. I wanna be acknowledged in at least one or two conversations that may affect my work. So here are three things that we can do to spark others' view, demonstrating creating a sense of fairness, transparency, and mutual trust. The first one is is a is a doozy, but we can model, transparency by being the first to to model being vulnerable by sharing something. And a lot of the work that I do with organizations, particularly with women's leadership, groups within organizations, is crowdsourcing how we can choose something to share, how we can model vulnerability without and balancing that with not wanting to come across as weak or unprepared.

So that's it's a wonderful discussion to have about how we can choose how we can examine and choose things that are appropriate to share that will model transparency, but still take us just a little bit outside our comfort zone to model that, without, without taking huge steps outside our comfort zone.

Spark number two to help create a stronger sense of protection and psychological safety is for the if you have colleagues that are remote, whether you are remote or or not. But if you have, colleagues that are remote, you can be intentional about bringing up their name, their ideas, their achievements, their contributions. Again, whether you are remote or not, we can all work together to raise, presence and to help keep each other front of mind in the rooms where we aren't present. And third way we can protect others, in terms of fairness and, and trust is to honor each other's work and home boundaries. Last time, I will ask which of these, might work for you today. One, two, or three. Yeah. Alright. Love it. All of them are represented. There's not a bad one, not a bad one to choose. Wonderful. Well, I hope that these are sparking ideas for you.

I got into this work because of my own experience, in when I felt like I I had high such high hopes going into this organization to make a positive impact, and I left feeling miserable and feeling like a failure. The re re the the research that I've been doing has helped identify the behaviors that can help all of us feel respected, all of us feel connected, and all of us feel safe, regardless of where we are in an organization. What I often say is that we think that, while we think that we must do something that is complicated, complex, like a gourmet meal, provide someone with a gourmet five course gourmet meal to make them feel like they are part of our community when really something as simple as a grilled cheese sandwich, and whatever might be a really simple appetizer or can of soup kind of, kind of, meal to share with someone, is what can actually help make other people feel like they belong.

I will keep an eye on questions and comments, and any questions or comments that I don't respond to in the window, I will gladly reach out to you separately, or please feel free to reach out to me directly, and I will answer your question or respond to your comments. I'll wrap up with a story, about a woman named Kendra who was fascinated with her she discovered throughout the program that I did with her organization that she had really complicated. She realized that she had that five course gourmet meal thinking, about what she had to do to help her colleagues feel like they belong. But she realized through the program that we did and the conversations that happened in that room that it really is simple behaviors that create can create a strong sense of belonging. And when that strong sense of belonging is there, we can benefit from the we experience the positive impact, that positive energy when we all feel like we belong. I'll invite you to put in the chat window what one of your biggest takeaways from today is.

I will also share that, I have a best selling book that goes into much more detail about what I just shared with you. It was published in 2024. It's available in many of your common bookstores, and the audiobook is about to come out. It's on some platforms and is coming on to, Audible very shortly. I'll also invite, I share a monthly newsletter that you can read in a minute or less. My idea my intent with the newsletter is to give you an email that you can open, read, and then move on and implement. So it doesn't go in your to do or to read at some future date. And then lastly, if you are interested, you can, give me a little bit of feedback, and you can receive this download that gives you even more ideas that you can use to generate, to connect, respect, and protect the people that you work with.

Alright. And if any of you do not have, do not didn't miss the QR code, please feel free to reach out to me directly, and I will gladly share the QR code with you. And with that, I will wrap up with I got into this work because I don't want anyone to feel like I felt when I left that organization. We can work together with simple behaviors, the grilled cheese kind of behaviors, to spark strong sense of belonging with the people, the people that we work with. Thank you all for being with me today. I will gladly, I'll put my email my email addresses on the screen. Please connect with me on LinkedIn. Reach out to me directly. I will gladly respond to your questions and your comments. Enjoy the rest of the conference with me. Thank you all. Thank you.