Belong Without Blending In

I recently rushed from work to attend an evening dinner event. As I arrived, I was surprised to see people in long, sequinned dresses near the entrance. “What event are they going to so dressed up?”, I wondered. As I entered, I realised it was the same event as me, full of other equally glamorous people in long gowns.

Looking down at my own creased trousers I felt a little awkward for a moment, then introduced myself to the person next to me. “I love a black tie dress code! Isn’t it fun to dress up for a change?!” she smiled. What dress code? I felt like the kid who’d forgotten it was fancy dress and had turned up in jeans.

I ran through my available options: 1) Leave. 2) Do an hour’s round trip to change 3) Suck it up. As I landed on option 3 my mindset shifted. So what? My outfit didn’t affect the value I could add. The uneasy feeling that I didn’t belong vanished and I went on to enjoy the rest of my evening.

The Importance of Belonging

When was the last time you entered a room and felt like you didn’t belong?

Perhaps everyone was talking about a subject you knew nothing about, and you felt you had little to contribute. Perhaps you felt you had little in common with others around you, and didn’t know where to start to build a connection. Perhaps, like me, you’d forgotten the dress code or you found yourself in the minority for a reason beyond your control.

Whatever it was, it may have felt painful to be excluded. Our brains don’t discriminate between physical pain and the emotional pain of being left out.

This means the effects of feeling like we don’t belong can, like physical pain, have debilitating consequences.

A BetterUp study conducted in the US showed that people who feel excluded make less of an effort with their team and subsequently get fewer raises and promotions as a result. Given 40% of people surveyed said they felt isolated at work, belonging is a serious problem. And despite the US$8 billion American companies are throwing at the problem each year, the gap doesn’t seem to be closing.

What’s possible when you belong?

The BetterUp study found that individuals who felt a strong sense of belonging in their workplace saw a 56% increase in job performance, enjoyed two times more salary raises and a staggering 18 times more promotions.

It appears that belonging significantly increases our wellbeing and our chances of success, yet company attempts to increase individuals’ senses of belonging are not enough. It’s critical that we seek to improve our feelings of belonging on our own.

What causes a lack of belonging?

For many of us, when we feel we don’t belong, it’s because we believe we are different to everyone else, and we’re conflating belonging with “sameness”. Somehow, when we feel different, we have a different perspective or we can’t discuss the same topic everyone else is raving about, we question our ability to build a rapport.

As humans, we want to add value. This participatory research study found that feeling valued and adding value are the most important aspects to social inclusion.

Whether it’s bringing our opinion to the table or using one of our skills to help someone, if we don’t feel we can meaningfully contribute, we instantly feel out of place. Unlocking the value we can offer in a given situation is key to feeling comfortable with the interaction. And when we’re different to everyone else, it’s harder to put our finger on that added value, because it’s not “more of the same”.

My knowledge of American Football is zero. Put me in a sports bar full of fans screaming at a screen and at first glance, I will not feel I can contribute anything useful. I don’t even understand the rules, what value can I add?

Upon reflection, to name a few: I bring a different energy to the room (some calm in a room full of chaos), I’m great at active listening, so people will feel free to share their passion with me, I’m curious, so I will ignite people’s ‘inner expert’ and give them the opportunity to teach me the ropes and I’m high empathetic, so I’ll likely say the right things to the right people when one half of the room’s team loses.

If I was a committed fan, of which there are already a whole bunch in the room, would the value I add be as powerful? It would surely be diluted — I’m just one of many.

The thing is, if we feel uncomfortable in a room because we’re different, it probably means we have something different to add.

There’s another term for a room full of like-minded people where we feel comfortable: an echo chamber. Embracing what makes us different and having the courage to step out of our own echo chambers is key to adding meaningful value.

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How to add value in uncomfortable situations?

Before you next enter a room where you fear you will feel like an outsider, consider the value exchange. There’s a reason why we put ourselves in any situation, especially an uncomfortable one. Why are you there? What value do you want from this interaction? This helps to frame what you’re looking for and the kinds of questions you need to ask in order to get what you need.

On the flip-side, what can you offer others? Why should they interact with you? When we feel different to others, the answer may not come easily, but each of us has the power to add something no one else can.

The value canvas can help you consider the different areas of value you might add based on your strengths. A Gallup study found that when employees know and use their strengths, they are more engaged, perform better, and are less likely to leave their company — all the same benefits that come from feeling you belong and add value.

Experience

What experience do you have that’s relevant to the topic? This does not need to be limited to direct experience in the same topic under discussion.

A founder of a hydrogen startup recently explained to me that the decades of experience he brought was all in telecommunications. The link? The telecommunications revolution of the past twenty years has a lot in common with today’s energy revolution. He can recognise patterns a hydrogen expert cannot, and can predict where the next big shifts are heading. Of course he has hydrogen experts within his business to support him, but the experience he brings unlocks learnings a subject matter expert may not see.

Skills

What skills do you bring to the table that will help solve the problems up for discussion? We don’t need subject matter expertise or relevant experience to add value. We can bring hard skills such as accounting or project management or soft skills such as empathy or active listening.

These skills are agnostic to the subject matter, adding value no matter the topic. Helen Tupper, author of The Squiggly Career, reminds us that “careers where people jump constantly between roles, industries and locations, are becoming the new normal” — the only way we can thrive is by knowing our “super strengths” and bringing the same skills to the table in a new context.

Knowledge

What do you know that others do not? Thanks to generative AI, we can all bring entry-level knowledge to the table. But where will you be able to share insights relevant to your listeners in a way that adds value to them?

In today’s knowledge-rich world, either this means you have access to data others do not, or you can interpret data in a way others cannot. If you have the knowledge, how will you apply the right filter so you tell listeners only what they need to hear?

Energy

When we enter a room, it’s tempting to try to match the energy of those around us.

There’s no doubt that coming into a room with much more energy than anyone else will feel jarring and may be inappropriate if we lack context. Has anyone else ever burst happily into a room not knowing bad news had been delivered moments earlier?

Yet there’s something very refreshing about a newcomer subtly shifting the energy in a positive direction. This might look like bringing calm to chaos, or bringing excitement and positivity to people’s days. In more serious situations, it might be bringing an appropriate level of gravitas or helping people to reflect and shift their perspective.

If you find yourself feeling uncomfortable in a room because you’re the minority, this might be a particularly strong area to reflect on before entering. Rather than fixating on the fact that your energy doesn’t match everyone else’s, consider how you can use it to make a positive shift.

With the value canvas, the aim of the game is not to be restricted to one of the four quadrants, but to use them all as shortcuts to inspire us with fresh ideas on what we can add in situations where we clam up and feel like we “shouldn’t be there”.

After all, the more different we are to everyone else, the easier it is to add our own unique perspective. And once we get a handle on the value we bring to every table, it’s not so hard to take a seat there anymore.

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