You Belong Here

There are some training sessions where you leave feeling that you have delivered something. And then there are sessions where you leave feeling that you have shared something.

My two recent sessions with colleagues from Zurich Insurance very definitely fell into the second category.

The subject was Creating Respectful & Inclusive Workplace Cultures, beginning with Why Inclusion Matters and the Concepts That Underpin It. But what made both sessions particularly enjoyable was not simply the subject matter. It was the extraordinary level of engagement, curiosity, openness and participation from the people in the room.

And that matters.

Because inclusion cannot really be explored through somebody standing at the front of a room and telling everyone else what they should think or do.

It needs conversation. It needs different perspectives.

It needs people who are prepared to reflect, question, disagree respectfully, share their experiences and sometimes admit that they don't have all the answers.

From fitting in to belonging

We started by thinking about something most of us will have experienced at different points in our lives: belonging and exclusion.

What does it actually feel like to belong?

And what happens to us when we realise that, for whatever reason, we are on the outside?

Those questions led us into some fascinating conversations about insider and outsider dynamics and the often-unwritten rules that exist within groups and organisations.

People who find themselves on the inside may not even notice those rules. They may simply experience the culture as normal.

For somebody on the outside, however, those same rules can be very visible indeed. They may find themselves constantly assessing how to communicate, how to behave, what to reveal and what perhaps needs to be hidden in order to be accepted.

That distinction became particularly important when we explored masking.

There is a considerable difference between being welcomed into a workplace because of who you are and being welcomed because you have become very good at appearing to be who you think everybody else expects you to be.

Fitting in is not the same as belonging.

The small things aren't always small

We also explored bias, intersectionality, LGBTQIA+ experiences and history, micro-behaviours and microaggressions.

One of the recurring themes throughout was that workplace culture isn't created solely by policies, strategies or statements of organisational values.

It is created in thousands of everyday interactions.

We asked:

• Who gets interrupted?
• Whose idea gets acknowledged?
• Who is invited into the conversation?
• Whose name do we make the effort to pronounce correctly?
• What assumptions do we make about somebody's partner, family, identity, abilities or experiences?
• Who gets the benefit of the doubt?

And, perhaps just as importantly, what happens when somebody gets something wrong?

For me, an inclusive culture isn't one in which everybody has memorised the correct terminology and nobody ever makes a mistake.

It is one where there is enough curiosity, compassion and psychological safety for people to learn from one another.

As I concluded in the session:

“Inclusion isn't about knowing everything, always getting it right or being frightened of saying the wrong thing. It's about curiosity, compassion, listening and being willing to learn — and recognising that all of us, through thousands of small everyday interactions, help create the culture around us.”

And Zurich colleagues certainly brought that curiosity

What particularly struck me across both sessions was just how willing colleagues were to get involved.

They contributed, questioned, reflected, shared experiences and perspectives, engaged with one another as well as with me.

And, importantly, they brought humour and humanity into conversations that can sometimes feel daunting or overly serious.

That kind of participation transforms a training session. Rather than inclusion being something we simply talk about, the room itself becomes a place where people listen to different perspectives, exchange ideas and learn from each other.

That is exactly what these conversations should be.

A huge thank you to everyone at Zurich Insurance who participated in the two sessions. Your openness, energy and willingness to get involved made them an absolute joy to facilitate.

And a very special thank you to Caitlyn, Poppy and Georgia for all their work coordinating and hosting the sessions and for helping to create such a welcoming environment.

I may have been facilitating, but there was a great deal of learning happening in every direction.

And perhaps that is the most important reminder of all:

Culture isn't something an organisation simply has. It is something we create together, interaction by interaction, conversation by conversation, every single day.

Sometimes the smallest everyday action can communicate one of the most powerful messages we can give another person: You Belong Here.