The Good and the Bad of the Need to Belong

We pulled up alongside each other at the traffic lights. It was dusk last Sunday evening. I looked across at the driver of the car next to me to receive a warm, open smile big enough to light up the evening sky. My default every morning either jogging or walking is to greet every passer-by, either verbally or with a smile. I'm a big fan of the butterfly effect. As the lights changed and the neighbouring car took off ahead of me, I noticed its St Kilda bumper sticker and smiled as I looked down to see my Saints scarf still around my neck after our euphoric nail biting win an hour before.

Instant connection and kinship of the type I had enjoyed at the ground with people I've sat with for 15 years at Marvel Stadium (and its three previous iterations) to the others whose names and families I don't know and may never know, reinforce the power of belonging.

I have dipped back into the psychological literature on belonging in these past few weeks trying to make sense as an organisational psychologist and long-term EEO practitioner of what happened in the enduring and horrific treatment of Adam Goodes captured so powerfully in the recent documentary The Final Quarter. And while I hated to be reminded of some of the commentary at the time the whole saga unfolded, there was one question asked that I've pondered since: With all the Indigenous players in the AFL who weren't getting booed, why did this happen to Adam Goodes? And then another question.

We have a biological, even anthropological need to belong so why then do we reject?

Much of the social exclusion literature has been accumulated by examining the classroom. Rejection and ostracism can be devastating to children and youth. Typically, people reject when someone else exhibits undesirable behaviour, has an adverse reputation and subconsciously ends up living down to it or, and this is well-known, has one or more physical or behavioural characteristics that are contextually different. I shudder when I think back to the teasing and taunting of kids who were 'different' when I was at school; becoming verbal cannon fodder for the other 'mainstream' kids.

We will all have our views about the Goodes phenomenon and some theories that have been expressed include a base racism against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and an intolerance or scorn for anyone of minority group status who isn't satisfied with the status quo and is prepared to speak out. Some may think an Australian of the Year should be not just grateful and gracious but compliant. Should not an Australian of the Year claim their voice? Step into their power? Use their influence and profile to provoke us to do better? In other words, actually stand for something? Indeed, would an Australian of the Year have won if they didn't? Perhaps Goodes should have toed the line because he was a well-paid athlete? Should money and success have shut him up? Or are we prepared to tolerate, even celebrate, those of minority group status as long as they don't hold up a mirror to us? Not wear their earnest dissatisfaction, heritage, faith or their sexuality on their guernseys? Are they allowed to celebrate a goal, just not too gustily? Are they allowed to fling a player to the ground, hip and shoulder them into a concrete barrier or give them a coat hanger around the neck in a tackle as long as they don't break out into (war) dance? Is it the tall poppy syndrome or something far more insidious?

When I first started working in the area I call "workplace justice", equitable treatment was enshrined in anti-discrimination and equal opportunity law. When you practise as long as I have, things get re-badged. So now its "Diversity and Inclusion". I see Diversity mostly a function of structures and processes like recruitment policy and flexible working conditions or equal pay for work of equal value. But I see Inclusion as a humanistic and cultural manifestation of belonging. Could it then follow that the psychology of belonging can be used as a catalyst for acceptable or unacceptable behaviour and is a lever to pull if we want people to conform to the basic tenets of civilised and safe workplaces?

David Morrison said it very clearly in the wake of the Skype sex scandal. He told people that "the Army has to be an inclusive organisation in which every soldier, man and woman is able to reach their full potential". He continued on to say that "those who believe they can behave in a way that demeans or exploits their colleagues have no place in this army." Whether or not you adjudged Morrison to be a good Chief of Army or you think the culture of the Australian Armed Forces has changed or changed nearly enough is not the point here. This is a clear, unequivocal statement about what is or isn't acceptable. But even good people can lose their way.

Counterproductive workplace behaviours that get committed but not 'called' or 'consequenced' are rarely extinguished. In fact if there is a payoff for such behaviours, they are more likely to be reinforced.

I have seen time and time again how people who are outliers to acceptable behaviour who know they will be judged, even excluded for behaving in socially unacceptable ways, usually moderate their behaviour or get out. The need to belong incentivises them to toe the line. Conversely in my last job before I established Brash in 1996, I had a senior stakeholder regarded as political, shifty and untrustworthy. Years later this person, having left the Bank, engaged me to do work for him and his new employer. I was struck by how much he appeared to have changed. He was softer, more present and appeared so much more sincere about wanting to develop his people. At the end of one late afternoon meeting, we reminisced briefly about the good old days at the Bank and I was surprised to hear his post-departure reflections on how he felt he had been taken over by the "dark side of the force" when at the Bank and how he was so glad he had left only to find his ethical core again. I don't think he was abrogating his self-responsibility for having behaved in ways that were not conducive to a positive personal brand but rather voicing an indictment of his susceptibility to becoming a person he could no longer respect and almost didn't recognise. While people talked about his behaviour, they didn't act on it. There were no checks and balances (excuse the pun).

Is this what happened over all those months when in match after match Goodes was booed by opposition supporters? Was the copycat behaviour as mindless as eating a block of chocolate in front of the television without realising it because lots of others were booing and it just became a thing? Did it make them feel like they belonged or more something they could do because there were no consequences for doing so and there not being enough people in high places to prick their consciences (early enough). If I were to have regular Bridget Jones moments and eat blocks of chocolate in front of the TV it would hurt nothing but my scales. Yet, the behaviour against Goodes was enormously hurtful to him, to his family, his football club, to Aboriginal people and to those of us who felt powerless to do anything about it. As a nation we are learning - about sexual harassment and victimisation of victims, about Child Safety and Marriage Equality. But what about those who pay the price as we do so?

When I think about the kinship at the traffic lights, the tribal connection of football fans, the respective nods of the head as two joggers run past each other in opposite directions, then how might we leverage that construct of biological survival, the need to belong as a manifesto for positive behaviours one needs to exhibit in a workplace in order to fit in? Please don't think I am advocating conformity to anything other than respectful social norms, individual and collective accountability for a great job, celebrating each other's successes and "playing for each other", not just ourselves. It is not about cloning or even avoiding creative conflict. It is about connection; and explicit agreement on what we do and don't stand for so that we can then harness diversity of thought, skills and experience to achieve more and different than we did before. I talked before about dominant positive cultures from which those who don't want to cooperate self-select out. The best teams I have coached are those that garner such a cultural reputation for respectful inclusion and performance at their core, where lived values happen intentionally, not by accident and that those employees who choose, even fight to get in to such teams know what they're signing up for and accept such lofty standards willingly.

Leanne Faraday-Brash is an organisational psychologist, Executive coach and media commentator. She is Principal of Brash Consulting, a Melbourne-based practice specialising in organisational psychology, organisation development and "workplace justice" (Equal Opportunity, ethics and employee relations). Leanne is the author of “Vulture Cultures: How to stop them ravaging your performance, people, profit and public image” published by Australian Academic Press. Leanne can be reached at www.brashconsulting.com.au