How To Build Belonging

Leaders Whom Connect Create Competent Cultures*

An essential ingredient in high-performing teams is a strong sense of safety and belonging. Trust is the glue that holds teams together. If you want to build a productive, loyal, and competent organization, learn to build belonging.

The Paradox of Gregg Popovich

A writer named Neil Paine set out to determine who was the best NBA coach of the modern era. He devised an algorithm that used player performance metrics to predict how many games a team should win. First, he crunched the numbers for every NBA coach since 1979 to measure “wins above expectations”- that is, the number of times a coach’s team won a game that, measured by their player’s skills, they had no business winning. Then he plotted the results on a graph.?

For the most part, Paine’s graph portrays an orderly and predictable world. The vast majority of coaches win roughly the number of games they should win, given their players’ abilities- except for one. His name is Gregg Popovich. Coach of the San Antonio Spurs, he resides alone at the far reaches of the graph, a planet unto himself. Under his leadership, the Spurs have won 117 games more than they should have, a rate more than double that of the next-nearest coach. This is why the Spurs have ranked as the most successful team in American sports for the last two decades. Paine titled his graph “Gregg Popovich Is Impossible.”

Gregg Popovich is a paradox. On the surface, he is a hard-core, old-school, unapologetic authoritarian. Popovich values discipline above all else. His disposition has been compared to a dyspeptic bulldog, and he possesses a temper that could be described as “volcanic.” Popovich seems to spew most of his lava at his star players. So how does a cranky, demanding coach create the most cohesive team in all of sports?

One common answer is that the Spurs are smart about drafting and developing unselfish, hardworking, team-oriented individuals. This is a tempting explanation because the Spurs clearly make a concerted effort to select high-character individuals. But on closer examination, this explanation doesn’t add up. Many other NBA teams identify, select, and develop hardworking, team-oriented, and high-character individuals. Many of the Spurs players were not exactly Boy Scouts before they became Spurs.?

So the Spurs are not simply selecting unselfish players or forcing them to play this way. Something else is making their players- even those who were selfish elsewhere- behave unselfishly when they put on a Spurs jersey. The question is what that something is.

Let’s follow Popovich through a practice following an embarrassing loss just before the playoffs. He walks in wearing a misshapen T-shirt and shorts a couple of sizes too big. His hair is a mess, and he is carrying a plate of fruit. Popovich looks less like a commanding general than a disheveled uncle at a picnic. He makes his rounds, interacting with the players with a lopsided grin. Popovich touches them on the elbow, the shoulder, the arm. He laughs. His eyes are bright, knowing, active. Finally, he reaches Marco Belinelli, a player who had a terrible game last night. He jokes with him, Belinelli jokes back, and they engage in a mock wrestling match.?

“I’m sure Gregg thought of this beforehand. He wanted to make sure Belinelli was alright,” says R.C. Buford, the Spurs’ general manager, who has worked with Popovich for twenty years. “That’s the way Pop approaches every relationship. He fills their cups.”

When Popovich wants to connect with a player, he moves in tight enough that their noses nearly touch; it’s almost a challenge- an intimacy contest. As warm-ups continue, he keeps roving, connecting. A former player walks up, and Popovich beams. They talk about life, the kids, and teammates. “Love you, brother,” Popovich says as they part.?

“A lot of coaches can yell or be nice, but what ‘Pop’ does is different,” says assistant coach Chip Engelland. “He delivers two things over and over: He’ll tell the truth, with no bullshit, and then he will love you to death.”?

A few minutes earlier, the Spurs had gathered in the video room to review the video from the previous loss. The players sat down with trepidation, expecting that they would be reprimanded. Instead, Popovich turned on a documentary about the Voting Rights Act. The team watched in silence as the story unfolded: Martin Luther King Jr., Lyndon Johnson, and the Selma marches. Popovich asked questions when it was over, and those questions are always the same: personal, direct, and focused on the big picture. What do you think of it? What would you have done in that situation?

The players thought and nodded and answered. Then, the room shifted and became something of an interactive seminar. Popovich always engages his team on many topics- war, civil rights, gay marriage, terrorism- it doesn’t matter, as long as it delivers the message he wants to deliver: we are all from different places, varied backgrounds, but we are all connected. Life is bigger than basketball. Popovich uses these moments and others, like dining out, to connect deeper to his team. Every interaction is intentional, and every event is a vehicle to make and sustain that connection.?

One misconception about highly successful cultures is that they are happy, lighthearted places. Unfortunately, this is mostly not the case. They are energized and engaged, but at their core, their members are oriented less around achieving happiness than solving complex problems together. This process involves many moments of high-candor feedback, uncomfortable truth-telling when they confront the gap between where the group is and where it ought to be. Popovich delivers these messages every day, usually at a high volume.?

How do Popovich and other leaders manage to give tough, truthful feedback without causing side effects of dissent, resentment, and disappointment? What is the best feedback made of?

The Breakfast of Champions

A decade ago, researchers from Stanford, Yale, and Columbia had middle school students write an essay, after which teachers provided different kinds of feedback. Researchers discovered one particular form of feedback boosted student effort and performance so immensely that they deemed it “magical feedback.” Students who received it chose to revise their papers far more often than students who did not, and their performance improved significantly. Moreover, the feedback given to the students was not complicated. In fact, it consisted of one simple phrase.?

“I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations, and I know that you can reach them.”

That’s it! None of these words contain any information on how to improve. Yet, they are powerful because they deliver a burst of belonging cues. When you look more closely at the sentence, it contains three separate cues:

1. You are part of this group.
2. This group is special; we have high standards here.?
3. I believe you can reach our standards.?

These signals provide a clear message that lights up the brain: Here is a safe place to give effort. They also illustrate why Popovich’s method is so effective. His communication consist of three types of belonging cues:

• A personal, up-close connection that translates into I care about you
• Performance feedback (relentless, consistent coaching that translates as We have high standards here)
• Big-picture perspective (larger conversations about life, history, society, food, etc. that translates as Life is bigger than basketball)

*This article was influenced and borrowed an excerpt from The Culture Code By Daniel Coyle.