Belonging

Belonging is foundational. We belong at DataSQRL and we want others to belong. A sense of belonging is necessary in order to tap into our full potential. Even a minor doubt of not belonging zaps energy and causes distress. That’s why we take belonging so seriously. We always start with the question of “does everybody feel like they belong?” and then build amazing things from there.

Creating a comprehensive sense of belonging is no easy task. It requires all of our persistent efforts and a great deal of mindfulness in our daily interactions. We ask you to put in that effort because it is worth it. For yourself and everybody around you. “Belonging” might sound like a fluffy, feel-good term but it is far from it. Belonging is critical to team performance, our shared sense of purpose, and individual motivation. Research regularly surfaces news ways in which belonging shapes business outcomes. If anything, we still underestimate its importance.

Belongingness has the following elements:

• An inclusive, welcoming culture that embraces diversity
• Psychological safety
• A sense of purpose and feeling needed
• Individual and team actualization
• Shared awareness

Inclusion and Diversity

In order to belong, you need to feel included. That’s why an inclusive and welcoming culture is critical. We all contribute to that culture. How we approach and interact with fellow and, in particular, new team members determines if they feel included or left on the outside. A culture of inclusion means that we give everybody space to express themselves and to contribute.

But inclusion means more than just feeling welcome and being given space. At DataSQRL we don’t just want you to feel comfortable to show up. We want you to feel comfortable to bring your full self. If we want to make a difference and put a dent in the universe, we need to throw everything we have at it. And that means we need every part of you to show up and bring all you have to offer to the table. Only if we combine all of our unique, multi-faceted, and complex personalities and qualities do we stand a chance to affect change.

And that requires diversity of thought and background. We know that diversity makes teams more resilient, more innovative, and more adaptable. Diverse teams perform better because they can cover and entertain more perspectives, views, and approaches. They are less likely to be blindsided or get stuck in local minima. Teams that celebrate diversity invite everyone to bring their full selves to work and provide the assurance that they will be accepted as such.

That’s why we embrace diversity at DataSQRL. Not because it is the woke thing to do right now, but because it gives us a fighting chance to make a real difference, build something novel together, and affect change.

Diversity encompasses actions we take, not just something we talk about. We see diversity as a skill, tool, and asset that makes us stronger and better. We practice diversity.

We are up against some powerful forces: homophily and assimilation.

Homophily describes the phenomenon that humans feel more comfortable around people that are like them. We all feel that way. It doesn’t mean that we are bad people. We have to be mindful of this feeling that we acquired to protect us thousands of years ago when we lived in small, isolated tribes. Today, those dangers no longer exist and this feeling can stand in the way of embracing concepts, ideas, or behaviors that are foreign to us.

Assimilation describes the urge to mirror the thoughts, behaviors, and actions of groups that we want to fit into. I remember the ridiculous haircut I got as a teenager to fit in with the cool kids. That’s assimilation. Thousands of years ago, assimilation was a skill critical to survival because being excluded from your tribe was lethal. That’s no longer true today, but standing out still feels very scary and that feeling holds us back from showing up as our whole selves.

Homophily and assimilation lead to exclusion, groupthink, and echo chambers. They undermine diversity. Yet, those feelings are part of us and they won’t go away just because we don’t find them useful at work. Instead, we recognize when those feelings arise and manage them. We remind ourselves that creating a culture of belonging is more important to us than feeling comfortable in a particular moment. We challenge ourselves to sit with those feelings because we want to create a beautifully diverse and inclusive environment for our sake and the sake of the people around us.

This is hard. We are going to screw it up. People will get hurt. We have to accept this inevitable truth because we need resilience to make this work. We have to try, try, and try again. We have to push ourselves out of our comfort zone and make ourselves vulnerable. We have to actively de-escalate when we feel hurt, leave the moral high ground to bring others along, and listen when we want to shout.

But it will be worth it. It will be worth it because it allows us to show up to work every single day, knowing that we can bring our whole selves, allow every part of ourselves to shine, and witness everybody else doing the same, knowing that our contributions are making this wonderful symphony happen. We can sit back and enjoy seeing our unique contributions merge with those of others into something bigger and more beautiful than the sum of its parts. And then you get to close your laptop to enjoy the rest of your day with a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment.

Psychological Safety

Psychological safety means feeling safe to take risks and be vulnerable in front of others. This concept is closely related to inclusion with a focus on risk-taking. To succeed we have to take risks. If we follow the well-trodden path and make only safe choices we won’t be able to find that product, process, marketing slogan, hire, etc that will set us apart. Taking well calculated risks is vital to breakthroughs. But when you take a risk, you may fail. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a risk. And failing sucks. It sucks less when others support you in failure and help you get back on your feet with encouragement and empathy. It sucks unbearably when you get punished for such failures. When you punish failures, people will stop taking risks. In addition, you set the unrealistic expectation that one should be able to control an outcome which is impossible in an unpredictable world that changes frequently. That’s why psychological safety is important. We recognize that failure is inevitable and build emotional safety to catch people when they fail. We encourage thoughtful and measured risk-taking. Whether that’s a risky feature to differentiate a product, a risky proposal to win a customer, or an emotional risk to improve team dynamics. Taking these risks is important to us as a company.

Psychological safety allows us to play and be playful. "Play” means taking risks while feeling safe. Play is one of the best ways to learn, grow, and create. We associate play with children but the same concepts apply to adults.

Psychological safety is not a cover for reckless or abusive behavior. Those aren’t “risks” we take and their intent is not to advance or improve. Psychological safety is a joint insurance policy we all afford each other to make it easier to step outside the known and make a bold move with the goal of achieving benefits for all of us.

Purpose

DataSQRL is on a mission to build our vision and every one of us advances that mission through our unique roles, abilities, and perspectives.That is our purpose. That’s why we are here.

Feeling a sense of purpose is important for showing up with energy and determination. It’s hard to stay motivated if you don’t think your work serves a purpose or is needed. That’s why we are very clear in our definition of roles, responsibilities, and expectations. Misunderstandings can lead to frustrations quickly.

However, the nature of our work changes frequently in order to adapt to the constantly changing market we are serving. Inevitably, you may find yourself in a situation where you or others around you are unclear about their roles and purpose. Should that happen, it is important to seek clarification immediately. If you can, you should help others in clarifying their role.

A key part of belonging is knowing where we belong and what purpose our role serves. It is up to all of us to keep a diligent eye on this, communicate proactively about it, and make sure we eliminate any uncertainty as quickly as possible.

Actualization

You have come to work for DataSQRL because you believe in our vision, are excited about our mission and identify with our culture. We are excited and feel honored that you chose to join us on this journey. At the same time, we recognize that you are on a journey of your own and that DataSQRL is part of your journey.

While it is our shared responsibility to do our best to advance DataSQRL on its journey, we also feel responsibility to help you along yours. We want you to grow and actualize along the way.

At DataSQRL you are not a cog in some larger machine. DataSQRL is organized as a network of individuals who connect with each other to form teams or working groups for a particular purpose. We believe that the best work comes out of the connections that we form with others.

Each one of us is a hub in the network. We all have our primary roles and responsibilities. We need to get those done otherwise the company won’t work and oftentimes that means sitting down, getting into a state of flow, and churning through your task lists. But our best work comes from collaborations with others. And those collaborations may not always be directly related to your role. In fact, most great innovations happen at the intersection of disciplines and schools of thought.

We encourage you to form those connections by seeking out and identifying areas of work that you find appealing. You might hear about a project that intrigues you, you might have an idea to advance an initiative, or feel that you can contribute to a deliverable. When that happens, speak up. We recognize that we all have multiple facets and various skills outside of our primary role and we want to tap into those. There is no better way to benefit from diversity than to put it to work. And there is no better way for you to feel actualized at work than to tap into your various skills and talents in concert with others around you.

At DataSQRL, we strongly believe that such intersections of skills and truths have the potential for truly outstanding outcomes. We believe that cross-pollination and collaboration is an investment that pays dividends far into the future.

Keep in mind that such collaborations require an ability and willingness to do substantial work. Dropping an idea into a project or issuing a drive-by opinion isn’t a contribution. Ideas and opinions are a dime a dozen. If you want to contribute you have to step up, spend the energy to understand the full scope of the problem, and be invested in its solution.

Another aspect to actualization is that we eliminate crutch job and low-value tasks. Those are jobs or tasks that we do in order to smooth over a deficiency in process, lack of automation, or because we lack a measure of value. Nothing destroys the sense of actualization faster than being stuck doing such a job or task. We make it a priority to eliminate those as quickly as possible.

Shared Awareness

As a company we need to build a shared reality so that we can act in unison. If we have different understandings of the market, our customers, our products, our priorities, etc we will act in dissonance, which produces ineffective results. Being on the same page is absolutely critical to ensure that our work effort translates into impactful results. This means we are purposeful and deliberate in our communication to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Communicating everything to everyone is not feasible and would be entirely overwhelming. At the same time, not having access to information or being unaware of decisions can create a feeling of being left out which hurts belongingness. We are mindful of navigating this tradeoff and ensure that relevant communication is delivered quickly and reliably.

Specifically, this means:

• All non-confidential information is accessible to everybody in the company so they can easily pull information when they need it.
• Important information and decisions are communicated directly and in a timely manner to everybody that would find that information relevant to their work.
• We invest the time needed to address questions and concerns and use those as an important feedback tool.

Everybody at DataSQRL should feel like they have access to all the information they need and are informed about what’s going on. If major changes are being made, we start a change management process to make sure we bring everybody along.

This doesn’t mean that everybody will be involved in all decision making. DataSQRL is not a democracy because we need to make highly complex decisions quickly. However, we do value everybody’s input and take responsibility for ensuring we are all on the same page.

Summary

Belonging is foundational to the culture at DataSQRL. With 5 sub-components, there is a lot to belonging and it can feel overwhelming at first. Building an inclusive environment that celebrates diversity, provides psychological safety, gives everybody a sense of purpose and actualization, while achieving shared awareness sounds like a lot to keep in mind.

The essence of all of these elements is the shared commitment to bring out the best of ourselves and the people around us. If you start from this foundation you will get it right and help us create a phenomenal culture at DataSQRL.

What most often stands in the way of achieving a culture of belonging is feeling limited in terms of time or resources. Creating a culture of belonging requires investment. It requires taking the time to build inclusive spaces, resolve conflict, and lots and lots of communication. In the busy reality of our daily lives, it can feel like we don’t have the time to do this. At DataSQRL we believe that a culture of belonging is so vital to our long term success that we make the time and drop other things from our plate.

Likewise, it can seem like we cannot find the resources to advance our culture of belonging. Those can be internal resources, such as not having people, processes, or tools to roll out a change, or those can be external resources, such as not being able to find good candidates for a position. In those cases, we regroup internally and brainstorm ways to overcome those limitations rather than pushing forward with choices that meet short term needs but do not advance our culture of belonging.