--- title: "Belonging As Infrastructure" episode: 211 date: 2026-06-01 guest: "Andrea D. Carter" canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/211-belonging-as-infrastructure audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-211/audio.mp3 --- # Belonging As Infrastructure In this episode of The Inclusion Bites Podcast, Joanne Lockwood speaks with Andrea D. Carter about belonging as infrastructure and why it must be treated as more than a feel-good concept. The conversation draws a clear distinction between DEI as an accountability framework and belonging as the lived experience that enables people to thrive at work. Andrea explains her five indicators of belonging: comfort, connection, contribution, psychological safety, and wellbeing. She explores how clarity, predictability, trust, acknowledgement, speaking up, and sustainable working conditions all shape whether people can do their best work. The discussion also challenges “fitting in” cultures, highlights the limitations of engagement surveys, and stresses the importance of looking beyond averages to understand who is being left out. The episode closes on the idea that belonging is measurable, actionable, and inseparable from organisational performance. Joanne and Andrea argue that leaders who want better retention, innovation, and trust need to build the conditions for belonging rather than rely on initiatives alone. ## Chapters - 00:00 — Introductions and Welcome - 01:30 — Life Lessons from Children & Pets - 09:13 — Belonging, DEI, and Performance - 13:13 — Clarity Eases Cognitive Overload - 19:22 — Connection Enables Workplace Success - 26:48 — The Great Detachment Explained - 29:13 — Women's Workforce Decline and Impact - 36:04 — Prioritising Wellbeing for Resilience - 41:39 — Boundaries and Balance in Work - 44:24 — Measuring True Belonging Effectively - 50:43 — Toxicity in Evolving Family Businesses - 59:18 — Belonging Starts with Self - 01:01:32 — Interconnected Mind and Media Impact - 01:06:25 — Inclusion Bites: Join Us ## Key takeaways - The critical differences between DEI structural frameworks and the lived experience of belonging, and how conflating the two can undermine organisational progress. - The five core indicators of belonging—comfort, connection, contribution, psychological safety, and wellbeing—and how each specifically influences engagement and performance. - Why fitting in and belonging are not interchangeable, and how “fitting in” cultures can cause anxiety, exhaustion, and high turnover. - Practical ways to create comfort through clarity and predictability, reducing cognitive load and anxiety within teams. - The pivotal role of genuine connection and trust, moving teams away from transactional relationships toward collaborative, resilient groups. - The neuroscience underpinning recognition and contribution, and why acknowledgement motivates sustainable engagement better than traditional “engagement surveys”. - How organisations can identify and address hidden outliers in wellbeing and belonging, rather than relying on average satisfaction metrics, to prevent costly mass exits and toxic work environments. ## FAQs ### What is meant by “Belonging as Infrastructure”? “Belonging as Infrastructure” reframes belonging from a vague feeling to a measurable, actionable organisational framework. According to Andrea D. Carter, belonging is not just about being invited or included; it’s about creating the right conditions—predictability, clarity, and mutual accountability—that allow individuals to thrive and deliver their best work, both as themselves and within the collective. Infrastructure indicates an intentional strategy, not a by-product or afterthought in workplace culture. ### How does belonging differ from DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion)? While DEI (or IDEA in Canada, which includes Accessibility) concerns structural frameworks, representation, pay equity, and accountability, belonging is about lived experience and performance in those structures. DEI asks, “Are our systems fair?”; belonging asks, “Can people meaningfully succeed in the systems we’ve built?” They are linked but distinct—one focuses on structural accountability, the other on the experiential outcome (Andrea D. Carter). ### What are the five measurable indicators of belonging? Andrea D. Carter has validated five core indicators of belonging: Comfort: Presence of clarity and predictability that help individuals regulate and perform rather than operate from anxiety or uncertainty. Connection: The depth of trust-based relationships, as opposed to purely transactional interactions. Contribution: How acknowledged, valued, and enabled people feel regarding their input and influence. Psychological Safety: The freedom to speak, challenge, and admit mistakes without fear of social punishment. Wellbeing: Organisational structures that support full personal renewal and resilience, not just individual coping mechanisms. ### Is it possible to create belonging without robust DEI frameworks? No. Andrea D. Carter emphasises that you cannot achieve true belonging without dismantling systemic and structural barriers. Likewise, DEI initiatives are unlikely to succeed unless employees genuinely feel they belong. Both must be developed together to enable environments where diversity thrives and is retained. ### Why do people leave organisations, even if DEI is in place? When the infrastructure of belonging is lacking—when individuals feel unseen, unvalued, or are expected to “fit in” rather than belong—motivation and engagement wane. Quiet quitting, high turnover among marginalised groups, and disengagement are the symptoms of these gaps. Survey data cited in the episode shows alarming levels of workplace toxicity and withdrawal among those who do not experience belonging. ### Isn't “fitting in” the same as belonging? No. “Fitting in” means individuals must adapt, decode unspoken rules, and shape-shift into existing norms, often at the expense of their authentic selves. Belonging, on the other hand, is reciprocal (50/50) and ensures everyone shares responsibility for creating a culture where all can contribute and thrive (Andrea D. Carter). ## Transcript Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood, your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of inclusion, belonging and societal transformation. Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a world without? Remember, everyone not only belongs, but thrives. You're not alone. Join me as we uncover the unseen, challenge the status quo and share stories that resonate deep within. Ready to dive in? Whether you're sipping your morning coffee or winding down after a long day, let's connect, reflect and inspire action together. Don't forget, you can be part of the conversation too. Reach out to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk to share your insights or to join me on the show. So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites. And today is episode 211 with the title Belonging as Infrastructure. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Andrea D. Carter. Andrea is a neuroscience based workplace belonging expert, an organisational scientist and founder of the Belonging first methodology, helping leaders turn belonging into a measurable, practical culture strategy. When I asked Andrea to describe her superpower, she said that it is her ability to turn complex data into science and stories that people can feel, translating into lived experience behind the numbers into insights that leaders can actually act on. Hello, Andrea, welcome to the show. Hello, Andrea D. Carter: Joanne. So nice to be here today. Thanks for having me. Joanne Lockwood: Yes. Whereabouts in the world are you? So just in Toronto, Ontario, Andrea D. Carter: Canada, and it's freezing here. Freezing. So that's quite. Joanne Lockwood: Up north, as I would say in the uk is quite. It's a northern part of Canada, is it? Or the whole of Canada's freezing at this time of year? Well, it's the wintertime here and so Andrea D. Carter: for those of us who ski, we love it. Although Ontario skiing is like skiing on ice and out west it's skiing in the mountains. Like, you know what you ski, you. Need the powder, Joanne Lockwood: don't you? You don't want it to freeze too much. Well, skiing on ice Andrea D. Carter: is, you know, you're working really hard, I'll say that. Yeah, that's true. Hard to walk around as well. You need to be able to crunch into Joanne Lockwood: as well, I guess. Yes, well, and it's, you know, even just going outside, Andrea D. Carter: right. Like if you're walking your dog or something like that, you're, you're certainly putting on all of the clothes and you're just, you know, your eyes are peeking out from behind all of your winter gear. I've Joanne Lockwood: got a Puppy and I took her out for a walk this morning and often when I take her out she's six months old and she's a cavapoo so she's never going to be a massive dog. So she's kind of small, medium at the moment. And I bring her back and she's got this like dirt line across her body where it's gone up up to her shoulders and it's like brown stain across her body. The bottom of her ears are also dirty so you can see exactly the dirt line where she's gone through puddles, gone through mud and stuff. So she's a curious being in the snow. Andrea D. Carter: She'd love it. Probably snow angels. That's cute. Yeah. Joanne Lockwood: Instead of snow angels where she lies on the back in the snow, she lies in the mud and does it. It's got her back. It's like just like the Andrea D. Carter: horses. Yeah, they do that too. Yeah. So Joanne Lockwood: what sort of dog have you got or dogs? I have one dog, he's a Andrea D. Carter: rescue and we rescued him about seven years ago and he's a cross we think between a pharaoh hound and a basenji. And so he's a very interesting dog because he is more like a cat than a dog. We've always had very rambunctious dogs and so, you know, typically border collies and Australian shepherds. And so this dog is a little bit of a, a different personality than what we're used to. And yet he's so sweet. And he doesn't bark if he wants something. He communicates through his eyes. So you have to really pay attention to what he's asking you for. And he's just such a sweet boy. He will lay in any sort of sunshine that is coming in through the house and that is his most favourite thing. He won't swim, he won't go in puddles. But he loves to hop through the snow and he certainly loves to be outside. That's beautiful. Sounds Joanne Lockwood: fantastic. Nothing better than a dog that looks communicates through the eyes. I've learned about puppy dog eyes firsthand and they're. There's something else, aren't they the eyes? They really are. And even you know, if he's hungry Andrea D. Carter: or something like that, like he has this specific look of okay, I'm hungry, I'd like to eat now. He's fascinating. He's taught me a lot about non communicative behaviour for sure. And so lovely that we have him. He's a real treat in our family. Joanne Lockwood: That's, it's interesting you say that about non communicative behaviour. I thought I'd learned some really good lessons. My wife and I are raising two children, you know, because children teach you a lot about leadership and your own leadership style and how to influence and not tell and you're managing human beings a different way of communicating. Yeah. So our puppy has taught us a whole new set of lessons around patience, accountability, responsibility and cause. I remember just before we got her, I read, read the book or some YouTubes and the golden rule is it's never the puppy's fault. They don't set out to be mean, vindictive, annoy you or anything like this. They just, they just do puppy stuff. So if, if they're not doing the right puppy stuff, it's down to you to create the environment and to create the lessons. It's really like Leadership Development 101. This is now 3014. I feel like I've graduated as a master's in patience and accountability. So Andrea D. Carter: true, so true. And it is one of those things where, you know, when you look at going first, I always talk about belonging through that lens of going first. You know, we have to set the conditions and we have to have language and we have to have infrastructure in order for people to, to really thrive and succeed. And it's the same for animals, right, when there's predictability and clarity and there's structure and it actually allows the human brain and also the puppy brain to, to succeed and to do the things that, that we're actually wanting from them. So children, puppies, workplaces, they're all learning grounds for sure. So we start in the, in the intro that I read out and, Joanne Lockwood: and, and spoke to about this belonging first methodology. What is belonging? How would you describe that in the workplace or even in society? Yeah, so it's interesting Andrea D. Carter: because I think what often happens is that, and especially right now. So let's address the elephant in the room, if you will. You know, there's so much media right now that DEI is dead. In Canada we call it idea. So in the acronym we include accessibility. So Inclusion, Diversity, equity, accessibility. And what we're seeing in Canada, I mean, I work across the globe, so I, I work with a lot of global organisations and so you're hearing a lot of different kind of elements from different places in the world. And if you look at localization and you look at all of the things that each country is bringing right now and the volatility that we're under right now, you know, I think it's actually a dangerous belief to Say that DEI is dying or even misplacing that DEI is the same thing as belonging to. Because they're not. And I think treating it as true is actually causing some real harm. And here's what's actually happening. You know, we're seeing organisations roll DEI language into culture and belonging initiatives, but they're conflating two fundamentally different things. So DEI is structural accountability frameworks, right? They're allowing organisations to not only measure representation, but track pay equity audit hiring processes, evaluate promotion velocity across demographics and hold organisations accountable for some of the systemic gaps that we're seeing. DEI and idea really is a question of asking, you know, are our structures equitable? Whereas belonging is actually an experiential infrastructure. It's going to measure five specific indicators that we validated back in 2022, actually in the mining industry. We had 3,500 participants. It was the largest mining study that had ever been done and it was across 11 Toronto Stock Exchange listed organisations. And so we validated, we started there, we started with what is belonging and what do people have to experience in order for them to experience belonging from a. From a neuroscience perspective? And then can they be measured? And so the five indicators are actually comfortable connection, contribution, psychological safety and wellbeing. And what they do is those five indicators actually enable people to perform at their best. And so we're not just checking to see if you're invited into the organisation or into the meeting, we're checking to see whether or not can you actually perform at your best in this environment. Belonging actually asks the question, can people succeed in the systems we've built? And so those things are very different, you need both, but they're not interchangeable. And I think when organisations abandon DEI accountability in favour of belonging focused culture, they're making a critical error. And you can't create belonging without addressing the structural barriers of DEI frameworks. And you can't achieve DEI outcomes without belonging. Infrastructure and those two elements together are what allow us to look at creating organisations that are not only diverse but actually succeed together. That's where your quality, your speed, your engagement, your innovation comes from. See, I've always said you can be included but not feel Joanne Lockwood: belonging. Absolutely. What you've just said there, Andrea D. Carter: it's interesting because when we look at this, I like to think of DEI as looking at information that is input, belonging is output. And so belonging is the action of being able to actually show up and create environments so that the infrastructure works. And so if I might go through the five indicators just a little bit here, if that would be helpful. Yeah, please, please, I'd love to hear them. I think that that kind of breaks things down a little bit and provides a little bit more context to what I'm talking about. So comfort. I always think it's so funny when I. When I say the word comfort, people are like, oh, yeah, you know, we have to be comfortable in our space. And I'm not talking about the fluffy stuff, right? I'm not talking about, you know, that you're not gonna have friction or conflict. We actually need friction and conflict. However, comfort is the first indicator, because when you go into friction, when you go into conflict, if you don't have some key elements that actually set your brain up to regulate, you are going to be in an environment where you are consistently dysregulated. And leaders, when they walk in a room, they either dysregulate their teams and their organisation or they regulate the organisation. And so one of the things that helps our brain do that is actually having clarity and predictability. And so that is part of the comfort indicator. So clarity, you know, really, when you look at clarity, it can be things like being able to walk into a room. And let me. Let me say it this way, you've probably felt this where you've walked into a meeting and you've had absolutely no idea why you're there, what the decision is that you need to make, or whether you're supposed to speak or supposed to stay quiet. And you almost spend the entire time scanning the room, trying to read the emotional temperature, figuring out what the unspoken rules are. And by the time the meeting ends, you're exhausted. But you're not exhausted from doing the work yet. You haven't done the work. You're exhausted from the cognitive load of uncertainty, of not knowing. And that's your brain being in threat mode. And so when you're in this mode, your cortisol levels are elevated, your nervous system is working overtime and there's zero energy that's actually going towards real problem solving, innovation, working through situations or conflicts, or, you know, being able to generate new ideas. The flip side of that, when, when comfort is present, you enter a meeting and it starts with, here's why we're here, here's what we need to decide, here's how your input is going to shape this outcome, and here's who is ultimately making the final decision. Clarity, predictability. So immediately, you know, when you have those things, shoulders drop, right? Your brain stops scanning and worrying about, you know, what other people are doing. And you're actually, by having those things, you're being told where you're gonna focus your energy and where you're gonna focus your brain power. So that problem actually gets your attention rather than having to manage your own anxiety. Yeah, that's the word that's gonna pick up anxiety. You're not sure Joanne Lockwood: what's there. Your brain's rushing around upstairs going, what am I doing? How do I succeed in this environment? You don't know, do you? You don't know. And so if you think about Andrea D. Carter: a lot of fitting in environments, so fitting in is the opposite of belonging. Fitting in is. It's 100% on me to come into your environment, Jo, and I have to adapt to you, I have to read your signals, interpret what you've said, read between the lines in how many different ways, all of those things. And then, you know, I don't even know. I, I might be right, I might be wrong. And so what that does is that instead of you getting my best self, you're getting my anxious or confused or navigating trying to figure things out. And that fitting in model is actually what's costing organisations from being really successful. You know, once you hire someone, when you onboard someone, you obviously want them to succeed in your, in your environment, it's too expensive to have to replace bad hires. And a lot of times it's not a bad hire, it's that the organisation hasn't created belonging. And belonging is, is 50, 50. It means that it's 50% on me for me to create belonging for you and 50% on you to create belonging for me. It means we're showing up together to actually create that comfort, get clear on what makes each other do well, create success factors that we're working towards and we understand and we know having an awareness of somebody else's needs and what makes them do well, that's all part of comfort. And so comfort isn't about eliminating challenge or conflict or friction, it's about creating clarity and predictability so that people's nervous systems can actually use their energy towards performance. What we need to be really, really mindful of Joanne Lockwood: then is the people's comfort is different to other people. Some of the anxiety that I may feel in a certain situation may be magnified or not there for others. You know, it depends on your own personality types, your own knowledge, your own power in the dynamic, power dynamic in the relationships. And your comfort level is going to have a different temperature gauge, isn't it? Absolutely. And in a fitting in Andrea D. Carter: culture, the comfort level is all about the person who has the most power. And so in that fitting in culture, everything is about one person rather than about the team or the group, even the family. And so in those situations, you know, some of the skills and the behaviours, capabilities are to look at how to create comfort for your team so that they thrive. And it's interesting, I was listening to a Bloomberg, a podcast the other day and it was this incredibly successful woman who had, you know, run. She was a CEO, she was cfo, she had run all of these organisations. And what she talked about was that, you know, they were talking about middle management right now and how middle management is, is really being compressed. Well, middle management has always been compressed because they're getting pressure from above and from below. And so that, that's just the role. But the thing is, is that those middle managers who actually created comfort for their team actually saw the person first. That actually led to, and this is the next indicator, connection. And it leads to building trust by getting to know someone, by getting to understand someone, by building a relationship that's built on trust rather than on transaction. And when you create mutual accountability and when you create mutual responsibility, connection allows you to trust somebody when you're going through friction and conflict. And so if you think of a lot of teams, I'll give you another example for connection here, but most people have probably felt this as well. You know, you're on this team, everyone's polite, everyone does their job, but nobody trusts each other, right? Everything is about transaction. Like, I'll give you this, you give me that, you do this, I'll do that. And nobody's going to ask for help because they don't want to look too weak. And nobody is going to offer help because you're not sure if it's welcome. And so meetings are all about performances, right? And everyone's guarded. And, you know, this is what happens when, when real connection is missing. And so, you know, even on this, this other podcast on Bloomberg, you know, the, the concept really was that if middle managers don't know how to connect with people, that they never create environments where the employees are thriving and they can't succeed as well. And so what we know is that when you start with comfort and creating clarity and predictability and then you move into connection, which is developing a bond. You know, what you're doing there is you're creating the structure so that one of your team can say, you know, I'm stuck on this. Can you take a look? And three people immediately jump onto it, right? Or In a meeting, when someone names somebody else as being a big contributor publicly, like, this moved forward because of what Jo did. Right. Like, you feel that you're in this together and that's oxytocin, that's your brain going through a bonding process. And when connection isn't just about being nice, I say that with bunny ears, you know, it's about building trust through reciprocity. So when friction and conflict and we know that that's not going away, right? Volatility is just getting more volatile. It means that we can also then navigate these things together instead of retreating into isolation. You know that your Joanne Lockwood: teammates have your back, you know that people are going to be there to support you and you're not going to get thrown under a bus by your manager, by your leader. You know when you can succeed. So you got that. So the previous hit, you got the clarity and, you know, you got the support. Yeah, I get that. I get it completely. So the next Andrea D. Carter: indicator is contribution. And you've likely felt this too, at some point. You know, you've worked on a project or you've been. You can even think of. Families are great with this too. You know, there's. There's likely one person that is dictating and only certain people are asked their opinion. Or, you know, you've poured work into a project and, you know, staying late, working weekends, you know, delivering something that you're proud of and then nothing, no acknowledgement, you know, no feedback. The work just kind of like disappears. Joanne Lockwood: Worse, your effort gets dismissed. Oh, I haven't got time to look at that, or I'm too busy, or I haven't looked at it yet. And you think, well, why. Why did I bother? Yeah, that is such a great point Andrea D. Carter: too. Thanks for adding that into the conversation. Because you're absolutely right. And you know, that dismiss, man, like, that's. That's really detrimental. And so in the contribution indicator, what we're looking at here is that contribution actually motivates and mobilises us. And when we know that the work matters, when we know that we matter, when we're valued and the work that we do, or the. Even the perspective that we provide, when that becomes influential, and that can actually change decisions, that. That actually allows your brain to release not only dopamine but also serotonin. And so, you know, your brain, when you're acknowledged, releases dopamine. And it's essentially what says, hey, you've. You've done something that people are acknowledging and this is good. And then what happens is that when Somebody acknowledges it. You have serotonin that's released when somebody doesn't acknowledge it. That actually takes the foot off the dopamine and it drains your motivation really quickly because when it's not acknowledged, the serotonin can't kick in. And serotonin is the hormone and neurotransmitter that actually allows you to stay motivated and to keep going. And so I always think it's so fascinating because people always think about the high performer and the low performer and that this is like universal. But the thing is, is that nobody operates in a silo. Everyone, the frontline worker, the admin assistant, the middle manager, the executive, you know, they all need to know that their work matters. And this isn't, you know, we're not talking about, you know, constant praise, it's acknowledgement. It's, it's, you know, you've done this work and there's an acknowledgement of people. So the project succeeded because of what you brought to it. Here's what you brought to it. Wrap ups at the end of all projects should have the leader actually acknowledging what each person brought to the project. And that is a way that you can actually directly see where your work, your direct influence, helped move something forward. Whether that was a decision, whether that was solving a problem, whether that was innovating. And with just simple words, you then feel energised and you want to contribute more. And that's actually the dopamine saying, hey, you know, what I do here matters. It's not just busy work, right? I'm creating value. And when the manager says, you know, you really helped us make a really good call, we couldn't have finished this without you. Those moments tell your brain, I'm not invisible, I have impact, I matter and I can keep going. And so then what happens is that you stay in the space knowing that you want to keep going and you want to keep contributing. And so when we look at contribution, that's really where we're looking at the engagement and the staying in things. Even when times are hard. You're Joanne Lockwood: speaking there and I'm nodding my head, I'm smiling. It's so true. I mean, that phrase you use or paraphrase what you said, you matter. Because if you don't matter, you're not acknowledged. Why do I bother? Why am I here? What's in it for me? You know, Cause we've always got the what's in it for me motivation thing here. There's nothing in it for me. Why am I here? Why do I bother. And if you're not acknowledging me as having contributed or delivered something, then I'll go and do something better. I'll go and find somewhere else who does appreciate me, the quiet quitting. Or we'll just vote with our feet and say, yeah, completely, absolutely. And I can think of instances of my own career where I just thought completely less of the environment and the manager or whoever I was talking to and thought, you know what, I could go and be doing something more fun, more interesting and I wouldn't spend all night doing it or worrying about it because you don't care. And it's like, yeah, that one comment or that one lack of acknowledgement destroys motivation and belonging, doesn't it? Andrea D. Carter: Absolutely. And you know, our data right now around the globe is showing some, some really important statistics. You know, there, there is not only quiet quitting, but also, you know, a workforce that is, I'm calling it the Great Detachment. And I've done a lot of writing about this because what's happening is that for years engagement surveys have been the forefront of organisational infrastructure, of gathering what apparently matters to employees or how they're doing. And the reality is, is that engagement studies just show you who's busy. They don't actually show you who's going to stay or who actually wants to keep going. And when employees get the feedback, I don't matter like what we've been talking about, they eventually go, okay, well right now the job market sucks. So finding a new job may not be my best move here, but I'm gonna spend half of my day looking and half of my day working. And I'll do my bare minimum because I'm not actually important anyways. And so what that does is the quality of the work that you're getting, the speed of things getting done, your innovation rates, you know, people have stopped speaking up. Some of your top performers at this point in time have stopped speaking up. Our workplace toxicity rose 14% from 2024 to 2025. It went from 66% to 80% at the end of 2025. And if you think of workplace toxicity as that high, it means that we're not doing some of the skills and the behaviours and we're not saying some of the things that are actually allowing people to go, I actually matter here. And you know, if you look at December 2025 alone, 91,000 women left the workforce in North America. Women with children under five participation dropped from 69.7% to 66.9%. College educated women, participation fell from 70 to 67%. So when we're looking at all these things, you know, we know, and I'm using women's stats only because I'm writing an article right now about it and they're right in front of me, you know, and, you know, when we look at, you know, how many people are, are not being seen right now, that's, that's huge. And some of that is being impacted by the DEI rollback. You know, if we look at the amount of black women who lost jobs in February to April, you're looking at 304,000 black women and 300,000 black women who were laid off. And so, you know, if you look at those forced exit costs, just in the US alone, that's 9.2 billion in GDP. You know, UK has, has different stats, but they're all trending downwards is my point. And so we don't just have to look at the us, because the US is certainly under a lot of volatility and a lot of change and a lot of work that's been done is, is certainly rolled back, but we're still seeing that downward trend. And so when you look at belonging and you look at how that's actually impacting organisations and how organisations are succeeding, what we're going to see is that as the job market shifts and changes, the moment that the market opens more, you're going to see mass exodus from organisations where people didn't belong and that will become more and more of a trend. The fourth indicator is psychological safety. And we know about psychological safety, right? Psychological safety. There's been millions and millions of dollars spent on psychological safety. And psychological safety is really what protects you as you go through friction. And so it keeps people willing to speak, to try to admit, to challenge without that fear of social punishment. You know, we've spent millions of dollars on psychological safety training and yet it's only one fifth of belonging. And so that creates massive gaps. And we know about psychological safety, right? We know that, you know, if you've been in a meeting where you notice a flaw in something in a plan that could cause real, you know, problems down the line, but you don't say something. You know, we see, we've seen the impact of not having psychological safety within an environment. And what happens is that the last time somebody raised a concern, a leader got defensive or a manager got defensive, or someone was labelled not a team player, or somebody was berated, or somebody was told their voice doesn't matter, that doesn't matter. And so what it does is it Trains people to stay quiet, meetings end, flawed plans move forward and you think, well, I guess I tried, I tried before, that doesn't work. And so people self censor, not because they don't care, but because speaking up becomes more dangerous. And so we talked about cortisol. And so when you're in an environment where you're constantly scanning for clarity and predictability, if you don't have comfort, you actually can't create psychological safety. And so psychological safety then is really about, you know, making sure that there's a leader or somebody who says, tell me more, what is it that I'm missing here? And they lean in with curiosity and not defensiveness. They close the loop on things. So last week Joanne raised a question about X. Here's what we did about it, or here's what we have talked about since then, here's what we looked at. You may not actually have the solution right then, but just communicating that there is, you know, Sorry, that's really loud. Again, it's not me. No, Joanne Lockwood: no, definitely not. No, nothing here. There's no rain. Andrea D. Carter: So, you know, when we're looking at those, when we're looking at those elements of what makes us feel safe, we're looking for the brain shifting from, you know, threat scanning to open exploration. And so we've had those conversations. You've had those conversations with people that you love, you've had those conversations with colleagues, you've had those conversations in organisations where you bring something up and the defensive pattern is so great, you know, that you can't actually have the conversation. And so, you know, really, if you want to have those, those moments where you're building trust and you're, you're creating spaces where people actually lean in, you need to do than. You know, we value feedback, really we do, and saying it in a town hall because people know the truth, right? And they know that if I speak up, somebody's gonna say, hey, tell me more about that, or if I speak up, and you're met with defensiveness, you know that it's actually not psychologically safe. And so we see more of the. Latter trying to create that culture. It's making sure Joanne Lockwood: you have that culture where people know that their contribution, they're whistleblowing, their contributor is safety, is actually welcomed and encouraged. And I think the airline industry did it effectively after some major disasters 20 or 30 years ago where planes were dropping out the sky because people were saying, well, if you'd have asked me, I'd have told you that the rivets weren't checked. Or we didn't this. And now the aircraft industry is now very much a contributor. First environment. We want to hear what the problems are. No one's ever going to get fired for speaking the truth. And it's a real turnaround in the airline industry, certainly. Sure. And we saw, I Andrea D. Carter: mean, for sure, we saw that with NASA as well. And so some of those major explosions were because engineers couldn't speak up. And, you know, and we see that all the time. I mean, the mining industry, anything, any industry, where you're having to look at physical safety, physical safety is always driven by psychological safety as well. And if you're not creating the condition of comfort and connection, you certainly can't create the condition of psychological safety. So you can talk all about psychological safety, but if you're not creating those first two conditions, you won't actually get that psychological safety. The last indicator that is there is well being. And well being is what actually renews us, it's what allows us to be resilient. And I find this one to be really an interesting indicator, even just based on the science and based on the data that we collected over the past 150,000 employees that we've worked with over the past three years, eight industries. And, you know, I keep coming up against employees who say to me, managers, leaders who say to me, you know, Andrea, we've done all this resilience training, we've given our employees these calm apps. We've, you know, provided them with meditations, we've given them, you know, yoga and, you know, extra benefits, and they're still not bouncing back. Why? And my response is always, well, fitting in is a hundred percent on the person, 0% on you, and belonging is 50, 50. And so if you're not creating environments where you're actually factoring in well being, what you're saying to all of your employees is this, you go figure out how to renew yourself and then come back to this environment and we're not gonna change anything. But if you can't do it, guess what? You're not good enough. And so depression has increased, anxiety has increased. We're not creating the infrastructure for wellbeing to actually exist. And so what that looks like is, you know, you've probably had a leader or a manager, excuse me, who sends an email at 11 o'clock@ night. You have the. I had this. Oh, my goodness. I couldn't even believe that this happened. I was working for an organisation and I had gone into the hospital, I was having a gallbladder attack and I Had to have my gallbladder taken out. And I'm a consultant, I work within, you know, organisations, but I'm not an employee. And this VP of HR was initially emailing me and then texted me and then WhatsApped me and was like, I need this. And I was like, I'm in the hospital. Like, what do you want from me? I had never had that experience before and when I got back, you know, I said to him, I was like, if this is how you are treating your consultant, I can't even imagine what the conditions are of how you're treating your employee. When you have that manager who sends the email at 11pm and expects the response by 7am, that VP of HR, he didn't wanted a PDF because he wanted to send out an email to his ERGs about, you know, the work that was being done. He didn't need to send it out right then and there. It wasn't a massive urgent, it wasn't going to affect anything in the organization. Nothing was going to come crashing down because those ERG leaders didn't have this PDF. It was all about him. And so when you look at that, you know, those are examples where you're looking at, if this email is sent out 11pm and you're expecting a response by 7am and that's the norm, can your employees actually sustain that? Is that a sustainable work ethic or a new project gets added to your plate without asking whether or not it's already there? You know, you start working through lunch, skipping breaks, staying late, and these are things where you're like, you know, this is. This is. This is just a busy season, but that busy season never ends and you're exhausted and your sleep is disrupted and, you know, you're irritated coming home to your family, that's a nervous system that's not going to recover. Right. You're running on fumes and eventually something is going to break. And those conditions are the conditions that are created by the organization. Those aren't the conditions that are necessarily created by the individual. So when we're talking about that 50, 50, and you want people to be resilient and bounce back and come back to their best self, you have to create the conditions so that they can do that. And those can also be things like, I'm fully unplugging for this vacation. This is really important. I hope when you go on vacation, you do the same. Yeah. For real? For real. Or would you just. Or when Joanne Lockwood: you go home at night, unplug until the morning. Exactly. It's okay. Andrea D. Carter: It's okay. It's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you are going to send an Joanne Lockwood: email at 11 o'clock at night, make it quite clear that I've sent this because I couldn't sleep. I don't expect you to have any to do anything with it until at least 9 o'. Clock. And even then it's not the most important thing in your world. If you could just email me back when you get this and say, when can I get it? And to set my expectation, that's all I ask for. I can't have it for three days. Fine. I can't have it for three days. Great. But not everyone has that. Not everyone has the resilience to be able to engage at that level, which is what I think what you're saying here is all these factors, the comfort, the connection, the contribution, the wellbeing, it impacts people differently and their ability to engage back in that environment. So I might say exactly what I just said to you. Sod off. I'm not gonna do that till 11 o'. Clock. You're gonna get the best me, middle of the morning, not now. Other people might start panicking, as you say, the anxiety that stress is gonna, oh my God, I'm gonna let my manager down. They're gonna think badly of me, it's gonna affect my career. So different people are gonna cascade this differently, aren't they? Yep. Well, and even, I Andrea D. Carter: mean, we now have automation, right? Like we have all of this technology that allows us, sure, write the Damn email at 11pm at night, but don't send it. Select that you can send it in the morning. You know, just populate that you're going to send it at a time that is within working hours, you know, and it's not that you're always going to have, you know, sometimes you're going to go through situations where things are urgent and people, you want people checking, but you don't want that to be the absolute norm because the sustainability of that is not, you know, that's, that's not a possibility anymore. And so consider what you're, what you're talking about. And it might be that you're setting the clarity and the predictability of this week while we're going through this and while we have this emergency, we need all hands on deck and here's the expectation and you might get an email after work hours and we do need you to be looking. But that's a week, that's not a month, that's not six months, you know, that's Not a year, that's not all the time. And I think that when you go from this happens in times of stress and conflict because something's happening within the organisation and it's urgent and it's an emergency, that's a completely different situation. You know, if I had had a report, that would have been the end all, be all. If I was the CFO and I was supposed to be presenting the next day, you know, clearly that PDF needed to get me of hr. But in that moment, no, you know, they certainly, it was just his own agenda. And so when you look at some of those things, you know, that's when you have performance infrastructure. You know that when volatility doesn't break people, it strengthens the infrastructure. And when it's working, people navigate the change, they navigate the friction, they challenge productively instead of defaulting to our fight flight. Freeze and faint or detach is the great word that certainly is happening now. Joanne Lockwood: I don't know what you're saying here. Absolute, most complete sense. And I've probably always thought of the comfort, connection and contribution as part of psychological safety. By splitting them out, you really are drawing attention to those items separately from the inclusion contributor, Challenger and learning safety, the traditional models of psychological safety. And I think that's really, really powerful to sort of see them in their own right at that level. Well, and what's fascinating Andrea D. Carter: about it is that we can measure it now, right? It's not just looking at one question. Like I always love the one question that's on most engagement surveys is do you feel you belong here? And that is meant to measure belonging and, and, and it doesn't. And so unless you're actually measuring for comfort, connection, contribution, psychological safety and well being, you actually can't tell whether or not belonging is breaking down or whether belonging is in a good state. And so, you know, even with relationships in general, being able to understand, you know, what am I contributing? What are you contributing? Is our belonging fragile between us? Can we measure it at the management level? Because you'll see teams with, with a lot of our organisational surveys, you'll see teams where, yeah, okay, great. You know, people are getting the work done and they're meeting their targets and they're meeting the deadlines, but the team is fracturing and they're falling apart and the turnover is increasing or, you know, you go from having your top contributors all of the sudden not engaging, those are, those are signals you can pick up faster if you're actually measuring for belonging. And we've been doing that and what's fascinating is that it's not just measuring for a mean average, which is what most survey data does. We're also looking at the average against the outliers. And so looking at some of the mediated analysis and the multiplicative analysis where we're actually looking at, okay, what's the gap between the average and the underrepresented and what are the identities that actually create your underrepresented? And that's something with dei. I mean everything has been very much a factor of you only get one identity. And we're intersectional beings. And so how our intersections of identity either bring us closer or push us further apart is very apparent and well documented. And yet if you look in the organisations, organisations are typically not even measuring that and don't even know how to measure it. And so it is one of those things where you really do have to consider what that looks like, what you're. Saying there about the outliers versus the Joanne Lockwood: median. I thought that's really powerful because I've often found when I work in organisations that the challenges they focus on the NPS score. Look, we're doing great. 86% of our people say they're happy. My question is, well, who are the 16% who aren't happy and what do we know about those people, the demographic? Can we drill down at that? What insights can we get? Because too often people are patting themselves on the back over the big number. Not actually every person who's not happy is a person that we're failing and why are we failing them? And that's, I think some of the balance, I think, so we're saying about looking at the medium and the outliers I think is a, is a fascinating way of looking at that and actually understanding the demographic rather than just that homogenous number. Andrea D. Carter: Absolutely. So, you know, really until, until 2022 I guess was my first publication. So I, I do a lot of, I'm also an adjunct professor and so I still have to do a lot of research and a lot of journal based publishing. And that was the first publication that we published on looking at mediation analysis and why mediation analysis within the organisation is so important. And at the time they didn't even have the advanced statistical analysis to do it, which is why I think most people rely on just the mean averages and, and, and looking at simple significance scores in your variables. And so you know, when you actually start to unpack the data and you look at measuring that gap between the norm and the underrepresented and we can use the word underrepresented, even based on underrepresented for belonging as well. So who are the people that don't feel that they belong? But that allows you to create predictability within who's going to stay and who's going to go. And what's fascinating is that most people assume that it's, you know, in, in HR, they always label them, well, a player or an A employee, a B employee, a C employee. And so, you know, when a lot of layoffs are happening, they always get rid of the Cs and the half, the Bs, if you will. But those A's then become Bs and Cs very quickly. And so it's, it's actually not the right way to look at how you're, you're looking at your employee base. But understanding those metrics is really important because it actually allows you to understand where are teams breaking down. And nobody succeeds or does their best in a silo. And so when we're looking at these elements, you know, it's often not an engagement problem, it's often not a passion problem, it's often an infrastructure problem. And if you're not measuring and measuring in a way that actually tells you what's going on, which averages will never tell you what's going on, it's very easy to just skim over, you know, the situation and give yourself a gold star. It's Joanne Lockwood: going back to Hertzberg's two factor theory. It's the detractors, it's the hygiene issue here that turns A's into C's. And it's. People don't set out to be a C person, they set out to be the best person they can be. But the environment we're creating is detracting to the point where they, they're not motivated and organisations still throw all their money at motivation, not trying to sort out the root causes and the toxicity and the problems that exist. And I dare say, but your approach is that you can look for patterns of whether leadership is failing or not succeeding, and we can look at which teams, which leaders, which events are triggering this as well. Andrea D. Carter: Yeah. And certainly when you look at the behaviours of public versus private versus government, you're going to see different behaviours across those three differentiating factors. You know, we often see the, and it's funny because I do spend a lot of time speaking with employment, employment lawyers, and they often come to me when, you know, there's, there's a big issue in trying to sort out the organisation and so I've had, you know, numerous conversations about the fact that the most toxic organisations are often the organisations that started off as family run businesses that then became public. And we certainly see that if you look at the spirits industry, that industry certainly right now, you know, they've lost almost all of their top female CEOs and leaders. It's a really interesting industry because, you know, you're looking at factors where a lot of those alcohol companies, spirits companies were born from family run businesses that became popular. And you know, most businesses start off as something small, family run and, and grow. And so if they're not actually fixing some of their hierarchical fitting-in practices, they're actually weeding out some of their best talent before they even get started. And you know, I'm just using spirits as, as, as a, as a example. I mean there's many more examples. So you know, that's, that's not just that industry, but you certainly see that. And so when you're looking at these elements, when you're looking at these factors where toxicity is swept under the rug because, oh well, we scored, oh, we scored 74% on our engagement this year and last year it was lower. But the survey made you, it was very clear that other people, it might not be confidential. You know, that's going to change how you respond. It's mandatory that you respond to this survey. But FYI, it's not necessarily confidential. So we'll know what you've said about you. How truthful are employees going to be? Especially Joanne Lockwood: if your sample size in your team or your department, your demographic is small. It's, I know most of these survey systems do work out. If a population is below 20 people, then it won't, it'll anonymize it. But there's still a lot of areas where you can go, I reckon that was that person there that said that based on the answer to that particular question, people can draw their conclusions. So yeah, is it truly anonymous? Is it, Are you really speaking freely or are you being caged, forgetting if I tell the truth there, they'll know it's me. Well, and I guess when you Andrea D. Carter: look at that too, I always find it fascinating when you're debriefing leaders on their survey results and they start unpacking instead of getting curious about, okay, so what do we do next? How do we solve for this? Why is this so important for us right now? Instead of them looking at, okay, this is the data that came in, this is our gap score. What you'll see is a Lot of leaders who don't necessarily understand how they regulate or dysregulate a room. They get defensive and instead of them looking at what they want to do, they look at who to blame and why. Oh, that's gotta be so and so, or that's gotta be because of this. And they start rationalising the data, mitigating. The problems and things. Yes, yes, yes. It's been a Joanne Lockwood: tough year, profits are down. I've been stressed as well. Andrea D. Carter: So, you know, when we look at any conflict or friction or problem, even if we just look at surveys and we look at, you know, mean averages, you're still going to find elements in there where you can grow from. They're not meant to be accusatory. Survey data is meant to help you solve. If you're looking at it through the lens of growth. Why have we collected data? Why do we collect subjective and qualitative versus quantitative data? After any quantitative survey data that you're collecting, the next thing that you should be doing is looking at, okay, so let's get clear on what's actually happening here and asking better questions so that you can unpack those scores rather than being defensive. And I would say what I almost always see, the initial reaction is, well, this is because. Or so and so did this. This is clearly this department and that's really a product of fitting-in culture rather than creating belonging culture. And it shows up right away. That almost says to me about the culture of the organisation, Joanne Lockwood: if someone's getting defensive, then they haven't got their own belongingness sorted. There's something in there that, where they don't feel, they feel under threat. Maybe people are then going to judge them and they can't be. Yeah, so all we're doing is passing this toxicity pattern up the line and somebody else is picking up now and they're feeling uncomfortable. So yeah, it's. And the other problem with surveys is they're only valid for the 20 minutes that you complete the survey. So if we're doing these once a year, twice a year, they really are a small snapshot in time. Even if we're doing these micro surveys, these pulse surveys about how you feel right now, these daily, daily touch points, checking in with people, then all we're going to get is historic how it was six months ago. Yeah, that's right. And so your Andrea D. Carter: pulse surveys, your one on ones, your check-ins, your weekly check-ins, all of those things add to the greater build of that data and your survey data. But you know, a lot of HR departments Functions are not necessarily looking at structuring how that's possible so that people can learn in real time. So what I see on average, and you know, even just recently I had, you know, an HR director come to me and you know, she was talking about ergs and you know, she said, we've got like eight active ergs. Our ERG leaders are exhausted, they're threatening to step down. You know, I've launched six new initiatives in the past year to support them. The engagement is lower than when we started. Our executives are, you know, asking me to justify why we're investing in these ergs when the business results are improving, you know, and you can hear the frustration and the frustration isn't unique and it's because HR has typically been an initiative based role, but initiatives aren't infrastructure. And so the more we're putting on people without building infrastructure, the harder it is for organisations to actually create those environments. And so if we look at DEI and we look at, at belonging and we look at culture and toxicity, a lot of this is because people are burning out. Ergs are certainly burning out because they've been giving everything nights, weekends, emotional labour, strategic thinking and all of that work disappears a lot of time, you know, it's, we're not sustaining them, we're not supporting them. HR teams are. You know, we've seen all of the McKinsey reports and certainly Gallup about how frustrated HR teams are right now in creating programme after programming. You know, whether that's mentorship platforms, leadership training, executive roundtables, engagement surveys like we were just talking about, you know, there the complaint is always, well, you know, nothing's moving the needle on retention or performance. And it's like, yeah, because all we're doing is throwing an initiative after an initiative after an initiative. And we're not actually even listening to the ERG leaders who have so much data and influence and all of their work is just going into the void. We're not actually leveraging it or using it. And so, you know, I'm actually in the middle of writing a 15 article series specifically on this because it's become such a problem and talking specifically about why the infrastructure of belonging is so critically important. And Jo, something that you said is still sitting with me is that, you know, when leaders don't feel that they belong and I think as you go up through the levels, you know, leadership can be incredibly lonely because you often don't have people that you can speak to about what the challenges are freely and openly. And so there's A lot of confidentiality that goes into what you're allowed to say and what you're not allowed to say. However, that belonging also starts with self first. And so, you know, when we're looking at how you're belonging to yourself and then what you're giving to your organisation, you actually can see the gaps of where people give themselves comfort. How clear are they about what they need in order for them to create predictability and regulate their own work and their own experience? And so that belongingness and the indicators of belonging are as much a measurement of self relationship as they are to another, or as they are to a team, or as they are to a greater team or environment. And so you can measure it in schools, you can measure it in organisations, communities, and also with yourself. Do you think some of this is from a corporate Joanne Lockwood: perspective, from a workplace perspective? It's mapping on to the world. We're living in a time where there's a lot of tension, whether it's political leaders, polemic rhetoric, divisive statements. We have situations going on in Eastern Europe, we have situations going on in the Middle east, we have situations going on in South America, situations all over the world. At the moment, there's a whole lot. There's a lot of tension. If you've got the news, look at the media. There's a lot of things that are raising everybody's anxiety levels in the world. And is that. Do you think it's being mapped into the workplace where people are feeling this tension? Well, you Andrea D. Carter: can't separate. The thing is, is that you can't separate information. The way that your brain works, your brain doesn't separate, compartmentalise information. And so, you know, you're waking up in the morning and, you know, maybe you pick up your phone or maybe you're on social media and depending on what algorithms you're looking at, you know, what news you're getting, you're always going to see something that triggers. And media is right now designed to trigger us to generate a reaction so that it actually stops us from scrolling. And so of course we bring that into work and of course it then shapes our day and of course that our day at work shapes how we show up at home with our loved ones. And so the brain doesn't separate that, it just layers it on. And so when we look at those elements, not understanding your own regulation is also something that is incredibly important right now. And, you know, one of the first studies that we did 11 years ago looked at whether or not DEI would polarise or bring people Together and the way it was being rolled out at the time showed it would polarise. And I mean, here we are and it has polarised, but I think it's polarised because of what it needed to unveil. And so we're now in this space and time where we're looking at the distinction between individuals and collective thinking. There's always been tension around that. The problem is, is that belonging is very inconvenient. And what I mean by that is belonging requires you to work through the friction even when you don't want to. And so that element becomes challenging when we're working in spaces or we're living in spaces where friction has essentially been taken out. And what I mean by that is, you know, if somebody doesn't like someone, we stop speaking to them. If, you know, if something is. Is too hard, we stop and we don't show up. You know, we might say we're gonna go to this function and then, oh, well, actually, I'm not feeling up to it tonight, so I'm not gonna go. And so it becomes very tricky because you can't navigate around that unless you change your own behaviour. And you understand that friction and conflict is also part of your growth. And so I think what we've created and we've certainly seen on global stages is that we have to be able to work through things. And otherwise, you know, when we don't work through things, this is where, you know, wars and violence and physical threat really becomes a reality. And so we're seeing on a global stage, those leaders who understand what it means to work through friction and conflict and those leaders who are going to stick to their individual perspective. And I think it's, am I winning or are we winning or how are we creating winning together? And because we've eliminated friction, we've actually eliminated a lot of what it means to win collectively. Joanne Lockwood: Andrea, thank you so much. It's been an insightful conversation. How can people get hold of you? Yeah, so probably Andrea D. Carter: the easiest way, what I'd love to offer up, is a way for you to actually look at your own belonging metrics. Now, this is a very simple way of assessing the belonging that you're giving someone and the belonging that you're receiving. But you can go to belongingfirst.com forward slash, belonging breakdown. And it allows you to really easily assess what belonging you're giving and what you're receiving with a specific person. So you can do that with yourself, you can do that with a specific work colleague or person in your world. And just see that initial assessment, what you're giving and what you're receiving. So I would highly recommend doing that. Also, please feel free to join me on Substack and for that you're just going to Substack Andrea D. Carter. You can access a lot of the writing I've been doing and certainly that article that I'll. Or the 15 articles I'll be writing. And then of course, please join me on LinkedIn at Andrea D. Carter as well on LinkedIn. Fabulous. I'll go and Joanne Lockwood: hunt you down on Substack immediately as soon as we hang up. Wonderful. Thanks so Andrea D. Carter: much, Joanne, for having me. A pleasure. And Joanne Lockwood: thank you so much. As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to express my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion. Today's discussion struck a chord. Consider subscribing to Inclusion Bites and become part of our ever growing community driving real change. Share this journey with friends, family and colleagues. Let's amplify the voices that matter. Got thoughts, storeys or a vision to share? I'm all ears. Reach out to joanne.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk and let's make your voice heard. Until next time, this is Joanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to return with more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire and unite us. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.