👐 You Belong With Me 👐
👐 You Belong With Me 👐
Belonging Uncertainty and Psychological Safety
“I feel sorry for anyone who is in a place where he feels strange and stupid.”
-Lois Lowry, The Giver
A Hasid once asked his Rebbe, “What should we call the Shabbat prior to Shavuot? The Shabbat prior to Pesah is Shabbat Ha-Gadol (the Great Shabbat), and the Shabbat between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur is Shabbat Shuvah (the Shabbat of Repentance).”
The Rebbe replied, “If there was a name for the Shabbat prior to Shavuot, it would be Shabbat Derekh Eretz,
because we are taught that, “Derekh Eretz kadma l’Torah” (Derekh Eretz comes before the study of Torah).”I find Shavuot to be the perfect time to think about how I treat other people, and how I want to be treated by others. Nothing breaks my heart more when I hear that issues of workplace abuse are rampant in an organization, and Shavuot provides a moment to do a moral accounting of ourselves. Shavuot is also a time to think about this question because we read Megillat Ruth, which I ultimately see as a text about belonging. Regarding this, Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Tikva Frymer-Kensky write,
No story in the Bible demonstrates more fully than the Book of Ruth the extraordinary power of love, channeled as hesed- kindness or generosity- that goes beyond the expected obligation. No book better models what it means to love the stranger and what it means to demonstrate hesed in a way that not only requires a ruptured family history but also creates a community into which one wants to bring a child.
Nothing feels worse than feeling like one does not belong; or worse, that colleagues are going out of their way to make someone feel singled out for mistreatment. I know that my readership aims to model what belonging and teamwork look like. So let’s get to work…
Belonging Uncertainty
Do you fit in?
I know, a question like this can lead to contradictory feelings. If I am being objective, I should acknowledge in hindsight that everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve managed to fit in. However, if you asked me at the moment if I thought I fit it, I would almost always say “no.” In my case, the gap between what I thought at the time and the actual reality was enormous.
But if I probe further, I remember that I’ve almost never been a part of a socially stigmatized group. I’m W.E.I.R.D: white, heterosexual, and middle-class, and other than the two years I was the only kid wearing a kippah in my public high school, I cannot think of any time when I’ve been the only person symbolizing a particular status in a larger social system. Many people are not so lucky.
Gregory Walton and Geoffrey Cohen argue that socially stigmatized groups “are more uncertain of the quality of their social bonds…[and] more sensitive to issues of social belonging,” what they call “belonging uncertainty.”
In a world in which prejudice and bias remain rampant, there is a natural tendency for victims of said prejudice to form a “hypothesis…[that] guides…[their] perception and interpretation” of how others treat them.Like many psychological phenomena, it is immaterial to Walton and Cohen as to whether or not someone is correct in their hypothesis that they do not belong. The point is that longstanding biases and prejudices make one more likely to feel that exclusion, and why those who are less stigmatized need to be mindful and extend grace.
In the Jewish Community, sometimes marginalized groups we need to serve better are also stigmatized in the broader culture, such as people of color, people with disabilities, people who identify as non-binary, etc. However, there are also groups who specifically feel marginalized in a Jewish context, with interfaith families being the best example. The concern that someone does not belong is painful, and the more we think about how we might feel if we felt on the outside looking in, the better off we will be.
At the same time, belonging uncertainty need not be limited only to marginalized groups, although that is where it will be felt most acutely; every person in a workplace wants to fit in, and creating a healthy team is the best antidote. However, you wouldn’t be reading unless you knew that creating a healthy team is easier said than done…
Teaming
If you follow trends in the Jewish nonprofit world, you’ve probably seen the increasing use of the term “psychological safety,” particularly if you’ve followed some of the wonderful research published by Leading Edge. This week, I am going to provide a primer on Amy Edmondson, the researcher who made psychological safety a value to which all organizations should aspire.
Edmondson’s original research concerns teams in hospitals, and whether or not there was a correlation between how well a team functions and how many mistakes they make. However, Edmondson ran into a seemingly contradictory finding: while she hypothesized that stronger teams would make fewer mistakes, she found that the stronger teams reported more mistakes. This finding became critical in Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy.
Edmondson argues that stronger teams report more mistakes because they are more comfortable that their colleagues will support them, whereas weak teams hide mistakes because they think their colleagues will not. Edmondson calls this distinction “psychological safety,” which she defines as “a climate in which people feel free to express relevant thoughts and feelings,” and where colleagues possess “the ability to seek help and tolerate mistakes” because they know that everyone is trying to help everyone else succeed.
Below is her schematic:
Essentially, on the horizontal axis, there is the accountability variable from low to high, and on the vertical axis, there is the psychological safety variable from low to high. The best teams are the ones that maximize high accountability and high psychological safety. While many leaders use the term “accountability” liberally when accountability simply becomes a culture where people are too afraid to acknowledge mistakes, a culture of fear takes over.
As you can imagine, maximizing what Edmondson calls the “Learning Zone” is a rare find. But as Spinoza once said, “All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.”
Psychological Safety and Our Brains
Weekly Links
What One Man Learned After Visiting Every Country in the World: I loved this piece from Religion Unplugged about one person’s journey around the world, and what it taught them about religion. I especially loved how the story opens with Tefillah Ha-Derekh, the traveler’s prayer.
Let’s Randomize America: Do you like being “just a number”? No? I get it. But the truth is that when we look at things through data, we need to see things in the aggregate, including ourselves. This piece from The New Yorker will tell you why.
Anxiety Cartoons: I read a fantastic article about anxiety, which is not particularly unusual; many authors write about anxiety. However, this article includes cartoons. You’re welcome.
Workers Spend TWO Days A Week In Meetings and Writing Emails: Remember when I told you how I spent over 200 hours writing emails in 2022? Turns out, I’m not alone. Read more from The Wall Street Journal. Does email misery love company?
Work-from-Home Benefits: I suppose we should not be surprised that while employees love working from home, employers are less enthusiastic. Sorry bosses, the evidence continues to suggest that hybrid is the future, and the upsides of the office are not what we think.
I first heard this story from Rabbi Jay Goldstein, my rabbi since I was 12, on some Shabbat prior to Shavuot at Beth Israel Congregation in Owings Mills, Maryland.
Generally speaking, people translate Derekh Eretz as “right conduct” or “good manners.”
Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Tikva Frymer-Kensky, The JPS Bible Commentary: Ruth (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2011), xv.
Gregory M. Walton and Geoffrey L. Cohen, “A Question of Belonging: Race, Social Fit, and Achievement,” in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Volume 92, Issue 1 (2007), 82.
Ibid., 83.
Amy C. Edmondson, Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy (New York: Jossey-Bass Pfeiffer, 2012), 118.
Ibid., 130.