Transcript
Annalisa Holcombe (00:01:32):
This week I'm joined by Omid Fotuhi. Omid is a research psychologist who has dedicated his life to exploring and researching the processes and scientific mechanisms underlying human motivation and performance. He earned his PhD in psychology from the University of Waterloo and later helped to co-found the College Transition Collaborative and Stanford Interventions Lab at Stanford University.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:02:01):
He is currently the director of learning and innovation at WGU Labs and a research associate at the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh, and today we are talking about belonging. We're going to be talking about belonging, will that will that work in our personal lives, in our communities, and I'm interested in my standard question that I ask everyone, and I have asked this of people in interviews for my prior mentoring programs and I think it really gets to like, the essence of us. So there's your question, it is if you remove all references to work, school, sports, religious activities, research, all the things that you do in your life, if you take all of those and sit them aside, what are you most proud of about yourself as a human being?

Omid Fotuhi (00:03:02):
I would definitely ... and I have some clarity on this because I do tend to be a relatively reflective person, and that is what I'm most proud about, which is that I have been able to engage in the process of growth, which has allowed me to cheat and bypass many of the demographic predictions of how I ought to be doing based on where I came from. And that commitment to growth is something that I live and breathe constantly. You mentioned earlier that sometimes there's an integration of your whole self of personal self and work self, I'm not sure many people are ready for my whole self in either context.

Omid Fotuhi (00:03:55):
In fact, my father-in-law who's living with us ... my father and mother-in-law who's living with us now while we're in here in Canada, this morning I guess stumbled across one of my presentation videos and he comes up to me and he's like, "You sound so smart in your videos, and that's not at all what you're like when it's just you and me." But that's because I think under the surface and you know, there's a great deal of pride in being able to take advantage of the privilege that I've had from being exposed to psychology and literature and great minds and great people who have reflected on their own lives, and I'm incredibly grateful for that, and the pride parts comes in knowing the value of that and taking advantage of that to improve my own being.

Omid Fotuhi (00:04:48):
So it's interesting that you used the word ... you know, what are you most proud about in terms of being a human being, for me it is that constant focus on the being part that I'm ever-present and constantly working on. It's obnoxious to many people, because it's a flame that burns very strong, and you know, it's something that not everybody can relate to but it is something that I've ... that's been my reality and my place of strength, so ... and then tacking that on to the second part that I was ... I am proud of as well, is that I've ... in recognizing the value of the well of power that comes from insights, having committed and devoted some time and energy to sharing that out with folks that I think can benefit from it, so whether in my word of personal life, I've tried to apply what I've seen to be powerful in the service of improving the lives of others, so.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:05:59):
That's awesome. I love that you talk about that, I did coach training where we talked about the difference between how we in our society are always talking about like ... when we meet each other we say, "So what do you do?" So that's why I start with that question because we always talk about what somebody does, but it doesn't ... but we're not human doings, we're human beings, so how can we talk about who are you really? And so that's part of why we ask that question is just to think about who are you underneath it all.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:06:26):
And I'm interested, you talked a little bit about your dedication to growth, but I don't know exactly what that means, and so maybe could you expand on that a little bit, and then ... that's one part of the question, the second part of the question is, you mentioned right off the bat that you ... you're connected to growth and that you've been able to use your reflective capabilities to move from a place of where you think you ... like where the idea that you should be in your life is, can you talk about that? Because our listeners won't know you, so tell me a little bit about both of those things.

Omid Fotuhi (00:07:08):
Sure, and I'm not sure that I have an entirely unique background, but it certainly is one that uniquely was challenging because I had to go through it by myself, and so some of the, I think, broad level kinds of experiences ... so my family was ... we're from Iran, we had to flee the country when there was a revolution, we got scattered when I was about four-years-old, and then we found ourselves in a new world where the culture and the norms were very different, and my father and my mother were also very different people and then when they landed in this different world, they also just came to realize how different they were.

Omid Fotuhi (00:07:53):
So that led to an extended separation process that from the age of 10 until the age of 14, going through that and not knowing why that's happening, there's a lot of internalization of trying to figure out why is this happening, it challenges your world views and your perceptions of what's fair, what belonging is, and your place in the world, and so I think there was ... and again, I'm not unique in this scenario. Another sort of offshoot consequence of all that is that because of the separation, my mother then who was now in charge of all three of us kids, with no language and no skills in a new world, had to fight for herself and fend for herself, and all she had was her fight, and that's one of the things I've learned from her is, you know, keep fighting until you get there.

Omid Fotuhi (00:08:50):
But she had it rough and she still has it rough in many regards, and so we grew up in dire poverty, we grew up with very basic, minimal kinds of essential resources, so it was not uncommon in the winter times when she didn't have money to pay for the electric bill, and so as a kid you kind of go through it and experience things in a different way, you wonder why is it that other kids have more and why is it that you don't have the same things, but at the same time you're also kind of innocent so you're able to navigate through those things.

Omid Fotuhi (00:09:20):
I remember going to the washroom and my brothers and I used to think it was kind of funny that we would see the steam come out whenever we ... you know, we were in the bathroom and we thought it was cool, didn't for a second reflect on the fact that we were cold and didn't have electricity. But then that also, you know ... your challenges become a source of strength in many regards, and so that then fed into my hunger, which to this day is what fuels my eternal desire for growth. And so those challenges I think are part of who I am, and part of what has given me the hunger to keep growing and keep moving upwards.

Omid Fotuhi (00:10:01):
And again I don't think that I'm unique in that kind of demographic description or category, there are many individuals who have to deal with many circumstantial challenges that are not of their own doing, but they're left with the choice of, "What do I do with this?" And there's a subjectivity to challenge that we all navigate on a daily basis, and how we decide and how we make meaning of those challenges, determines what our next step is. Is my circumstance a fatalistic and fixed state and representation of the rest of my life? Or is there an opportunity for me to move out of this and move towards a better life? And that's one of the things that I've constantly held close to my heart, regardless of how hard things have gotten.

Omid Fotuhi (00:10:50):
And so that's where the desire for growth and improvement comes from, and it also comes from ... you know there's the challenges in our lives are both difficulties that we have to contend with, but they're also the blessings that define who we are. And so for me, knowing where I came from and what my mom had to go through to get us basically, you know, clothes on our back, into school, she supported us through college whichever way she could, whenever we needed some support she would find a way at her own sacrifice. But all the while there was still this instability and uncertainly about, you know, am I going to be able to pay for this? Or am I going to be able to afford this?

Omid Fotuhi (00:11:30):
Is this going to be something that I'll be able to see through? Those experiences are experiences that I would never want for my own children, and that hunger to give them the security that I didn't have, has been something that's always driven me, and by extension, I've always wondered how I can continue to extend, and you and I know that my background is in psychology and the value of the contributions that I bring are from insights from psychology and so in addition to my children, I've always also wondered how I can continue to help others who are going through similar circumstances to be able to see the potential for growth and improvement in their own lives, and share that whenever I can.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:12:21):
I'm interested in how, because we're going to talk about belonging, a couple of things came up for me. A few months ago I wrote a blog post called Loneliness At Work, and it was one of my most popular blog posts, and a lot of people ... like it was the thing that Google found the most, et cetera, and I thought, "Wow, it's a big things that people feel. This is a thing that we may not be talking about enough," and it made me think ... you know I have this suspicion that the reason that people are feeling loneliness at work has a lot to do with our sense of belonging as well.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:13:02):
And so I kind of wanted to get at that in this conversation as well in terms of like ... I don't know, what do you think about that? Loneliness and belonging and how they fit together? And also how would ... how do you yourself define belonging? What does that mean?

Omid Fotuhi (00:13:16):
Yeah. Those are great questions, and seemingly simple but actually quite complex. So let's start with belonging. The way that I think about belonging is that it is ultimately a fundamental need and the reason why I emphasize that is that it's not a desire, and the distinction between a desire and a need is that you can have your desires not met, but you can continue to function, right? Like I can desire a new car, a new house, maybe something that I've always wanted to have, but don't have, and I'll continue to function.

Omid Fotuhi (00:13:53):
I may be bothered by it in the short-term, but that's all right. When a fundamental need is not satisfied, you can't function. And so because ultimately we are evolved to be very vigilant for cues and signs that signal to us that we are part of a tribe, that we are part of a group that will ultimately convey to us whether we will survive, because as individuals who are outcast from a particular tribe, we're not going to do that. And so even the perception or the risk of a signal that suggests that you don't belong, activates all sorts of challenges and all sorts of uncertainties. I think with a recognition that we in our current society have come to integrate work and social life, that's where some of these threats are borne out of.

Omid Fotuhi (00:14:55):
Because again, you know, not even that long ago, people viewed work as work and personal life as personal life, so it was actually easier to go into a potentially an uncomfortable, hostile, not very welcoming work environment, get through the day, and then go back home to where you thought you belong, but in many regards because we have tried to create these contexts where social and personal and work lives are integrated, there's ... the tensions are now contaminating or conflating with each other. And so now when we go into the workplace-

Annalisa Holcombe (00:15:33):
Like we might think it's a good idea, but it also has these painful effects in some places as well?

Omid Fotuhi (00:15:39):
Yeah, and I don't know that I can comment on whether it's a good idea or a bad idea, I think the value comes in recognizing what it is for what it is, and so when you're navigating these feelings of, "I don't know that I feel like my boss truly validates and appreciates all the work that I'm doing, and that feels ultimately very isolating to me," then recognizing that this context of work and the expectation that it is this socially welcoming and comfortable place, or that it ought to be, knowing that that's the current context and conditions that we live in, might help you navigate why you're feeling how you're feeling.

Omid Fotuhi (00:16:22):
I don't want to suggest that we shouldn't be moving towards a greater integration of social and professional lives, I think there's a lot of value, as you mentioned, and as your podcast is named, 92,000 hours, you want to make sure that ... or you want to try to see if there are ways that you can create a better experience, a more fulfilling and meaningful experience in that context, given how much time you spend in that context. But if you do that, then sometimes you have to realize that in the work context, there are standards or performance by which your interactions with your peers and your bosses are determined.

Omid Fotuhi (00:17:07):
So there's a clear script in terms of how to reward or punish performance, and so if you think of that as being the foundational operating system on which we're trying to add on the experience of perceived belonging, then you can understand where there's potential conflict. But again, that's not to say that it's not possible, and in fact we're seeing a great deal of movement in leadership and corporations in building cultures of greater belonging and acceptance and you know, recognizing the value of individual autonomy.

Omid Fotuhi (00:17:43):
Moves towards being able to be more conducive of that, but in the workplace this notion of loneliness I think is not surprising to me, because at times you have this expectation, this hope, that you will come to feel like you belong and that you do belong in that place, while at the same time being implicitly or explicitly aware that there are these standards of performance that you have to live up to. So it's ... when you think of belonging in sort of its ideal form, you hope that you are unconditionally accepted and regarded. When you put that in the context of conditionality of performances, you can see how these things are challenged.

Omid Fotuhi (00:18:32):
But those are some of the ... I think the forces that feed into our experiences, and going back to your question about how do you define belonging, I think belonging is this need that needs to be satisfied, if it's not we do feel a great deal of disruption to functioning, and for those individuals who look at work or invest too heavily in work as the core part of their social interactions and their social experiences, you are going to find more disruption for those individuals in the instances where they're not getting the validation that they desire, because they don't have the personal life at home to balance any disruptions or risks to the security of belonging that they might have ... they may have a need for.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:19:33):
So if we ... as we think about that, I was reading some studies that empirically show that when people do have a sense of belonging at work, there is in fact greater output, there's greater ... you know, the company, the organization, whatever it is, as a whole, does better. So I'm interested in your thoughts on what are the roles of leaders in organizations to create a sense of belonging for the people that they work with?

Omid Fotuhi (00:20:09):
Yeah, I think that's right, and that basic statistic, again, is just informed by the fact that belonging is a fundamental need and if it's disrupted, we can't function. So if you can't function because you're constantly distracted by trying to figure out, "Do I belong? Does this person value me or not?" Then you become distracted, A, and then hypervigilant about cues or signs that confirm whether you do or don't belong. And in many instances-

Annalisa Holcombe (00:20:42):
That's so true. Like I know that I've done that in situations. So yeah, that's absolutely true.

Omid Fotuhi (00:20:43):
From an evolutionary perspective you are designed to be incredibly attuned to signals of belonging, because if you don't belong, you will not survive, and so that hard wiring is still with us. It might be no longer as relevant for determining whether we will survive or not, but it's still fully operational and functional. And so we're constantly vigilant for cues that maybe we don't belong, in fact in our defense mechanism, when we even start to question whether we do belong, our default response, adaptively, is to disengage and protect ourselves, because if you think that you might be absent from a group, then you become hypervigilant for cues that confirm that you don't in fact belong, and you'll pick up on those more in light of the fact that social interactions are very ambiguous, right?

Omid Fotuhi (00:21:40):
Especially in an environment where there are expectations and pressures, like you and I socially will probably have a wonderful time because there's no constraints in terms of how we're going to spend the next hour or two hours, but if you and I are in the work setting, and I know that you've got a deadline and back-to-back meetings and I just want to sort of keep chatting and you're like, "I've got to go," that abrupt departure might lead me wondering, "What does that mean?" Right? Like I know that I care about this person, I think this person cares about me, but then they're giving me these signals that they're too busy.

Omid Fotuhi (00:22:15):
And because I'm motivated to make sure that I do belong, I'll actually be more likely to interpret that sign that I don't belong because it's easier for me to say, "I'm going to move on and find somewhere where I do belong. I'm not going to stick around in an interaction where I have to ask and question whether I do or don't belong." So I think definitely that the disruption of normal functioning is something that prevents people from being able to perform well in the work context, and in terms of what leaders are doing, there's a lot that leaders are doing. First of all, leaders are becoming aware that this core need to belong is fundamental, that they ... and in part motivated, I don't want to say entirely motivated by the fact that greater belonging leads to better productivity, but certainly it has been at the forefront of a lot of these trainings and I think evolutions in terms of how we think about management and leadership.

Omid Fotuhi (00:23:14):
So that's been one, I think, development in the past couple of decades that really been moving quickly, and as a result, leaders are becoming more attuned to what the needs of their teams are, they're creating cultures and opportunities that are conducive to greater belonging, they build in opportunities and interactions that aren't solely transactional, so their conversations won't be solely focused on, "Hey, what have you don't and have you met your expectations?" They build in some social time for those relationships as well. I don't know that I can think of too many people in this country who will say that their relationship with their teams or their bosses is entirely business-driven. I think many people are now saying that their relationships are a little bit more than that because of how we now realize the importance of this belonging is.

Omid Fotuhi (00:24:18):
The other thing that's worth mentioning is that those concerns about belonging can differ not only between individuals, but by groups of individuals as well. We started off by ... you asked me, you know, "What are you most proud of and what are the challenges that you've overcome?" Well I come from a background where there was not clear a sign that my place in society is secured for me, and so as I navigate my social interactions, some of my operating system is constantly vigilant for signs that maybe that isn't in fact true, right? Because I think there's a vigilance there that makes me wonder, "Am I just an imposter in this context? Am I going to be found out? Do others really think about my work as being valuable?"

Omid Fotuhi (00:25:10):
Because of the group that I come from, or the stereotypes that exist, so if I were a part of a different gender or racial group, there are also these stereotypes in the air that, absent any other clarification, in those moments of ambiguity, become the sole piece of evidence that I have to lean on, and then that again colors my perceptions of what that interaction means. So there are groups of individuals who are more likely to wonder if they do belong, and once they do, they fall into that sort of paralysis of questioning their belonging and no longer function at the optimal level.

Omid Fotuhi (00:25:51):
Where you see me going with this is that a lot of times this need for belonging and this concern or questioning every belonging, leads into a vicious cycle, so if you ultimately have a strong need to feel like you belong in a particular context, but you don't have the past experiences or the cultural references to give you the security that you do belong in that place, then that question is always looming large on your mind, and because of that, you're not able to perform your job effectively, which in turn feeds into more concern about whether you're actually equipped and capable of doing this job, making you more vigilant, and less functional in that job as well.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:26:50):
If this conversation has caught your attention, and you want to join in on conversations like this, check out our website at connectioncollaborative.com. Welcome back, you are listening to 92,000 hours. Today we are talking to Omid Fotuhi about belonging. Let's jump back in. Within different industries or even different workplaces or even different teams, people create their own acronyms, they create their own languages, and I think they ... often it's done with the best of intentions to create a team language or an industry language et cetera, but not only does ... so it creates an environment of inclusivity for the people who are already in, but definitely exclusivity for the people who don't know what those things mean, and can both ... it can both bring more belonging and also hamper belonging.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:28:12):
And I'm interested in your thoughts on that?

Omid Fotuhi (00:28:14):
Yeah I mean signaling is a big part of group belonging, right? I think if you ... and that's exactly how we communicate. You'll never hear someone say explicitly, "You don't belong," right? It's just now how we communicate, and that's because in part, we don't need to, we have other mechanisms to clearly convey to our group, in-group, whether they do or don't belong, and it's ... in many regards, in many ways, an invitation to learn about and practice some of these cultural norms and practices that we have. So I think that's absolutely right on point.

Omid Fotuhi (00:28:49):
We have a tendency to create our own set of language and terms that signals to us whether or not this person does belong or does not belong. And it's a challenge, right? Because at times, at least on the surface it seems as though there's this functional purpose to just be more efficient, like there are technical terms you have to use, but even things like sarcasm or humor or cultural references, those are also layers of signaling that either keep people out, or convey that they are included.

Omid Fotuhi (00:29:31):
Within coherent groups you'll also have subgroups where again, there's a clear understanding of who's in and who's out, and because these are such sophisticated dynamics, in part because if ... so let me kind of unpack this for a second. When you're in a work setting, you have to work with others, that means you expect a certain level of cooperation and collaboration, that means that you'll rely on others, right? And so there's a lot of reasons not to tell others that they don't belong, because you're going to expect them to do what you want them to do.

Omid Fotuhi (00:30:09):
At the same time, you want to belong to a group where you feel has the greatest utility and is most similar to yourself. And so how you're able to manage that dynamic is to implicitly have these social practices and signals that allow you to feel and know who your in-group is, while never explicitly excluding others, but always leaving them to wonder whether they are or are not part of this group. There's a sort of a psychologist, I forget her name, but she had a great example about the different kinds of friendships that people have and the potential benefits and costs and she highlights the three kinds of friendships.

Omid Fotuhi (00:30:54):
She says there are those friendships that you clearly know, you know, that they're there, they care about you, that you're part of that group. Then there's the group of people who you clearly know that you're not friends with, and in fact, somewhere along the lines you realized-

Annalisa Holcombe (00:31:10):
And you're okay with it. Omid Fotuhi (00:31:10):
And you're okay with it. And she highlights the most dangerous group, which is that group of people that you just don't know if they have your best intentions in mind, if you belong to that group, and that's the most harmful group because you're constantly wondering in every interaction, "What does this person actually think about me?" And that becomes very taxing. So when you're on the out, you're motivated to want to get in, so you're sort of always processing these questions, but when you're on the in and excluding others, you're motivated to not give them clarity about whether they do or don't belong.

Omid Fotuhi (00:31:47):
But you have clear signals within the group that you're part of, about who does or does not belong. And I know I'm getting a little bit more like, you know, the Art of War kind of thing, but these are normal mechanisms and it just highlights the incredible sophistication that humans have of communicating belonging, which is this fundamental need, on many different layers, and that even within large groups there are subgroups of belonging that people are navigating all the time and trying to figure out, "Is this somewhere where I feel like my best intentions are valued or not?" So that's where the challenge is.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:32:25):
And it can come up for you in ways ... when you're talking about this, it reminded me, years and years ago there was a group of people who were conducting interviews for a new employee, and I was in another room but I could hear them talking after an interviewee left, and it was ... I mean it was ... they said what I'm suer they would consider to be a really nice thing, I could hear them say, "She was great, she's one of us," and I remember sitting in the other room and thinking, "She's on of us? What does that even mean?" Like I could hear them saying that, and I know it was innocuous for them, but all of a sudden I was thinking, "I don't think I'm one of them."

Annalisa Holcombe (00:33:09):
Like when I think of what they might be meaning by, "One of us," now suddenly I'm in that middle space you just described where I'm like, "I don't know if I'm one of them," now I'm wondering, I thought I was in, but maybe I'm not, maybe I'm in this weird space, and I think that's a fascinating place we find ourselves in at work, even when we're the people who say the, "Oh they're great, they're one of us," could be actually defining for other people, you know, who's right and who's not right.

Omid Fotuhi (00:33:40):
Right, yeah.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:33:43):
In ways you don't even know you're doing.

Omid Fotuhi (00:33:44):
Yeah. And again, just to sort of nail it on the head, I would say the most psychologically and emotionally taxing experience is what's known as this belonging uncertainty, this constantly wondering whether you do or don't belong, because if you know one way or the other that you do or don't belong, then that's, in many ways actually a lot easier, your mind can now focus on other things to either disengage and form new groups, or to stay committed to the group that you're with, but not knowing is really the most, I would say, damaging and difficult psychological experience to navigate through, and that's why to your point earlier, I think leadership and organizations are realizing the value of training in helping their employees have better clarity about their belonging in that workplace.

Omid Fotuhi (00:34:36):
And so they're understanding that things like explicitly conveying the value of each individual and each group in that context can go a long way, because if you are not sure, then having that explicit explanation that you do belong can actually be pretty powerful, and then in addition to that making sure that you have systems and structures where there's a clear interaction on equal levels for as many people as you're interested in creating that sense of belonging for, helps again to foster that sense of belonging, there's a great deal of insights and process that's happening in that regard.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:35:18):
So I had a ... one of the people on this podcast talked about ... I just thought this was an incredibly vulnerable thing to do, but is a CEO of a non-profit and part of her actual bio on NAWBO, National Association of Women Business Owners, has a section in it that says that she is a survivor of domestic abuse, that she puts in her business bio, and I thought ... like you never see stuff like that, it's incredibly vulnerable, and when I asked her about that, she said on purpose she's doing that because she wanted people to know that there are people who are domestic violence survivors who are in positions of leadership, and if you find yourself in that position you can be too.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:36:09):
And I wonder what you think about that, because I do think that often we don't know, as individuals, whether we do belong, because in some ways we, as leaders, speak about the best of us, or the highlights rather than the whole of who we are. I don't even know if I'm getting at what I'm trying to get at, but do you know what I mean?

Omid Fotuhi (00:36:34):
Yeah, I think ... I mean and you're touching on, again, a couple of fundamental things. First we want to belong and second we want to belong to the social group of the greatest status. And we touched on this with the signaling systems that we have, to convey who belongs within our social class and who does not, and constantly people who are on the lower ends or lower groups as sort of normatively accepted, are trying to get into those higher level groups, but what's happened I think in recent years is almost a reversal of the implicit subjugation of certain groups as being less than, and those groups recognizing that they can be proud and articulate and vocal about their group's identification, because one of the things that's challenging is that if you feel that you don't belong in a particular group or status group that you would like to, you feel like you are on the outs and when you feel like you are on the outs, you feel like you're alone, right?

Omid Fotuhi (00:37:44):
And that's what's really fundamentally challenging is if you feel like you're alone or isolated in that exclusion, then you start to wonder, "How am I going to survive? How am I going to thrive?" And one way I think the people are coming to realize that they can reduce that feeling of isolation is to articulate that no, in fact you are part of a larger group, there are many of us like this going through these kinds of experiences and still functioning and operating and being fully fulfilled, and that can be incredibly comforting, so even if you don't find yourself fitting into your immediate, most proximal social group that you would like to, knowing that there ... somewhere around the world or somewhere around the company there are others who are going through a similar thing, can address that feeling of loneliness that is at the root cause for why belonging uncertainty is so harmful and so difficult.

Omid Fotuhi (00:38:38):
So I think it's really fascinating and powerful how ... and we're seeing a lot of this, like on LinkedIn I think it's pretty common where people are clearly abdicating that they're first generation, so being vocal and being able to share this is vulnerable for you because potentially you're putting yourself at risk for being subject to some negative inclusion or exclusion experiences, but at the same time it's serving the broader group by getting that sense of connection within individuals in that group.

Omid Fotuhi (00:39:11):
And we have a lot of different groups, whether we like it or not, whether we know it or not, there's just with 7.5 billion, whatever we're at now, invariably there will be a lot of people like us, and with technology we are actually able to create a sense of belonging with people that will never even meet, right? So I think there's a lot of value there. And so as we think about the workplace, are there ways that we can create similar kinds of opportunities for people to have that sense of belonging with each other? Even if it's not within their own department or their own small group.

Omid Fotuhi (00:39:43):
So again, there are some really creative strategies and opportunities to fulfill that sense of belonging that maybe we couldn't do previously.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:39:52):
When have you felt like you truly belonged at work? What were the circumstances present for you? What was that like for you?

Omid Fotuhi (00:39:59):
So I'm going to take a second to reflect on that question. I began this conversation by saying that one of the things I'm most grateful for is the power that the insights of psychology have given me, and for me, one of the biggest challenges, which I think again, is not unique to me, but one of the challenges I've had to navigate throughout my whole life is constantly wondering whether I do belong, in fact the literature shows that people who are more conscientious, who in fact are actually more capable in their work, often are crippled with more of these anxieties and uncertainties about, you know, are they doing the job well enough, do they belong.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:40:46):
I totally agree with that by the way, I run mentoring programs and I always ... when I get mentors who say, "I'm not sure I'm a good enough mentor," I say, "That's the signal to me that I know that you are."

Omid Fotuhi (00:40:58):
Right, and it's easy to give that advice to others I think, but what's been powerful for me is being able to take that advice for myself. So now, rather than interpreting those signals of, "Maybe I'm not getting the feedback that I want," or, "Maybe I'm not sure whether I do belong," I have enough insight from the body of literature, from psychology, to know that that belonging uncertainty is not warranted or based on any actual threats to my belonging, but in fact it's a signal that I care about what I'm doing and I'm caring about connection.

Omid Fotuhi (00:41:33):
I say this subtly, and I don't want it to convey that it's a simple to do, that once you figured it out that it's always going to be there, it's a skill that you have to apply every single time that it happens, but over time it actually becomes like a strengthened muscle that you just get better at using. So definitely I think belonging uncertainty and imposter syndrome and navigating upwards through the social classes in our society has been something that I've had to manage and navigate internally and externally, but I've had a great deal of help from psychology, and I feel incredibly privileged, which is why I also think that it's valuable that we're having conversations like this, that you're sharing this with people, that we share out as much as possible, like you said in the example of the person who shared their own past experiences with domestic violence, that there's a lot that we can do to bring each other along towards an upward mobility.

Omid Fotuhi (00:42:36):
At the end of the day, you know, when you think ... and I'm a deeply philosophical person, there are some assumptions that I think are not necessarily true, and one of those assumptions is that there has to be groups of different social class and levels. I'm not sure whether I completely buy into that, I think there certainly can be a great deal of aggregate movements towards higher levels of experience and belonging and social class, across populations, without necessarily coming at the cost of subgroups. So that's one of the things that I think is really fascinating.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:43:14):
I'm also ... because you've done ... I'm only tangentially aware of the work that you did at Stanford, but how that affected the work on belonging uncertainty for young people going into college et cetera, like talk to me about how ... I mean there's a part of me that wants to think a lot about this issue of belonging as a parent, or working with like my own kids, or working with college students, or working with young people, I'm really interested in your thoughts about belonging in that perspective.

Omid Fotuhi (00:43:44):
Yeah. Annalisa Holcombe (00:43:44):
And you know, then I get meta about how do we talk about belonging in this time when all of the kids are going to school virtually so often, like what does that mean and how does that affect belonging? I don't know if you have answers, but these are things in my head right now.

Omid Fotuhi (00:43:59):
Yeah, those are great questions. I think you know, there's actually a big surge in the research on belonging over the past five years, because there's an ongoing recognition that it is a nearly universal experience. Any time there's a transition into a new role, we all wonder like, you know, "Can I do this? Do I belong?" Because we're hardwired to ask those questions, and how quickly you're able to make sense of that question and how you navigate away from that question determines a lot of the next steps, which feed into that cycle, right? So again, if you have an ambiguous interaction with a professor, if you got a bad grade in class and you start to wonder, "Are these signs that maybe I don't belong?"

Omid Fotuhi (00:44:47):
What happens next is because of your protective nature, because you're not sure that you do belong, then you're not going to double-down and engage with the peers and the professors to get you the help that you need to do well on that next test or to have better clarity about the interactions that you have, you disengage, and then that causes you not to learn materials as well, you're distracted, it causes you not to integrate socially as well, and then that feeds into negative cycle.

Omid Fotuhi (00:45:20):
So these interventions have recognized this recursive process that once left to itself, can lead down this downward spiral and that when intervened upon, when these interventions are able to come in at a time when students just start to ask these questions, in those critical moments and equip them with slightly more adaptive possibilities about what that experience means, so does getting a D necessarily mean that you don't belong or that you can't cut it? Perhaps not, and how they convey that to people is not by telling them explicitly that, "Hey, getting a bad grade is normal," what they do is they expose those students to other students' experiences.

Omid Fotuhi (00:46:09):
So again, and we touched on this too, when you feel like you don't belong, if you feel like you're the only one going through it, that's when it becomes harmful. When it's okay if you are going through a difficult time and you know that others are too, because then you don't think, "Okay this means that I don't belong and I shouldn't be here." It's like if you go to a party, if you don't know anybody you're not going to stick around, but if you know that one other person, I mean chances are you're going to stick around, you're going to integrate, you're going to find a way to have a good time.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:46:36):
It's also like the storytelling of other people, if other people tell their stories, then you can see yourself in them sometimes.

Omid Fotuhi (00:46:43):
Yeah, and what's fascinating, there's a phenomenon known as pluralistic ignorance, and what that is, is there's essentially ... there's an interesting metaphor at Stanford, called the Stanford Duck Syndrome, where as freshmen the metaphor goes that as freshmen students come on campus and they look around and they see all these other ducks floating seamlessly across the surface of the water, but what they don't see for the other ducks that they see for themselves, that they're paddling furiously to stay afloat, so they see their own struggle but they look around and everyone seems so calm.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:47:16):
They all look like they're gliding.

Omid Fotuhi (00:47:18):
They all look like they're gliding, meanwhile, they're all having the same experience about you, and so it's fascinating how individual experiences can create a process where everybody has the same exact experience, but nobody knows that it's shared, and so how you dispel that pluralistic ignorance is by getting people to speak up about their own experiences and their own challenges, and so if you get one person to say, "Hey, I'm actually working pretty hard to stay afloat," the person next to you is more likely to say, "Actually so am I." Right? And then that creates a cycle that breaks that negative pattern.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:47:54):
I love that. This is why we do this podcast. It's so that we can all see like underneath the surface the paddling furiously that people are doing.

Omid Fotuhi (00:48:03):
Yeah and you do that very well.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:48:04):
And it's okay.

Omid Fotuhi (00:48:06):
Your questions are pointed and they get out some pretty raw responses, which again, I think to your point, that's exactly what they ought to be doing, you know, there's a sense of comfort that comes from knowing that what seeming experts or people who seem like they're accomplished who have got things together, actually go through. In fact when I work with professors and administrators, one of the things I always encourage them to do is to humanize themselves at the beginning of the classes, to convey to other students and their employees and their peers that they too have had challenges, that they haven't just arrived at their level of success as a result of one success after another.

Omid Fotuhi (00:48:44):
But they actually had a lot of hiccups they probably didn't even know that they would end up where they are. I'm not sure that I would have predicted that I'd be here five years ago, most people don't. And so normalizing the challenges and conveying that those challenges and uncertainties are temporary, are too the mechanisms that these psychological interventions pioneered by many researches at Stanford, are really effective at doing. And there's lessons to be learned there in terms of what can be applied in the workplace, right?

Omid Fotuhi (00:49:21):
You can, again, create experiences and opportunities for people to share, so that others can understand that what they're going through is not unique to them and that these things pass with time, especially as you move up.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:49:35):
I love that. How does that affect ... given that you know these things about pluralistic ignorance, how can parents think about ... you talked at the beginning about how important your parenting was to you, how can we think about the essence of our kids and belonging as good parents? What advice do you have?

Omid Fotuhi (00:50:06):
Yeah. So I'm relatively new to parenting and there's so much I'm learning as I also invite anyone who has advice on how to get my kids to sleep at night, and put on their clothes in the morning to email me, I think I'm happy to swap advice, but in terms of belonging I think, you know, ultimately it's a desire and a need to feel like you have positive regard for others and that's you're valued and you're respected. And so one thing that you can do is you can convey that to your children, regardless of some of the expectations that we have.

Omid Fotuhi (00:50:47):
This also actually echoes the workplace. I think increasingly in society there's so much pressure to perform that it even seeps into our personal home lives, and one of the challenges with a lot of this belonging work, as well as the growth mindset and other kinds of psychological interventions is that because we realize the benefits of fostering these kinds of outcomes, in terms of performance, we now sort of push individuals to adapt, even forcibly, those kinds of experiences in the hopes that they get the performances.

Omid Fotuhi (00:51:22):
And what I mean by that is like, you would like to be able to have an unconditional sense that you do belong, but parents at times are ... because they recognize that that's what's going to help them do better in college, tell them to understand that they will belong so that they can go and do something that maybe they're not really ready for or want to do, and I certainly don't want to suggest that education or striving upwards is a positive thing, I think it absolutely is, but forcing the experience of belonging, or using it as a tool to achieve a performance or an opportunity outcome, sometimes doesn't work well.

Omid Fotuhi (00:52:06):
And so as a parent one thing that you can do is just make sure that you really truly value your children for who they are and for the choices that they make, give them the flexibility to make mistakes, and deviate from the paths that maybe you had in mind for them, because once they have that solid foundation, they can then go into new worlds and new environments with the confidence that they have that stability at home and know that if perhaps that new environment isn't for them, they can always come back and try a different one. But if they don't...

Annalisa Holcombe (00:52:39):
Whoever they are, they belong with their family, like their parents will find them to belong in that environment.

Omid Fotuhi (00:52:45):
Right. And implicitly they're also conveying to their children and one of the things I think I'm trying to do as well, is that belonging and performance are not necessarily tied, you know, if you don't perform well it's not going to question whether you belong, not in my eyes, and when you are able to convey that to your children, then they don't go into those new performance domains with that uncertainty about whether that's the case for them.

Omid Fotuhi (00:53:12):
So that's probably one of the most powerful things I would say that parents can take away is disentangling performance conditions on the conditions of belonging.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:53:23):
I think that's right because just as an aside from my work and my mentoring programs, I did those mentoring programs for 15 years, and during that process we ... halfway through the semester, or halfway through the academic year we would have one session where we spoke, and it was like the place where the dam usually broke, but it was the, "What are you afraid of?" And when you talked with these college students from around lots of different experiences and backgrounds, and one of the most universal things that those college students were existentially afraid of, was disappointing their parents, almost to a person.

Omid Fotuhi (00:54:03):
Right.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:54:04):
And I think we all are that way, we just want our parents to be proud of us.

Omid Fotuhi (00:54:09):
Yeah. And you know, I think there are nuances that are important, right? Like you certainly don't want to just ... as a parent, and I certainly fall into this category, I certainly don't want to say that I don't care about performance or high standards, but being able to keep that separate from the conveyances of belonging is what ... one of the challenges and the important strategies to keep in mind. So you can-

Annalisa Holcombe (00:54:40):
So both being ... both challenging and nurturing at the same time.

Omid Fotuhi (00:54:45):
Right, and again, it's just seeing them as distinct domains, like you can put a lot of pressure on yourself, on your children, to perform at their optimal levels, but never have those performance outcomes impact how they feel about your perceived belonging of them, or whether they belong in your family or whether your love and caring will be taken away or questioned, I think that's the challenge.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:55:15):
I agree. One of the things I also wanted to talk about is that I feel like belonging or lack of it is inherent to our civil discourse, and I am interested in your thoughts about ... like I think it's an undercurrent that we may not be speaking about, I don't know, as well as we could be, or with care, and I just am ... I'm interested in your thoughts on that. I feel that belonging is central to the way that we are engaging with each other as a society, particularly here in the US but maybe in other places as well, I just know what I know here.

Omid Fotuhi (00:55:53):
Yeah.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:55:56):
What do you think?

Omid Fotuhi (00:55:56):
But I think this is a really important question, and so the example that I was going to give you is how belonging and social status interact, right? I think. Ultimately belonging is a sign of who can occupy a space and who cannot, who has to leave. A couple of Sundays ago ... so I run for therapy, because basically I carry a lot of stress with me, a lot of weight, and how I manage those pressures is by going for a run, and on Sundays I usually have a longer run, and a couple of weeks ago I wanted to see if I could go faster for one of my longer runs, it was just over a 13 mile run and I was coming into the last mile, exhausted, just trying to make a certain time, and as I was running there was this narrow sidewalk and snowbanks on either side, it was maybe, I would say, 500 meters back to my house where I could be finished and relax, and as I'm running I see a man walking up towards me, and as he seems me approaching him he stands in the middle of the sidewalk, puts up his arms right in the middle of the sidewalk so I had nowhere to go, and I thought, "How wonderful, this man can probably see that I'm finishing my run and wants to congratulate me almost like a finish like," right?

Omid Fotuhi (00:57:16):
So I keep running, expecting that I'll go through his hands and he'll cheer, but lo and behold he actually stiff arms me, he completely blocks my path, and proceeds to turn around and start yelling at me, and I thought, "How interesting," how interesting that there are these perceptions that he would have the right to occupy that space, above my right to be able to pass through. And so as we think about what's going on culturally, and as we think about belonging, I think these are questions that are incredibly inseparable, how we think about our privilege and our rights has a lot to do with the access to belonging that we grant or don't grant.

Omid Fotuhi (00:58:06):
And social justice historians and researchers have long recognized that social class and social status and social identity have been the mechanisms that sustain these inequalities between certain groups, and that ultimately who has access to these opportunities in this space and who is invited to belong and not, feeds into the inequality that we are contending with. So in many ways, you know, it's interesting, because if you can think of a world where everybody had 100% secured sense of belonging, that might be a society in which these inequalities would not longer be as pervasive, but as far as I know, we still fundamentally have this need to belong, and how we navigate the opportunities and the space that is granted to use or excluded, closed up to us, are connected.

Omid Fotuhi (00:59:08):
So I don't know that I have an answer, I just realized that they are connected and it's important to think about those in conjunction.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:59:21):
And I really appreciate that.

Omid Fotuhi (00:59:21):
Yeah.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:59:21):
Thank you for spending time with me today.

Omid Fotuhi (00:59:21):
This was so much fun.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:59:22):
Taking time out of your Saturday. It's so fun right? That was super fast too.

Omid Fotuhi (00:59:26):
That was so much fun, and I think your questions are just incredible, I think I'm not going to look up your podcast and make it a regular thing.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:59:55):
I am so grateful to Omid for sharing his insights with us. You can learn more about him by connecting with him on LinkedIn, or at his website, OmidFotuhi.com. Next week will be great fun. I'll be joined by our first guest who is also a currently sitting elected official. Mayor Cherie Wood, of the city of South Salt Lake. We'll be talking about integrity, and you won't want to miss it. As always, thank you for listening to 92,000 Hours. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review. We really appreciate your support. If you're interested in integrating the personal and professional through authentic conversation just like you heard on our episode today, please check out our work at Connection Collaborative. You can find us at connectioncollaborative.com, or send me an email at annalisa@connectioncollaborative.com.

Annalisa Holcombe (01:01:08):
Thank you, and see you next week on 92,000 Hours. 92,000 Hours is made possible by Connection Collaborative. This episode was produced and edited by Brianna Steggell. Lexie Banks is our marketing director, and I'm your host, Annalisa Holcombe.