53 min
Activating the Value of #Belonging at Work Through #Listening with Sarah Judd Welch listening SUPERPOWER podcast
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- Management
What does listening have to do with belonging? There is currently a lot of buzz around the cost to organizations when employees do not feel belonging. Yet it’s not just buzz. There is more and more research showing that when employees feel like they belong, organizations can reap bottom-line benefits.
In this episode, Sarah describes how listening is the practice of showing people that they belong, and is a key capacity needed to activate the value-creating all the buzz.
She talks about the importance of recognizing that while it is the employers’ responsibility to shape belonging experiences, work cannot be the only focus. A leader can also foster a sense of belonging when they support individuals in their team discover belonging and identity outside of work. For example, having time and resources to spend time with friends, taking a class, joining a club or volunteering.
Sarah Judd Welch is the Principal & CEO of Sharehold, an innovation consultancy that designs and fosters belonging with teams and communities navigating change. As a community and organizational designer, Sarah believes that it is our collective responsibility to create environments and cultures in which everyone is seen, heard, and valued. Sarah is Dare to Lead trained and most recently led the research report Redesigning Belonging: How Uncertainty Magnifies Belonging at Work which resulted in a group assessment tool for visualizing and improving belonging experiences. Her clients range from Google and Anheuser Busch to The Skoll Foundation and Meetup.
“Listening is...a process for showing people that they belong. It's not enough to simply listen, you need to also take action. And you also need to show up and act in a way on an ongoing basis that shows people they are seen, heard and valued, and that they fit within the group in a system.” - Sarah Judd Welch
Valuable Resource:
A group assessment tool for visualizing and improving belonging experiences -- Redesigning Belonging: How Uncertainty Magnifies Belonging at Work: https://www.sharehold.co/redesigningbelonging
Listen IN Notes:
00:38 - The time she began to notice just how powerful listening could be as an organizational capacity and as a lever for change.
02:10 - What is a innovation consultancy?
04:14 - The natural output of her company’s growth and evolution over time -- If you want to see change externalized in the world, you must start with yourself, then start with the organization then go out into the community.
07:02 - Describing how organizations that were more successful were the ones that listen better.
10:10 - How did one company who listened better become more successful: becoming a more digital and content-oriented company as opposed to more of a traditional marketing company
16:10 - What happens when insights are rejected by decision-makers: It's oftentimes foreboding of a really challenging future where an organization is unable to meet the needs of a specific set of stakeholders.
17:04 - What one company learned when they become responsive towards insights: Reframing their value proposition
18:31 - Sometimes there is hesitancy and fear to listen to customers: A story about a client who was surprised to be able to leverage their learnings to reposition their membership to be much more about being in community with people and supporting the global movement
20:15 - Two different research approaches used to get insights for companies: Conduct survey and direct interviews
22:21 - How listening gave Tokeativity valuable insight: they learned how to directly engage their community
24:36 - The holistic shift that happens in companies after listening: It's really about reorienting the organization to serving your primary stakeholder, which is oftentimes the customer.
25:32 - The core outcome of a report called Redesigning Belonging -- How Uncertainty Magnif
What does listening have to do with belonging? There is currently a lot of buzz around the cost to organizations when employees do not feel belonging. Yet it’s not just buzz. There is more and more research showing that when employees feel like they belong, organizations can reap bottom-line benefits.
In this episode, Sarah describes how listening is the practice of showing people that they belong, and is a key capacity needed to activate the value-creating all the buzz.
She talks about the importance of recognizing that while it is the employers’ responsibility to shape belonging experiences, work cannot be the only focus. A leader can also foster a sense of belonging when they support individuals in their team discover belonging and identity outside of work. For example, having time and resources to spend time with friends, taking a class, joining a club or volunteering.
Sarah Judd Welch is the Principal & CEO of Sharehold, an innovation consultancy that designs and fosters belonging with teams and communities navigating change. As a community and organizational designer, Sarah believes that it is our collective responsibility to create environments and cultures in which everyone is seen, heard, and valued. Sarah is Dare to Lead trained and most recently led the research report Redesigning Belonging: How Uncertainty Magnifies Belonging at Work which resulted in a group assessment tool for visualizing and improving belonging experiences. Her clients range from Google and Anheuser Busch to The Skoll Foundation and Meetup.
“Listening is...a process for showing people that they belong. It's not enough to simply listen, you need to also take action. And you also need to show up and act in a way on an ongoing basis that shows people they are seen, heard and valued, and that they fit within the group in a system.” - Sarah Judd Welch
Valuable Resource:
A group assessment tool for visualizing and improving belonging experiences -- Redesigning Belonging: How Uncertainty Magnifies Belonging at Work: https://www.sharehold.co/redesigningbelonging
Listen IN Notes:
00:38 - The time she began to notice just how powerful listening could be as an organizational capacity and as a lever for change.
02:10 - What is a innovation consultancy?
04:14 - The natural output of her company’s growth and evolution over time -- If you want to see change externalized in the world, you must start with yourself, then start with the organization then go out into the community.
07:02 - Describing how organizations that were more successful were the ones that listen better.
10:10 - How did one company who listened better become more successful: becoming a more digital and content-oriented company as opposed to more of a traditional marketing company
16:10 - What happens when insights are rejected by decision-makers: It's oftentimes foreboding of a really challenging future where an organization is unable to meet the needs of a specific set of stakeholders.
17:04 - What one company learned when they become responsive towards insights: Reframing their value proposition
18:31 - Sometimes there is hesitancy and fear to listen to customers: A story about a client who was surprised to be able to leverage their learnings to reposition their membership to be much more about being in community with people and supporting the global movement
20:15 - Two different research approaches used to get insights for companies: Conduct survey and direct interviews
22:21 - How listening gave Tokeativity valuable insight: they learned how to directly engage their community
24:36 - The holistic shift that happens in companies after listening: It's really about reorienting the organization to serving your primary stakeholder, which is oftentimes the customer.
25:32 - The core outcome of a report called Redesigning Belonging -- How Uncertainty Magnif
53 min