473. Andrea D. Carter

Check out host Bidemi Ologunde's new show: The Work Ethic Podcast, available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Email: bidemiologunde@gmail.com

In this episode, host Bidemi Ologunde sits down with researcher and writer Andrea D. Carter, a Belonging Expert, Organizational Scientist, Founder of Andrea Carter Consulting and creator of the Belonging First Methodology™, to explore her provocative idea that “the price of belonging is inconvenience,” and why she calls friction a form of social infrastructure. Why do loneliness, workplace toxicity, and declining emotional intelligence seem to be rising at the same time? What's the difference between belonging and fitting in, and why does it matter right now? Andrea breaks down her five "productive inconveniences" and shares practical, next-day scripts leaders can use to rebuild trust, connection, and healthier teams. You can also connect with her on Substack.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:15

Thanks for joining me again on another special episode of this podcast. I have a special guest from hold on, Toronto. Off in Canada.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

There you go. Toronto.

SPEAKER_04 0:29

Over to you.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I'm excited to be here today.

SPEAKER_04 0:35

Nice, thanks. And the first time I got the email from your folks asking me to have you as a guest, I was so excited saying, oh, finally, a professional and expert to talk about all the different sociological, organizational psychology, data science, ETC, ETC. And who is the perfect person to break all these things down for us? And other than Ms. Carter, to begin, you've identified three converging epidemics: loneliness, workplace toxicity, and a drop in EQ, emotional quotient. Am I right?

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Yeah. So, well, emotion, so it's the emotional quotient, but you're also looking at emotional intelligence and then social intelligence. But yes, all three of those are epidemics. And there's certainly um specific global crises. They're not just, you know, isolated to one place in the world right now. And so this is where for your audience, especially people who are thinking about, you know, whether that's technology or whether that's ethics, there's a ripple effect. And this becomes incredibly important no matter where you are in the world, because these three things are happening simultaneously. They're not happening uh separately. So let me give you an example of that. Um, one in six people right now globally report chronic loneliness. That's a World Health Organization finding. It's a very large number. And the research shows that chronic loneliness has the same physiological impact as smoking a pack of cigarettes per day. So your body is literally breaking down faster by being lonely or being alone or being ostracized or excluded. Um, if we look at um the workplace toxicity levels, this is actually a really important statistic because in 2024, our workplace toxicity was only at 66%. Within a year, so by the end of 2025, um, the workplace toxicity is up to 80%. So what's interesting about this is that that's you know, basically not a slow drift, that's a cliff. And when you think about how those two pieces, loneliness and toxicity, come together, um, which is the third part about that global emotional intelligence and the emotional quotient. Um, the other element that we've seen is that emotional intelligence has actually dropped by 6% between 2019 and 2024. So not individually, collectively. And so, as a species, you know, we became measurably less capable of navigating emotion, managing conflict, building relationships even over the past five years. And so the research really calls it an emotional recession because um the connection point actually comes from people who have a higher emotional intelligence um even five years ago, they were more than 10 times more likely to have strong relationships. Um, they were more likely to be effective in their work, experience well-being. So as EQ starts to drop, everything else drops with it. And and because these aren't separate, they're actually three symptoms of the same structural collapse. And that's because we've essentially removed the friction that builds belonging. And then this is what we are left with.

SPEAKER_04 4:49

Wow. Wow. Thank you for breaking it down that way. I've seen some of these um headlines. Um, I think it was a US Surgeon General that actually came out and said, if you're if you're experiencing symptoms of loneliness, you're not so different than someone who actually smokes multiple packs of cigarettes a day. And that could fast track so many bad things in the human body, inflammation and then the risk of disease and disease that takes too long to be resolved within the body, and so on and so forth. And of course, it's not just the person that is experiencing the symptoms that is impacted, that person's family, that person's community, that person's neighborhood, that person's workplace, which a fascinating article you wrote actually went into all these different um second-order consequences. So to bring that up now, uh, you you wrote an article in the conversation that went viral to put that's another statement, basically. Why do you think the idea that convenience is killing belonging struck such a nerve right now?

SPEAKER_01 6:08

That's such a great question. Well, you know, when I published this article, it actually went live uh the day that Bondi Beach um had the terrorist attack. And I, you know, there was so much emotion on that day. And so I found it very odd um that my article actually made it to the front page of the conversation on that day. And I think, you know, a nerve was really struck because the the article was called The Price of Belonging is Inconvenience. And um, you know, I think it reached over 50,000 reads from Australia to the UK to Europe to North America. And uh that did surprise me. It surprised me that on a day of such tragedy, that that article was consumed at such a fast pace. And the core argument of it was really that we live in a convenience culture, everything from apps to algorithm, remote work tools, um, on-demand, everything. And so, you know, we've we've optimized our communities for speed, for ease, um, where we're we're taking any sort of conflict or friction, and we're in a way we're we're um we're we're diminishing it. And so in doing that, what we're actually doing is we're accidentally dismantling our social infrastructures that build belonging. And so on this incredibly tragic day, it was actually a day where people began to come together. And yet we still have such division across the world, and there's still so much violence towards anyone who is different depending on the localization of where you live. And so what that looks like is that we continue to optimize away the very inconvenience that actually creates the interdependence that we need as human beings in order to not just survive, but also to succeed in life. We can't we can't actually succeed by ourselves. And so I think about um inconvenience a lot because I think that there's people on the planet who feel on a day-to-day basis that they are an inconvenience. Because when you show up differently, um that creates discomfort for other people. And instead of it being about you and I coming together and understanding those differences and understanding each other, um our world wants to um take that down. And so it's easier to leave conversations from people who see the world differently than you. And it is, you know, easier to not show up when you say that you're going to and stay at home. And it's easier to not do repair work after you've had conflict. It's easier to just walk away. And if we look at that cancel culture, um, you know, those cancel culture is is a huge obstacle to community. And yet um it is the conflict, it is the staying and listening, it is the working through the messiness and the inconvenience of interdependence that actually allows us to be a community. And so when you remove them, you make everything frictionless. You you strip out the building materials, and then you wonder why people feel so alone and why teams feel transactional and why human beings now feel transactional, and why cultures feel so brittle. And, you know, I um the the research has shown in many different ways that that inconvenience really becomes the cost of community. And I think on many respects, people have stopped paying it. And we need to learn how to pay it back again.

SPEAKER_04 10:57

Wow. Wow. This has crystallized the same notion for me in a much clearer way. Because we see all these same things, maybe through our group chats and how some certain people show up within group chats if something is becoming an inconvenient and someone just leaves the group chat. And I'm thinking, picture this in my mind saying, if the members of that group chat are in a room trying to have a conversation on where to go see a movie on Saturday night, and we can't seem to come to this to an agreement. Will this person that left the group chat leave the room where we're having the conversation? More than likely, no. But because it's well, it's on a group chat on a smartphone, well, they are more likely to say, Well, you guys are not listening to my opinion, so I'm gonna leave this group. And maybe everyone begs the person to come back and then they come back, and then to what to what extent? What's the point? You're not ready to resolve a conflict for however long it takes. Because some conflicts take two seconds, some conflicts take two years. That is the nature of human conflicts. The goal is to be able to become the person who would resolve a conflict regardless of how long it's gonna take. But guess what? Everyone is in this instant gratification mode now. Your food comes within five minutes of you ordering the food on the app, you click a button and you watch a TV show, you don't even bother driving to the movies anymore. Um, you buy something on Amazon, and the next day before you wake up, it's right there in front of your front door. And we extrapolate all this to say, hmm, if it takes me five minutes to buy food, see a movie, talk to my friend on Snapchat or Instagram, it should take me less to not want to have a conversation with someone who doesn't see the world the way I see the world. Therefore, I'm gonna leave all these groups that seem to antagonize me and join these groups that already agree with me before I even join them. So, therefore, my bubble is just gonna keep getting bigger, and now I have a warped sense of how the world truly operates, and my emotional quotient is pretty much in the negative, but I don't realize it because I think this is how the world should work. Everyone should just agree with you, and like the kids say, keep it moving. Have I described your attitude?

SPEAKER_01 13:25

Totally, yeah. And you know, I I I love the way that you've broken that down as well, because I think all of those things are so true. And and I think what you're talking about in this, um, in a lot of um ways, you're talking about the algorithms that we're now faced with. And, you know, those algorithms are curating a lot of our belief-aligned feeds. So, you know, you really never have to encounter a perspective that genuinely challenges you if you don't go and seek that challenge. And, you know, whether it's an app or a group chat or whatever you're doing online, you know, those the technology is what allows us to ghost or unfollow or disconnect. And, you know, that was really the sentiment of what I meant by it being frictionless. And and what's interesting about that is that those remote tools, you know, the what allows us to work alongside people for months is also the same technology that allows us to never have to get to know those people. And so don't get me wrong, you know, I'm not anti-tech technology, I use it, I love it, but there is absolutely a distinction between technology that helps you coordinate with people and technology that replaces the need to. And that first builds belonging infrastructure. The second is what erodes it. And so I think the question that we need to be asking, leaders need to be asking, people need to be asking, is not is this tool too fast? I don't think that's actually the right question. I think it's does this tool still require someone to show up for another person? Because that showing up piece, that's the piece that's going to continue to build trust. And when we don't have trust, trust is what allows teams, what allows people, what allows families, what allows communities to actually move fast when it really matters.

SPEAKER_04 15:41

Wow. Wow. And speaking of friction, that leads me to my next set of questions for you. So you've you've described friction as infrastructure. So why should we view social connection as a structural build rather than just a feeling?

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Well, uh, so I actually look at belonging as a structural build. Um and friction has the flip side too. So um what I will say is that for the past five years, I've been researching why belonging is so important to human beings within the workplace, and then also within families. Um, what we see now is that there's uh a level of estrangement or ostracization that's happening at a level that is so great that one in two Americans are estranged from a family member, and one in three are ostracized from a workplace team. So we we know that there is um a lot of erosion that is happening in both our personal and our professional lives. If you look at the five indicators of belonging, and and my first research study, um, which was uh in it it was published in 2022. It started in 2000 or 2020. Um, so during COVID, uh is when I actually had started the research. Um and initially what I was looking at, what I was so kind of frustrated with, if you will, was that um, you know, I kept running into the same puzzle. Two people, same environment, same resources, one thrives, one burns out. And I couldn't explain it. And so I started to ask, you know, what's happening in their brain that is different. And it took me really deep into the neuroscience. And and what I found was that when people feel chronically uncertain, when they can't predict what's coming, when they don't know if they matter, when they don't feel safe, um, the brain's threat system stays on. And so, you know, the the hormone cortisol, um, that's our our fight, flight, freeze, faint hormone, it floods our system. And with that elevated cortisol, it literally shuts down your prefrontal cortex. So your prefrontal cortex is the area of the brain that's your your planning brain, your creative brain, it's your executive function. So your ability to um essentially work through problems and um logically figure out what to do when you're in situations that are broken. And that's not a motivation problem, that's biology, right? And so I thought, you know, if belonging is this fundamental to how the brain performs, why is nobody measuring this rigorously? And there was no framework, there was no infrastructure, and everything that I read was very much about whether or not the individual experienced belonging, but there was no bi-relational, interdependent structure for how to create belonging. And the the research also showed that fitting in was on the other side of the spectrum of belonging. So belonging is a 50-50 um pretense, whereas fitting in is it's a hundred percent on me or it's a hundred percent on you for you to conform to whatever the environment is telling you. And so when I did the initial uh study, I was really just trying to validate like, what does it even mean? What does our brain actually need in order for it to experience belonging? So that was actually where I started. And what was fascinating was that it was, yes, it was COVID. Uh you know, 2021 was where I actually started the real research with 3,500 participants with the Toronto Stock Exchange um mining companies. And there was um 13 that we recruited, 11 that actively participated. I was told I would be lucky if I got 350. And we had 3,500 participants. So people were hungry for it. And what emerged from that study and everything since were five indicators of belonging that I can measure, track, and directly connect now to performance, retention, and safety outcomes. So that was that was huge in in essentially looking at that initial piece of unpacking what even belonging was. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 21:00

Wow. So what are those five indicators of um belonging, basically?

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Yeah, so um the comfort is the first one. And do you would you like it if I just explain just a little bit about each one while I go through it? Would that be helpful?

unknown 21:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Okay, so the the first indicator is comfort, and comfort's not about making everything pleasant or nice or removing all the difficulty. Um, comfort is about clarity and predictability. And so when people know what success looks like, when they know what's expected of them, when they know what they can rely on, that's when that cortisol in your brain actually drops. And the amygdala, which is your brain's threat detection system, it can actually stop scanning the environment for danger. So when that happens, the prefrontal cortex, it comes back online and it goes, Okay, I can plan, I can get creative, I can problem. Solve. So comfort is actually what allows someone to bring their thinking and not just compliance. Um, the second indicator is connection, and connection is what releases oxytocin. And oxytocin is a neurotransmitter that creates bonding. So it's a hormone, if you will, that allows people to build trust. And you can't build trust through transactions. So most workplace relationships are very transactional. I will do this for you, you do this for me. We don't ever get to know each other, right? In a pinch, I don't know whether or not you're gonna show up for me or whether I'm gonna just do it all myself. Um so connection is actually a really important element because when we work together, when we accomplish a task together, that's not connection. Connection is being known. And that's a that's different, right? Knowing what someone else is dealing with, building relationships that have mutual accountability, where we show up for each other, not just when it's convenient. When that trust exists, people will extend themselves and they cover for each other and they flag problems early because the trust is within the environment and it's within each other. When you don't have that and a crisis occurs, it actually will slow down anything that's happened because there's not enough trust to move forward. The third indicator is contribution, and contribution um essentially creates two uh hormones or neurotransmitters. So dopamine for motivation, serotonin for self-worth. And here's what the research shows. So your brain can't produce those chemicals based on effort alone. And it actually needs visible proof so that you go, okay, yeah, my work is actually creating impact. And this is why recognition matters so much, because it's not a nice to have to have that visible proof. You actually need it, your brain needs it. It's a neurological requirement. And so when people can see that what they do is actually moving something forward, they stay engaged. And when their work is invisible, those systems flatline. And so we're seeing enormous amounts of flatlining happening right now. And a lot of that is attributed to the fact that people can't actually see that their um work is important and that they matter. And so um dopamine is what kind of gets you going and gets you through. Serotonin is what keeps you going so that even when things are hard, you continue to show up. And that's not happening right now. The fourth indicator is psychological safety. And I want to say this clearly because a lot of organizations have spent billions of dollars on psychological trade, psychological safety training. Um, but that's one-fifth of belonging, one-fifth of what we actually need. So it's essential, but it's not sufficient by itself. And psychological safety is about um what allows people to stay willing to work through things, to um speak up, to try, to fail, to challenge. It is all of those things without the fear of social punishment. And we know social punishment is so great right now and so quick to lay on, that it's the protective layer that keeps people in conversation, even when the conversation is hard. And that's one of the reasons why most people are leaving those conversations. What's also really interesting is that psychological safety doesn't actually exist without comfort, connection, and contribution. And so if we don't have those three things first, psychological safety, our ability to stay, isn't going to be there. And the last one, the fifth one is well-being. And well-being is the indicator that gets, I would say, most under misunderstood. Um, I think a lot of people think of well-being as resilience. And I think that resilience is often seen as a personal responsibility. And so it's like saying, okay, but you know, you're you're burning out. Here's a meditation app, here's um, you know, some some calming music, here's some breathing techniques we're gonna do for you. And um, you know, if you can't bounce back from this on your own, then there's something wrong with you. That that's how we behave with well-being. That's a fitting-in logic, right? So it's all on you to bounce back. But what's fascinating from all of the data from all of our natural disasters is that when people have community, when people come together and they have social networks, when people show up for someone who's struggling, their well-being recovers sixty 40 to 60 times faster. So well-being isn't just you, it's actually a community function, and it requires consideration and it requires support and it requires sustainable conditions, not just individual resilience training. And I would say that, you know, I've listed all five, but one of the critical things is that they all work as a system. You can't just cherry pick one, you have to have all five in order for your brain to feel belonging. Now you can work on them individually, and we often do, and we build them. But if comfort is present but contribution is individual is invisible, people might be calm, but they'll be disengaged. Right? If connection is strong, but psychological safety is absent, you can have teams who outwardly look like they are um high performers, getting along, high performers, but they're terrified to speak up, which means that when something happens, they're not going to actually speak up when they need to. And so that actually is a great recipe for disaster. And so, you know, I think it's important to understand that you actually do need all five, and they build on each other. Um, and that sequencing always starts with comfort.

SPEAKER_04 29:31

Wow, wow, this is so insightful. And I was taking some notes as you were describing them, and just to recap, to see if I took efficient notes. Um, comfort basically talking about stability and predictability to an extent, saying, you know what's coming, you know how your efforts is going to lead to a well-defined output. So that kind of encapsulates what comfort stands for. And then there is the connection, which is basically recognition. Am I being recognized for all the input, for all my efforts in this system, in this environment?

SPEAKER_01 30:12

I'm gonna interrupt you there.

SPEAKER_04 30:13

Yes, please.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Connection is actually your bonding. So connection is about actually trust, building trust.

SPEAKER_03 30:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

Um, so building relationships that are that are beyond just transactional.

SPEAKER_03 30:26

Got it.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Um, contribution is what you were talking about, where you there's visible proof that your work is creating impact.

SPEAKER_04 30:35

Right, right. I missed that.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

That's okay. That's okay.

SPEAKER_04 30:39

So contribution, there is visible proof that what I'm doing is actually making an impact, which is more likely to keep me engaged in the process of doing the work and taking part in the process workflow and so on. And then there is psychological safety, and which basically leads to the employee or the individual being more likely to stay willing, stay engaged, and persevere for when the bumpy times come. And then last but not the least, the well-being, which has a big component of the community playing a role in that person's well-being. So it's not just a one-directional thing, it's actually bidirectional, the individual feeds the community, and then the community supports the individual. Did I get them?

SPEAKER_00 31:32

You did a great job there.

unknown 31:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 31:37

Now I'm thinking of all the different places I've worked at and how elements of this have obviously been lacking in one way or the other. And maybe it's not the manager's fault, or maybe it's not the entire business unit's fault. Maybe it's just a culture that they inherited from the previous CEO and the previous CEO, and the whole thing just cascades down. And many organizations just go through the same motions and they wonder why things are the way they are.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

Well, and I also think that belonging is often seen as a soft skill rather than um something that's driving motivation, engagement, performance, um, you know, even your your innovation. And so, you know, it was interesting because uh it wasn't all too long ago that um, you know, how I see this work was really changed. And it was changed because I was presenting belonging data to an executive team at this mid-sized manufacturing company. And the company had, I don't know, I want to say it was like between 3,000, 4,000 employees. And I'm I'm going through the data that we had collected and presenting the results. And the CEO and the CHRO were nodding and, you know, taking notes just like yourself. And this the CFO was sitting there, you know, arms crossed. And and staring me down, right? Like he he was giving me the business. And he finally says, and and I'm waiting for it because, you know, as a researcher, the best thing about my position is that I have to stay curious and I have to, you know, really be open to when people ask questions. And so he finally stops me and he goes, Okay, Andrea, you know, this sounds really nice, but how does any of this connect to whether we hit production targets? And so I pulled up the data and I said, Okay, you know, you essentially have two manufacturing plants, similar in size. You actually have told me that they have similar equipment, they have similar similar product lines. Um, the only real difference between them was their belonging scores. And if you look at plant A, plant A has really strong belonging across all five indicators, and you only have 12% turnover here. You are high and on time for your delivery. And when people, you know, see quality problems, they're flagged early because they feel safe that they can do that. And when equipment goes down, you have cross-functional teams that are working together, rallying to problem solve and fix it. And the question was asked, you know, would you go above and beyond during a crunch? And 82% of your people at plant A said yes. Plant B has fractured belonging. And if we look, you know, 28% turnover at this specific plant, people show up, they execute the tasks, but they're not thinking critically. So when we looked at connection and we looked at, you know, how they were actually coming together, they didn't know their colleagues. Um, if they saw a problem on the line, so under psychological safety, they were more opt to stay quiet because they watched other people be criticized, laughed at, sometimes quietly sidelined for speaking up. And, you know, you can see your equipment downtime here lasted longer. Not because of the machines, but because there was a belonging breakdown, and how you were gonna fix those machines came down to who was actually going to listen to who about how you're gonna solve it, right? So when we asked the same question about going above and beyond, plant B only had a 34% score. That's a big difference between those two plants. You know, 82% to 34%, same company, same tools, same product. The only difference was actually in their belonging infrastructure.

SPEAKER_03 36:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

And so it was funny because he then looked at me and he said something I'll actually never forget. He said, So belonging is actually about whether our infrastructure can handle volatility. And I thought, oh, yeah, that's right. And that's exactly it. And it's funny because um, you know, I actually still have it. Um I'm just I'm looking at it over here. Because after that conversation, you'll laugh at me. I I don't know if you can see this. It's like I I sat down and I wrote it on a napkin. And, you know, it's it's funny because you know, I look at, you know, people do this all the time where they write their business plans on a napkin. And I actually sat down with a CFO and I wrote it on a napkin, and I was like, okay, comfort is what calms your brain so you can, you know, feel the friction or feel the conflict or feel the tension. And you go, okay, I can do this, I can handle this. I don't have to be in fight-flight mode. I can actually use my prefrontal cortex and I know what to do to actually turn it on. Connection is what bonds us, right? So it's our trust that we have to have before the friction comes, so that while we're in friction, we actually have the relationship to rely on each other. Contribution is what activates and motivates us to stay and move through the friction. And then psychological safety is what protects us so that we can actually stay in the friction while it's hard. And then well-being is what renews us so that we bounce back and we can stay engaged after the friction. And, you know, when I saw that, um, and I wrote it down on this paper napkin that my husband has told me I really need to get framed and put it up in my office. Um but, you know, I think that that is really important for us to consider that it's not a soft skill anymore. Belonging is really something that is infrastructure. And when we don't have the infrastructure, we actually don't have the tools to work through uh the volatility and the friction that we are seeing on a day-to-day basis.

SPEAKER_04 38:43

Wow. Wow. That is so profound. So in most organizations, they have these trainings that they make managers and anyone that has people reporting to them, they basically make them take some trainings that says, you are the ones now tasked with fixing belonging and social cohesion within your teams? Well, that's one thing. And then another thing is, well, you have to kind of fix the system of convenience that has been built across different companies in different industries, in different countries, and so on. So, does your data show that these managers, some of them experienced managers, some of them new managers who are literally entering a new company and then they have to take a training, which is basically a checkbox checking um exercise? Does your data show that these managers have the EQ tools to actually fix belonging if it can ever be fixed?

SPEAKER_01 39:43

Yeah, and and so the cool thing is that once we actually build the infrastructure, so the infrastructure is um your executives, your HR, and then also your managers. And um you're kind of working at it through bottom-down, top-up processes, because you're building um the infrastructure so that you're all using the same language. And one of the things that we found early on in our research was that the language was actually what was creating a lot of the points of friction to begin with. And so when you look at um how people actually work together, one of the things that we also identified very early was that there are so many initiatives in workplaces that people are so tired of the initiatives that they actually shut down to a lot of the effort. And so it's not that they don't love the work. What I often see is that people will go and they'll take a course or they'll take a training, they'll come back into the environment. The environment is like, I don't care what it is that you want to do. And then it and then it just fizzles because the individual thinks, well, I'm just one person. And so I can't change belonging on my own. I think that this is, you know, if we look at the research and and we look at where all of this kind of comes together, um it's looking at building infrastructure so that people have the language first to then be able to identify, okay, so I've had this conflict with someone, or this person is having conflict. Where are they actually struggling? Which of these five indicators are they actually struggling with first? Because imagine that we're in um a conflict, and you say something to me like, well, Andrea, like, what's the point? You know, I can't manage all of this work that's coming right now. I've just been asked to do another project. And there's no way that with this workload, I can actually take care of everything I need to. That's a signal that somebody's capacity is at maximum and it's not being respected. And so if you're listening to that language, you would also know that the contributions that the person is trying to make are actually what's going unnoticed first. And so understanding the language first then allows the manager to think, okay, so tell me about the contributions that you're making right now. You know, what's on your plate right now? What do we need to maybe move around? What are you, what it, what lights you up? What makes you happy to be here? And then working with some of that language so that you can actually then move into that comfort again and get that person to come out of that um fight, flight, um, freeze, or faint. And so if you can listen for a specific language of the five indicators, it allows you to figure out where that person is. And then you're actually giving your 50% in that moment. And what's fascinating about people's brains is that we have mirror neurons. And so if you see that I'm leaning in and I actually want to understand what's going on with you, you actually will mirror me and you'll do the same thing. It that's part of our human uh infrastructure and our wiring. And so what happens then is that if we can listen to where the breakdown is occurring, we have a better chance of actually understanding the language and then giving. The language back that allows people to come out of that defensive, um, frustrated, um, disengaged state.

SPEAKER_04 44:09

Nice, nice. And as you were describing that, I was thinking of how AI has now been basically forced on everyone. And AI is being pushed into every aspect of every organization's workflows and processes to the point where AI is dictating culture in some organizations. And what I mean by that now is we have a situation where on a normal day, most companies would set up happy hours or something for employees to get together and collaborate, or a no-meeting Wednesday, or a pizza end of week Friday, and so on. But now AI is making employees way more productive, in quote, because they realize the thing the project that takes one month to do now takes one week. So now they have bandwidth, in quotes, to take on more projects to fill up the rest of the month. And gradually, what gets eliminated are those happy hours, are those pizza Fridays, are those no-meeting Wednesdays. So as we automate communication, as we automate pretty much everything that is eating into our one-on-one group-to-group physical communications, are we essentially automating that belonging right out of our lives? Because AI is making us do more at the detriment of physical connection.

SPEAKER_01 45:49

Yeah, it's that's such a great question. Um so AI, you know, as a whole, is is one of the most fascinating belonging challenges I've ever seen. Um and because it's happening so fast, just like you said, and and organizations are deploying it without asking belonging questions, they're starting to pay for that. And here's what I mean. So um AI is being used, as you said, to replace human coordination. Summarize, synthesize, communicate on behalf of people and for efficiency as well, yeah. And so the problem with that is that belonging isn't built through efficiency, it's built through the friction of real human interaction and real human interdependence. And so when AI tries to take over the communication that used to require someone showing up, the difficult feedback conversation or the check-in, um, the context before a hard change, it actually removes that inconvenience that was doing the relationship building work that we needed. And so I think what's happening um very quickly is that AI is exposing a skills gap that we've been ignoring for at least a decade. And the gap isn't technical, it's human, it's emotional intelligence, it's social intelligence, it's the ability to navigate ambiguity, it's the capacity to repair after conflict, it's the willingness to need and be needed. And these are things that AI can't replicate for us. And they're the things that belonging is made of. And so the organizations that invest in AI at the expense of human belonging infrastructure, my prediction is that they're going to find themselves with incredibly efficient systems, but no one who actually wants to show up to do them or to be there. And the flip side is also true, though, that leaders who use AI to reduce bureaucratic friction, time wasting, administrative noise, meaningless, you know, kind of coordinated overhead. And they use that time to actually free up actual human connection, that's where I think organizations get powerful. AI can clear the space so that inconveniences can matter. And that question is whether leaders will fill that space with belonging or whether they're gonna fill it with efficiency metrics. Because what I find really fascinating is that your engagement metrics just shows you who's busy. Belonging metrics actually show you who cares and who's gonna continue caring.

SPEAKER_04 49:09

Your engagement metrics actually just shows you who's busy. Your belonging metrics shows you who cares, who cares enough to notice the slightest deviations in what successful execution looks like. Who cares enough to notice when someone's output is dropping because they have something going on at home, and then they can reach out to the person and say, Oh, if you need help, I'm here, if you just need someone to run to, if you need someone, if you need resources from HR or legal, then the manager can say, Oh, I notice because I care enough to notice. I'm not just going to assume, well, you're dropping the ball because you're lazy, because it's Friday and it's 2 p.m. and you just want to leave the office and take your vacation days. People who care enough to be able to say, I'm vested in this company's operations enough to know that a drop in our stock price for whatever reason is unacceptable. So engagement metrics on one hand, belonging metrics on the other hand, I feel like I should come work for you now. How do they do it?

SPEAKER_00 50:18

You did great.

SPEAKER_04 50:20

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 50:21

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 50:22

Yeah, and I kind of think that AI, I look at it like this AI can clear the space. It absolutely can clear the space, but it can't build what goes into that space. That still requires human showing up for humans. And that means that we're going to be imperfect and we're it's gonna be inconvenient, but it has to be done on purpose.

SPEAKER_04 50:44

So to kind of start wrapping up now, um, we're in the same time zone, it's late. Um yeah, yeah. And what is one efficient habit that most leaders have that they should stop doing immediately to save their team's culture?

SPEAKER_01 51:04

Okay. So this is a big question. I think that what I would say to most leaders today is that they need to stop treating belonging as something separate from performance. And that's the mindset shift that really does change everything. So belonging isn't another people initiative that's sitting beside your business strategy. It is performance infrastructure. And when comfort, connection, contribution, psychological safety, and well-being are present, people are going to move through that production or sorry, the efficiency, and they're gonna move through friction productively instead of defaulting to fight, flight, freeze, or faint. And that's not that, it's not a soft skill. And so that's actually how your work gets done. That's how innovation happens, that's how teams hold together when everything else is falling apart. And so if I were to say the concrete thing, you know, tomorrow morning before your first meeting, no three things. Why are you meeting? What do you need to accomplish? And how is the decision going to be made? Those three things are actually part of comfort. And when you go into the meeting, you say those three things out loud, not just put them into an agenda, say them. That takes 30 seconds, and it does something really powerful. It signals to every single nervous system in that room that this space is predictable, that this space is safe, it allows cortisol to drop, it allows brains to go online, and you get better thinking, better collaboration, better outcomes in that meeting time. And so I think the big thing is that belonging is what happens when leaders stop optimizing just for efficiency and start designing what humans actually need to perform at their best. That's the shift. And the data shows its payback, right? And and I think that if we are looking to survive the volatility that we are in, we actually need to start building structures and and environments that allow people to perform at their best despite that volatility, despite that friction. And those are the those are the leaders that understand that every single room they walk into, they're either regulating the room or they're dysregulating the room. They're either part of the problem or they're part of the solution. And so recognize that.

SPEAKER_04 54:03

Wow. Wow. This has been a very insightful conversation. I learned so much about just human behavior, organizational psychology, and even the data that we hear on the news. Now I can tie loneliness data to workplace behavior, to metrics that actually impact a CFO's Monday morning meeting. Because I mean, humans are involved in all these different buckets. It makes sense that, well, how someone feels at home invariably impacts how they show up at work and down the line and down the line. So thank you so much for this very insightful conversation. And like I mentioned at the beginning, it looks like a two-part episode, but what do I know?

SPEAKER_01 54:58

Well, thank you so much for having me. I I've really enjoyed the conversation as well. I always love it when it's just conversational. Um and for people that want to go deeper, you know, there's there's two places that I would say to look for. So the first is my my LinkedIn profile, so Andrea D. Carter. That's where I post shorter takes, research drops, just frameworks in real time. And then um my Substack. So go to Andrea Dcarter.substack.com. And that's where you can actually see some of my published research. You'll see it divided into everything from um executive leaders to HR to even ERGs and inclusion specialists. So um those are all really great places. Um, I also have two books coming in 2026. So if you're excited for more, um, we can certainly do way more podcasts based on those books.

SPEAKER_04 55:59

Thank you. Thank you so much. And I'm just short of words because these are the kind of conversations I like to have. And it's been a privilege and an honor for me to have you on the podcast. And of course, I'm gonna stay in touch with you. Of course, I'm gonna follow your Substack, and of course, I'm gonna, you know, do all the good things to spread the word about the cool things you're doing to get more people to notice. It doesn't even have to be you if you work in a company, if you own your own business, your own small coffee shop. Pay attention to these things when you interact with your vendors. Pay attention to these things when you interact with your customers and the people that order from you every Tuesday and Thursday morning, and the people that you know help you out in one way or the other, because who knows? The things you learn now running a small business would eventually show up when you get bigger. So the little things matter. What what do I know?

SPEAKER_01 57:02

No, I think you're so right, and I really appreciate that because if everyone were to start using just small pieces of belonging, I think our world would be a very different place. So thank you. It's an honor for me to be here with you, and I really appreciate the fact that you're trying to spread the word of belonging.

SPEAKER_04 57:20

Thank you so much. Talk to you later. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 57:23

Bye.

SPEAKER_04 57:26

If you like this episode, please share it with a relative, a friend, a co-worker, a neighbor, an acquaintance, and so on. And then please leave a rating andor a review on your favorite podcast app. My name is Videmio Logunde, and this is the Big Picture Podcast. Thank you for listening.