Search Results for: Belonging

The Sheraton Skyline hotel in London (out by the airport) had the word “belong” plastered everywhere. If you’ve seen my speeches in the last little while, one of my favorite points to make is that “business is about belonging.” I thought to myself, “I wonder how Sheraton attempts to make me feel like I belong.”

I did a little research and found that Sheraton has been working on helping me feel like I belong since 2006. Evidently, they used to hand out 10 minute phone cards to encourage you to stay in touch with home. There were other touches in play then, too.…

School teaches us to be good factory workers. We are trained to memorize the facts that our systems want us to believe. We interview for jobs that seek simplified versions of our complexity to approach tasks that have often been boiled down to repetitive systems that can be measured.

Sometimes, this is great. I would love all medical professionals to have a high level of predictability in their practices, as a baseline. I would love all airline pilots to have a very similar training level. There are many other situations where it’s nice to have that predictable arc.

But Are YOU A Cog?

Is it fun to be part of a machine?…

The biggest realization that came out of 9/11 for me was that nobody was coming to save me (us). I mean this in a gazillion ways. My company’s HR department couldn’t care less about my career development. No one at all would ultimately be responsible for my happiness, but myself. All of this came crashing into reality for me because of 9/11. And since then, I forget the lesson quite often. But just lately, I’ve had reason to think about it again, for my own purposes, and based on two recent conversations.

You Are Your Own Superhero

We’ve already agreed that you know what to do.…

Inclusion is the secret sauce of social media. It’s one of the biggest opportunities. We can fill that sense of a need to belong. Social media allows for this.

Before you get all “gee whiz” about that, or think that it’s something too touchy-feely, realize that what humans want more than most things is validation. When we look at ads, the biggest emotion we tend to feel is, “I’m the type of person who would have that.” It’s this sense that we need to be included.

But advertising and marketing quite often leaves people feeling left out.

Invite Them In

Your community is a gift.…