When you come to examine what can improve the conduct of a system, you discover that there are several needs, that if you manage to give them the right expression within the system – something good happens: free movement, improved communication, clearing directions, airing relationships and potential goes free!
In any systemic work, we want to find out what basic needs need to be addressed In order to improve the system, to get better with those who are in it and with those who have a relationship with it.
Humans are complex beings who often suffer from pathologically conflicting and even paradoxical needs: wanting and not wanting, aspiring but despairing, moving away and wanting to get closer, hiding and wanting to be revealed and more.
All conflicts are in one person at any given moment consciously or unconsciously. Then, when a system is created in which there is more than one person, we usually get a very conflicted one.
One of the familiar tensions in an organization is the tension between the need for belonging and the need for progress / development.
Every organization is created to create something, every team is organized to implement a systemic need, every organization exists to address a human need. In these examples it can be said that the need to evolve and move forward is the leading one.
In the same way, a person identifies himself according to his circles of affiliation: gender, origin family, residence, culture, friends, profession and so on.
The need for belonging is inherent in man and has existed in DNA for generations.
It touches issues such as: loyalty, conscience, brotherhood, morality, responsibility, relationships etc’.
An organization created for a purpose requires belonging and loyalty that will support its movement forward. The higher the sense of belonging and loyalty, the more the movement forward, the vision and the goals will have a better chance of reaching realization and fulfillment.
A lot is invested in creating this sense of belonging and loyalty – but often in a way that tends to be external and often requires the elimination and rejection of other circles of belonging.
What happens when a person in a team is selected based on his skills and experience, feels like a stranger (does not belong) to that team? He will be less in sync with his teammates, which will make progress more complex, waste resources and often take the team out of focus. This will create a kind of team ‘Attention Deficit Disorder’.
In this case there is a conflict between two principled needs – forward movement and belonging.
The feeling of ‘foreignness’ in the team can have a variety of reasons, but one common ground – belonging and previous loyalties to sources who are not in the team anymore.
Giving up previous belongings and / or loyalties can be experienced internally as a betrayal, and is therefore stronger than the current reality and the current team. Those feelings of previous belonging are not necessarily conscious.
The team member does not ‘do in purpose’ consciously, he does not know what motivates him, he will just feel that he is not seen and understood and that the team is not functioning properly.
What to do?
You should find out why and to whom that team member feels loyal or connected, and then find a way to give it recognition and a place in a way that supports his or her sense of belonging to the team.
We understand that a person who feels a stranger in one place belongs to another place.
If we just agree to listen to the ‘other place’, get to know what is left there for the person and find a way to connect it to the ‘new place’ without giving up the sense of belonging. Then he could have a new connection to a new place.
You should find out why and to whom that team member feels loyal or belongs, and then find a way to give it recognition and a place in a way that supports his or her sense of belonging to the team.
We understand that a person who feels a stranger in one place belongs to another place.
If we will just agree to listen to the ‘other place’, acknowledge what is left there for the person and find a way to connect him to the ‘new place’ without giving up the sense of belonging. Then a new connection to a new place is born.