Connecting Through Storytelling

There’s focus on DEI these days. Very hot topic. How do you build a sense of belonging among your team members?

I think that first, having the right tone of we want people to be open and we want people to bring their authentic selves and creating those opportunities for people to share, you know, and to be vulnerable, I think is important in setting the right tone and environment.
One thing that I am mindful of, though, is that, you know, I had someone tell me once that. “You call on people, just calling people and force them to speak.” And I said, “That’s not going to work with everyone’s personality.” So also recognizing that people have different communication styles and for some of them, it’s going to be one-on-one or in small groups or some of them, it’s going to be in larger groups.
So that we need to be thoughtful about giving people different types of forums to have those communications and giving people the space, frankly, to share through storytelling. I think that’s a really powerful way for people to build trust but also really kind of surface a lot of different ideas and perspectives.

Why do you do that, Michele? Do you leave space for that at the beginning of every meeting? Or do you have a special dedicated gathering for that online in today’s virtual world?

So, we do start each—all hands with someone introducing themselves. And I feel like the bar every month gets higher; people have better and better stories.

Pressure is on.

Yeah, the pressure is on. And then we do also use Slack as an example, where there’s kind of a group that is tasked with fostering engagement. They’ll throw out a thought-provoking question or invite someone to to chime in on a particular matter, or to tell their stories. I mean, sometimes it’s like those bite size interviews where it’s, you know, ten questions with so and so.
So, yeah, it’s been fun. But the pandemic and the distributed nature of our workforce is definitely a challenge, too. And I think we have to continue to find ways to keep people engaged and feel connected, for sure.