Andrea D. Carter unpacks the science of belonging as infrastructure, illuminating how comfort, connection, contribution, psychological safety, and wellbeing underpin resilient, high-performing cultures where every individual can truly thrive.
Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary for boldconversations that spark change. I'm JoanneLockwood, your guide on this journey of explorationinto the heart of inclusion, belonging and societaltransformation. Ever wondered what it truly takes tocreate a world without? Remember, everyone not onlybelongs, but thrives. You're not alone. Join me as weuncover the unseen, challenge the status quo andshare stories that resonate deep within. Ready todive in? Whether you're sipping your morning coffeeor winding down after a long day, let's connect,reflect and inspire action together. Don't forget,you can be part of the conversation too. Reach out tojo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk to share yourinsights or to join me on the show. Soadjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time toignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.And today is episode 211 with the title Belonging asInfrastructure. And I have the absolute honour andprivilege to welcome Andrea D. Carter. Andrea is aneuroscience based workplace belonging expert, anorganisational scientist and founder of the
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Belonging first methodology, helping leaders turnbelonging into a measurable, practical culturestrategy. When I asked Andrea to describe hersuperpower, she said that it is her ability to turncomplex data into science and stories that peoplecan feel, translating into lived experience behindthe numbers into insights that leaders can actuallyact on. Hello, Andrea, welcome to the show. Hello,
Andrea D. Carterguest
Joanne. So nice to be here today. Thanks for having me.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yes. Whereabouts in the world are you? So just in Toronto, Ontario,
Andrea D. Carterguest
Canada, and it's freezing here. Freezing. So that's quite.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Up north, as I would say in the uk is quite. It's anorthern part of Canada, is it? Or the whole of Canada's freezing at this timeof year? Well, it's the wintertime here and so
Andrea D. Carterguest
for those of us who ski, we love it. Although Ontario skiingis like skiing on ice and out west it's skiing in the mountains.Like, you know what you ski, you. Need the powder,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
don't you? You don't want it to freeze too much. Well, skiing on ice
Andrea D. Carterguest
is, you know, you're working really hard, I'll say that. Yeah, that'strue. Hard to walk around as well. You need to be able to crunch into
Joanne Lockwoodhost
as well, I guess. Yes, well, and it's, you know, even just going outside,
Andrea D. Carterguest
right. Like if you're walking your dog or something like that, you're, you're certainlyputting on all of the clothes and you're just, you know, your eyesare peeking out from behind all of your winter gear. I've
Joanne Lockwoodhost
got a Puppy and I took her out for a walk this morning and oftenwhen I take her out she's six months old and she's a cavapoo so she'snever going to be a massive dog. So she's kind of small, medium at themoment. And I bring her back and she's got this like dirt line acrossher body where it's gone up up to her shoulders and it's like brownstain across her body. The bottom of her ears are also dirty so you cansee exactly the dirt line where she's gone through puddles, gonethrough mud and stuff. So she's a curious being in the snow.
Andrea D. Carterguest
She'd love it. Probably snow angels. That's cute. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Instead of snow angels where she lies on the back in the snow, she liesin the mud and does it. It's got her back. It's like just like the
Andrea D. Carterguest
horses. Yeah, they do that too. Yeah. So
Joanne Lockwoodhost
what sort of dog have you got or dogs? I have one dog, he's a
Andrea D. Carterguest
rescue and we rescued him about seven years ago andhe's a cross we think between a pharaoh hound and abasenji. And so he's a very interesting dog because heis more like a cat than a dog. We've always had veryrambunctious dogs and so, you know, typically bordercollies and Australian shepherds. And so this dog is alittle bit of a, a different personality than whatwe're used to. And yet he's so sweet. And he doesn'tbark if he wants something. He communicates throughhis eyes. So you have to really pay attention to whathe's asking you for. And he's just such a sweet boy. Hewill lay in any sort of sunshine that is coming in through thehouse and that is his most favourite thing. He won't swim, hewon't go in puddles. But he loves to hop through the snowand he certainly loves to be outside. That's beautiful. Sounds
Joanne Lockwoodhost
fantastic. Nothing better than a dog that looks communicates throughthe eyes. I've learned about puppy dog eyes firsthand and they're. There's something else,aren't they the eyes? They really are. And even you know, if he's hungry
Andrea D. Carterguest
or something like that, like he has this specific look of okay, I'mhungry, I'd like to eat now. He's fascinating. He's taught me a lot aboutnon communicative behaviour for sure. And so lovelythat we have him. He's a real treat in our family.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
That's, it's interesting you say that about non communicative behaviour. I thought I'dlearned some really good lessons. My wife and I are raising two children, youknow, because children teach you a lot about leadership and yourown leadership style and how to influence and not telland you're managing human beings a different way of communicating. Yeah.So our puppy has taught us a whole new set of lessons aroundpatience, accountability, responsibility andcause. I remember just before we got her, I read, read the book or someYouTubes and the golden rule is it's never the puppy's fault.They don't set out to be mean, vindictive, annoy youor anything like this. They just, they just do puppy stuff. So if, ifthey're not doing the right puppy stuff, it's down to you to create the environmentand to create the lessons. It's reallylike Leadership Development 101. This is now3014. I feel like I've graduated as amaster's in patience and accountability. So
Andrea D. Carterguest
true, so true. And it is one of those things where,you know, when you look at going first, I always talk aboutbelonging through that lens of going first. You know, we have to set theconditions and we have to have language and we have to have infrastructure in orderfor people to, to really thrive and succeed. And it's the same foranimals, right, when there's predictability and clarity and there'sstructure and it actually allows the human brain and also thepuppy brain to, to succeed and to do the thingsthat, that we're actually wanting from them. So children,puppies, workplaces, they're all learning grounds forsure. So we start in the, in the intro that I read out and,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
and, and spoke to about this belonging first methodology.What is belonging? How would you describe that in the workplaceor even in society? Yeah, so it's interesting
Andrea D. Carterguest
because I think what oftenhappens is that, and especially right now. Solet's address the elephant in the room, if you will. You know,there's so much media right now that DEI is dead. In Canadawe call it idea. So in the acronym we includeaccessibility. So Inclusion, Diversity, equity, accessibility. Andwhat we're seeing in Canada, I mean, I work across the globe,so I, I work with a lot of global organisations andso you're hearing a lot of different kind of elements from different placesin the world. And if you look at localization and you look atall of the things that each country is bringing right now andthe volatility that we're under right now, you know, I think it's actually adangerous belief to Say that DEI is dying or evenmisplacing that DEI is the same thing as belonging to.Because they're not. And I think treating it as trueis actually causing some real harm. And here'swhat's actually happening. You know, we're seeingorganisations roll DEI language into culture andbelonging initiatives, but they're conflatingtwo fundamentally different things. So DEI isstructural accountability frameworks, right?They're allowing organisations to not onlymeasure representation, but track pay equityaudit hiring processes, evaluate promotionvelocity across demographics and holdorganisations accountable for some of thesystemic gaps that we're seeing. DEI and ideareally is a question of asking, you know, are ourstructures equitable? Whereas belonging isactually an experiential infrastructure. It'sgoing to measure five specific indicators that wevalidated back in 2022, actually in the miningindustry. We had 3,500 participants. It was the largest
Andrea D. Carterguest
mining study that had ever been done andit was across 11 Toronto Stock Exchange listedorganisations. And so we validated, we started there, westarted with what is belonging and what do people have to experiencein order for them to experience belonging from a. From aneuroscience perspective? And then can they be measured? And so thefive indicators are actually comfortable connection,contribution, psychological safety and wellbeing. Andwhat they do is those five indicators actually enable people to performat their best. And so we're not just checking to see ifyou're invited into the organisation or intothe meeting, we're checking to see whether or not can you actually performat your best in this environment. Belonging actually asks thequestion, can people succeed in the systems we've built?And so those things are very different, you need both,but they're not interchangeable. And I think when organisationsabandon DEI accountability in favour ofbelonging focused culture, they're making a critical error.And you can't create belonging without addressing the structural barriersof DEI frameworks. And you can't achieve DEI outcomes withoutbelonging. Infrastructure and those two elements togetherare what allow us to look at creating organisationsthat are not only diverse but actually succeed together. That's whereyour quality, your speed, your engagement, your innovation comesfrom. See, I've always said you can be included but not feel
Joanne Lockwoodhost
belonging. Absolutely. What you've just said there,
Andrea D. Carterguest
it's interesting because when we look at this, I like to think ofDEI as looking at informationthat is input, belongingis output. And so belonging is theaction of being able to actually showup and create environments so that theinfrastructure works. And so if I mightgo through the five indicators just a little bit here, if that would behelpful. Yeah, please, please, I'd love to hear them. I think that thatkind of breaks things down a little bit and provides a little bitmore context to what I'm talking about. So comfort.I always think it's so funny when I. When I say the word comfort, peopleare like, oh, yeah, you know, we have to be comfortable in our space. AndI'm not talking about the fluffy stuff, right? I'm not talking about, you know, thatyou're not gonna have friction or conflict. We actually need friction andconflict. However, comfort is the first indicator, becausewhen you go into friction, when you go into conflict, ifyou don't have some key elements that actuallyset your brain up to regulate,you are going to be in an environment where you are consistentlydysregulated. And leaders, when they walk in a room,they either dysregulate their teams and theirorganisation or they regulate theorganisation. And so one of the things that helps our brain dothat is actually having clarity and predictability. And sothat is part of the comfort indicator. So clarity, you know,really, when you look at clarity, it can be things like beingable to walk into a room. And let me. Let me say it this way,you've probably felt this where you've walked into ameeting and you've had absolutely no idea why you're there,what the decision is that you need to make, or whether you'resupposed to speak or supposed to stay quiet. And you almostspend the entire time scanning the room, trying to read theemotional temperature, figuring out what the unspokenrules are. And by the time the meeting ends, you'reexhausted. But you're not exhausted from doing the workyet. You haven't done the work. You're exhausted from the
Andrea D. Carterguest
cognitive load of uncertainty, of not knowing.And that's your brain being in threat mode. And so whenyou're in this mode, your cortisol levels are elevated, your nervous system isworking overtime and there's zero energy that'sactually going towards realproblem solving, innovation, working throughsituations or conflicts, or, youknow, being able to generate new ideas. The flip side of that,when, when comfort is present, you enter a meetingand it starts with, here's why we're here,here's what we need to decide, here's how your inputis going to shape this outcome, and here's who isultimately making the final decision. Clarity,predictability. So immediately, you know, when you have those things,shoulders drop, right? Your brain stops scanning andworrying about, you know, what other people are doing. And you're actually,by having those things, you're being told where you'regonna focus your energy and where you're gonna focus your brain power. Sothat problem actually gets yourattention rather than having to manage your ownanxiety. Yeah, that's the word that's gonna pick up anxiety. You're not sure
Joanne Lockwoodhost
what's there. Your brain's rushing around upstairs going,what am I doing? How do I succeed in this environment? You don't know, doyou? You don't know. And so if you think about
Andrea D. Carterguest
a lot of fitting in environments, so fitting inis the opposite of belonging. Fitting inis. It's 100% on meto come into your environment, Jo, andI have to adapt to you, I haveto read your signals, interpret whatyou've said, read between the lines in how manydifferent ways, all of those things. And then, you know, I don'teven know. I, I might be right, I might be wrong.And so what that does is that instead of you getting my bestself, you're getting my anxious orconfused or navigating trying to figure things out.And that fitting in model is actually what'scosting organisations from being really successful.You know, once you hire someone, when you onboard someone, youobviously want them to succeed in your, in your environment,it's too expensive to have to replace bad hires.And a lot of times it's not a bad hire, it's that the organisationhasn't created belonging. And belonging is, is 50, 50.It means that it's 50% on me for me to createbelonging for you and 50% on you to create belonging for me. It meanswe're showing up together to actually create thatcomfort, get clear on what makes each other do well,create success factors that we're working towardsand we understand and we know having an awareness of somebodyelse's needs and what makes them do well, that's all partof comfort. And so comfort isn't abouteliminating challenge or conflict or friction,it's about creating clarity and predictability so thatpeople's nervous systems can actually use their energytowards performance. What we need to be really, really mindful of
Joanne Lockwoodhost
then is the people's comfort is differentto other people. Some of the anxiety that I mayfeel in a certain situation may be magnifiedor not there for others. You know, it depends on your own personality types, yourown knowledge, your own power in the dynamic, powerdynamic in the relationships. And your comfort level is going to have a differenttemperature gauge, isn't it? Absolutely. And in a fitting in
Andrea D. Carterguest
culture, the comfort level is all about the person who has the most power.And so in that fitting in culture, everythingis about one person rather than about the team orthe group, even the family. And soin those situations, you know, some of theskills and the behaviours, capabilities areto look at how to create comfort for yourteam so that they thrive. And it's interesting, I was listening toa Bloomberg, a podcast the other dayand it was this incredibly successfulwoman who had, you know, run. She was aCEO, she was cfo, she had run all of these organisations.And what she talked about was that, you know, they were talking about middle managementright now and how middle management is, is really being compressed. Well,middle management has always been compressed because they're getting pressure from aboveand from below. And so that, that's just the role. But the thing is, isthat those middle managers who actually created comfortfor their team actually saw the personfirst. That actually led to, and this is the nextindicator, connection. And it leads tobuilding trust by getting to know someone,by getting to understand someone, by buildinga relationship that's built on trust rather than on transaction.And when you create mutual accountability and when you createmutual responsibility, connection allows you to trust somebodywhen you're going through friction andconflict. And so if you think of a lot of teams,I'll give you another example for connection here, but most people haveprobably felt this as well. You know, you're on this team, everyone'spolite, everyone does their job, but nobodytrusts each other, right? Everything is about transaction. Like, I'll give you this,you give me that, you do this, I'll do that. And nobody's going to ask
Andrea D. Carterguest
for help because they don't want to look too weak. Andnobody is going to offer help because you're not sure ifit's welcome. And so meetings are all aboutperformances, right? And everyone's guarded. And, youknow, this is what happens when, when real connection ismissing. And so, you know, even on this, this otherpodcast on Bloomberg, you know, the, the concept reallywas that if middle managers don't know how to connectwith people, that they never create environments wherethe employees are thriving and they can't succeed aswell. And so what we know is that when you start withcomfort and creating clarity and predictability andthen you move into connection, which is developing abond. You know, what you're doing there is you'recreating the structure so that one of your team can say,you know, I'm stuck on this. Can you take a look? And threepeople immediately jump onto it, right? Or In a meeting,when someone names somebody else as being a bigcontributor publicly, like, this moved forwardbecause of what Jo did. Right. Like, you feelthat you're in this together and that's oxytocin,that's your brain going through a bonding process.And when connection isn't just about being nice, I say thatwith bunny ears, you know, it's about building trust throughreciprocity. So when friction and conflictand we know that that's not going away, right? Volatility is justgetting more volatile. It means that we can also then navigate these thingstogether instead of retreating into isolation. You know that your
Joanne Lockwoodhost
teammates have your back, you know that people are going to be there to supportyou and you're not going to get thrown under a bus byyour manager, by your leader. You know when you can succeed. So you got that.So the previous hit, you got the clarity and, you know, you got the support.Yeah, I get that. I get it completely. So the next
Andrea D. Carterguest
indicator is contribution. And you've likely felt this too,at some point. You know, you've worked on a project oryou've been. You can even think of. Families are great with thistoo. You know, there's. There's likely one person that isdictating and only certain people are asked their opinion.Or, you know, you've poured work into a projectand, you know, staying late, working weekends, you know,delivering something that you're proud of and then nothing, noacknowledgement, you know, no feedback. The work just kind of like disappears.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Worse, your effort gets dismissed. Oh, I haven't got time tolook at that, or I'm too busy, or I haven't looked at it yet. Andyou think, well, why. Why did I bother? Yeah, that is such a great point
Andrea D. Carterguest
too. Thanks for adding that into the conversation. Because you'reabsolutely right. And you know, that dismiss, man,like, that's. That's really detrimental. Andso in the contribution indicator, what we're looking at here isthat contribution actually motivates andmobilises us. And when we know that the work matters,when we know that we matter, when we're valuedand the work that we do, or the. Even the perspectivethat we provide, when that becomes influential,and that can actually change decisions, that. That actuallyallows your brain to release not only dopamine but alsoserotonin. And so, you know, yourbrain, when you're acknowledged,releases dopamine. And it's essentially what says, hey,you've. You've done something that peopleare acknowledging and this is good. And then whathappens is that when Somebody acknowledges it. You haveserotonin that's released when somebody doesn'tacknowledge it. That actually takes the foot off thedopamine and it drains your motivation really quicklybecause when it's not acknowledged, theserotonin can't kick in. And serotonin is thehormone and neurotransmitter that actually allows you tostay motivated and to keep going. Andso I always think it's so fascinating because people always think aboutthe high performer and the low performer and that this is likeuniversal. But the thing is, is that nobody operates in asilo. Everyone, the frontline worker, the adminassistant, the middle manager, the executive,you know, they all need to know that their workmatters. And this isn't, you know, we're not talking about, you know,constant praise, it's acknowledgement. It's,it's, you know, you've done this work and there's an acknowledgement ofpeople. So the project succeeded because of whatyou brought to it. Here's what you brought to it. Wrap ups at theend of all projects should have the leaderactually acknowledging what each person brought to the project.And that is a way that you can actually directly seewhere your work, your direct influence,helped move something forward. Whether that was a decision, whether that was solvinga problem, whether that was innovating. And with justsimple words, you then feel energised and you want tocontribute more. And that's actually the dopamine saying,hey, you know, what I do here matters. It's not justbusy work, right? I'm creating value. And when themanager says, you know, you really helped us make a really good call,we couldn't have finished this without you. Those momentstell your brain, I'm not invisible, I have impact,I matter and I can keep going. And so then what happensis that you stay in thespace knowing that you want to keep going and you want to keepcontributing. And so when we look at contribution,that's really where we're looking at the engagementand the staying in things. Even when times are hard. You're
Joanne Lockwoodhost
speaking there and I'm nodding my head, I'm smiling. It's sotrue. I mean, that phrase you use or paraphrase what you said,you matter. Because if you don't matter, you're not acknowledged.Why do I bother? Why am I here? What's in it for me? You know,Cause we've always got the what's in it for me motivation thinghere. There's nothing in it for me. Why am I here? Why do I bother.And if you're not acknowledging me as having contributed or deliveredsomething, then I'll go and do something better. I'll go and find somewhere else whodoes appreciate me, the quiet quitting. Or we'll just vote with ourfeet and say, yeah, completely, absolutely. And Ican think of instances of my own career whereI just thought completely less of the environment and the manageror whoever I was talking to and thought, you know what, I could goand be doing something more fun, more interesting and I wouldn't spendall night doing it or worrying about it because you don't care. And it's like,yeah, that one comment or that one lack ofacknowledgement destroys motivation and belonging, doesn't it?
Andrea D. Carterguest
Absolutely. And you know, our data right now around theglobe is showing some, some really importantstatistics. You know, there, there is not only quietquitting, but also, you know, a workforce that is, I'm callingit the Great Detachment. And I've done a lot of writing aboutthis because what's happening is that foryears engagement surveys have been theforefront of organisational infrastructure, of gatheringwhat apparently matters to employees or how they're doing.And the reality is, is that engagement studies just showyou who's busy. They don't actually show you who's goingto stay or who actually wants tokeep going. And when employees get thefeedback, I don't matter like what we've been talking about,they eventually go, okay, well right now the job market sucks.So finding a new job may not be my bestmove here, but I'm gonna spend half of my day lookingand half of my day working. And I'll do my bareminimum because I'm not actually important anyways.And so what that doesis the quality of the work that you're getting, the speed ofthings getting done, your innovation rates, you know, peoplehave stopped speaking up. Some of your top performers at thispoint in time have stopped speaking up. Ourworkplace toxicity rose 14%from 2024 to 2025. It went from66% to 80% at the end of2025. And if you think of workplace toxicity asthat high, it means thatwe're not doing some of the skills and the behaviours and we'renot saying some of the things that are actually allowing people togo, I actually matter here. And you know, if you look atDecember 2025 alone, 91,000 womenleft the workforce in North America. Womenwith children under five participation dropped from69.7% to66.9%.
Andrea D. Carterguest
College educated women, participation fellfrom 70 to 67%. So when we're looking at all thesethings, you know, we know, and I'm using women'sstats only because I'm writing an article rightnow about it and they're right in front of me, youknow, and, you know, when we look at, you know,how many people are, are not being seen rightnow, that's, that's huge. And some of that isbeing impacted by the DEI rollback. You know, ifwe look at the amount of black women who lost jobsin February to April, you're looking at 304,000black women and 300,000 black women who werelaid off. And so, you know, if you look at thoseforced exit costs, just in the US alone, that's9.2 billion in GDP. You know, UK has, hasdifferent stats, but they're all trendingdownwards is my point. And so we don't just haveto look at the us, because the US is certainlyunder a lot of volatility and a lot of change and alot of work that's been done is, is certainlyrolled back, but we're still seeing thatdownward trend. And so when you look atbelonging and you look at how that's actuallyimpacting organisations and howorganisations are succeeding, what we'regoing to see is that as the job market shifts andchanges, the moment that the market opens more,you're going to see mass exodus fromorganisations where people didn't belong andthat will become more and more of a trend. The fourthindicator is psychological safety. And we know about psychological safety,right? Psychological safety. There's been millions and millions of dollars spent onpsychological safety. And psychological safety is really whatprotects you as you go through friction. And so it keeps peoplewilling to speak, to try toadmit, to challenge without that fear ofsocial punishment. You know, we've spentmillions of dollars on psychological safety training and yet it'sonly one fifth of belonging. And so thatcreates massive gaps. And we know about psychological safety, right? Weknow that, you know, if you've been in a meeting whereyou notice a flaw in something in a plan that could causereal, you know, problems down the line, but you don't say something.You know, we see, we've seen the impact of not havingpsychological safety within an environment. And what happensis that the last time somebody raised a concern, a leader gotdefensive or a manager got defensive, or someone was labellednot a team player, or somebody was berated, orsomebody was told their voice doesn't matter, that doesn't matter.And so what it does is it Trains people to stay quiet, meetings end,flawed plans move forward and you think, well, I guess I tried,I tried before, that doesn't work. And so peopleself censor, not because they don't care, but becausespeaking up becomes more dangerous. Andso we talked about cortisol. And so when you're in an environmentwhere you're constantly scanning for clarity and predictability, ifyou don't have comfort, you actually can't create psychological safety. Andso psychological safety then is really about, youknow, making sure that there's a leader orsomebody who says, tell me more,what is it that I'm missing here? And they lean in with curiosity and notdefensiveness. They close the loop on things.So last week Joanne raised a question about X.Here's what we did about it, or here's what we have talked about since then,here's what we looked at. You may not actually have the solutionright then, but just communicating that thereis, you know, Sorry, that's really loud. Again, it's not me. No,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
no, definitely not. No, nothing here. There's no rain.
Andrea D. Carterguest
So, you know, when we're looking at those, when we're looking at thoseelements of what makes us feel safe, we're lookingfor the brain shiftingfrom, you know, threat scanning to open exploration.And so we've had those conversations. You've had those conversations with people that youlove, you've had those conversations with colleagues, you've had thoseconversations in organisations where you bring something upand the defensive pattern is so great, you know, that you can't actually have theconversation. And so, youknow, really, if you want to have those, those moments whereyou're building trust and you're,you're creating spaces where people actually lean in, you needto do than. You know, we value feedback, reallywe do, and saying it in a town hall because people knowthe truth, right? And they know that if I speakup, somebody's gonna say, hey, tell me more about that, or if I speak up,and you're met with defensiveness, you knowthat it's actually not psychologically safe. And sowe see more of the. Latter trying to create that culture. It's making sure
Joanne Lockwoodhost
you have that culture where people know that their contribution,they're whistleblowing, their contributor is safety, is actuallywelcomed and encouraged. And I think the airline industry did iteffectively after some major disasters 20 or 30 years ago where planeswere dropping out the sky because people were saying, well, if you'd haveasked me, I'd have told you that the rivets weren't checked. Or we didn'tthis. And now the aircraft industry is now very much a contributor. Firstenvironment. We want to hear what the problems are. No one's ever going toget fired for speaking the truth. And it's a realturnaround in the airline industry, certainly. Sure. And we saw, I
Andrea D. Carterguest
mean, for sure, we saw that with NASA as well. And sosome of those major explosions were becauseengineers couldn't speak up. And, you know, and we see that allthe time. I mean, the mining industry, anything, any industry, whereyou're having to look at physical safety, physicalsafety is always driven by psychological safety as well. And if you'renot creating the condition of comfort and connection, youcertainly can't create the condition of psychological safety. So you can talk allabout psychological safety, but if you're not creating those first two conditions,you won't actually get that psychological safety. The lastindicator that is there is well being. And well being is
Andrea D. Carterguest
what actually renews us, it's what allows us to be resilient.And I find this one to be really an interesting indicator,even just based on the science and based on the data that we collectedover the past 150,000 employees that we've workedwith over the past three years, eight industries. And,you know, I keep coming up against employees who say to me,managers, leaders who say to me, you know, Andrea, we've done all thisresilience training, we've given our employees these calmapps. We've, you know, provided them with meditations, we'vegiven them, you know, yoga and, you know,extra benefits, and they're still not bouncing back. Why?And my response is always, well, fittingin is a hundred percent on the person, 0% on you,and belonging is 50, 50. And so if you'renot creating environments where you're actually factoring in well being,what you're saying to all of your employees is this, yougo figure out how to renew yourselfand then come back to this environment and we're not gonna change anything.But if you can't do it, guess what? You're not good enough.And so depression has increased, anxietyhas increased. We're not creating the infrastructurefor wellbeing to actually exist. And so what that looks likeis, you know, you've probably had a leader or a manager,excuse me, who sends an email at 11 o'clock@ night. Youhave the. I had this. Oh, my goodness. I couldn't even believe that this happened.I was working for an organisation and I had gone into the hospital,I was having a gallbladder attack and I Had to have my gallbladder takenout. And I'm a consultant, I work within,you know, organisations, but I'm not an employee. Andthis VP of HR was initially emailing me and thentexted me and then WhatsApped me and was like, I needthis. And I was like, I'm in the hospital. Like, whatdo you want from me? I had never had that experiencebefore and when I got back, you know, I said to him, Iwas like, if this is how you are treating yourconsultant, I can't even imagine what theconditions are of how you're treating youremployee. When you have that manager who sends theemail at 11pm and expects the response by 7am, that VPof HR, he didn't wanted a PDF because he wanted to sendout an email to his ERGs about, you know, the work thatwas being done. He didn't need to send it out rightthen and there. It wasn't a massive urgent, it wasn'tgoing to affect anything in the organization.Nothing was going to come crashing down becausethose ERG leaders didn't have this PDF. It was allabout him. And so when you look at that, youknow, those are examples where you're looking at, if this emailis sent out 11pm and you're expecting a response by 7am andthat's the norm, can your employees actually sustain that? Isthat a sustainable work ethic or a new project gets added to yourplate without asking whether or not it's already there? Youknow, you start working through lunch, skipping breaks,staying late, and these are things where you're like, you know,this is. This is. This is just a busy season, but that busy seasonnever ends and you're exhausted and your sleep is disruptedand, you know, you're irritated coming home to your family,that's a nervous system that's not going to recover. Right.You're running on fumes and eventually something is going tobreak. And those conditions are the conditions that arecreated by the organization. Those aren't the conditions thatare necessarily created by the individual. So when we'retalking about that 50, 50, and you want people to be resilientand bounce back and come back to their best self, you have tocreate the conditions so that they can do that. And those canalso be things like, I'm fully unplugging for thisvacation. This is really important. I hope when you go on vacation,you do the same. Yeah. For real? For real. Or would you just. Or when
Joanne Lockwoodhost
you go home at night, unplug until the morning. Exactly. It's okay.
Andrea D. Carterguest
It's okay. It's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you are going to send an
Joanne Lockwoodhost
email at 11 o'clock at night, make it quite clear that I've sent this becauseI couldn't sleep. I don't expect you to have any to do anything with ituntil at least 9 o'. Clock. And even then it's not the most important thingin your world. If you could just email me back when you get this andsay, when can I get it? And to set my expectation, that's all I askfor. I can't have it for three days. Fine. I can't have it for threedays. Great. But not everyone has that.Not everyone has the resilience to be able to engage at that level, which iswhat I think what you're saying here is all these factors, thecomfort, the connection, the contribution, thewellbeing, it impacts people differently and theirability to engage back in that environment. So I might sayexactly what I just said to you. Sod off. I'm not gonna do that till11 o'. Clock. You're gonna get the best me, middle of the morning, not now.Other people might start panicking, as you say, the anxiety that stress isgonna, oh my God, I'm gonna let my manager down. They're gonna think badly ofme, it's gonna affect my career. So different people are gonnacascade this differently, aren't they? Yep. Well, and even, I
Andrea D. Carterguest
mean, we now have automation, right? Like we have allof this technology that allows us, sure, write the Damn email at11pm at night, but don't send it. Selectthat you can send it in the morning. You know, just populate thatyou're going to send it at a time that is within working hours,you know, and it's not that you're always going to have, you know,sometimes you're going to go through situations where things are urgent and people,you want people checking, but you don't want that to be theabsolute norm because the sustainability of that is not, you know,that's, that's not a possibility anymore. And so consider whatyou're, what you're talking about. And it might be thatyou're setting the clarity and the predictability of this week while we're goingthrough this and while we have this emergency, we needall hands on deck and here's the expectation and you might get anemail after work hours and we do need you to be looking. But that'sa week, that's not a month, that's not sixmonths, you know, that's Not a year, that's not all the time.And I think that when you go fromthis happens in times ofstress and conflict because something's happening within theorganisation and it's urgent and it's an emergency,that's a completely different situation. You know,if I had had a report, that would have been the endall, be all. If I was the CFO and I was supposed to be presentingthe next day, you know, clearly that PDF needed to get meof hr. But in that moment, no, you know, theycertainly, it was just his own agenda. And so when you look at someof those things, you know, that's when you have performanceinfrastructure. You know that when volatility doesn't break people,it strengthens the infrastructure. And when it's working, peoplenavigate the change, they navigate the friction, they challengeproductively instead of defaulting to ourfight flight. Freeze and faint or detachis the great word that certainly is happening now.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I don't know what you're saying here. Absolute, most complete sense. And I've probably alwaysthought of the comfort, connection and contribution as part ofpsychological safety. By splitting them out, you reallyare drawing attention to those items separately fromthe inclusion contributor, Challenger and learning safety,the traditional models of psychological safety. And I think that's really,really powerful to sort of see them in their own rightat that level. Well, and what's fascinating
Andrea D. Carterguest
about it is that we can measure it now, right? It's not just looking atone question. Like I always love the one question that's on mostengagement surveys is do you feel you belong here?And that is meant to measure belonging and, and, and it doesn't. And sounless you're actually measuring for comfort, connection, contribution,psychological safety and well being, you actually can't tellwhether or not belonging is breaking down or whether belongingis in a good state. And so, you know,even with relationships in general, being able tounderstand, you know, what am I contributing? What are youcontributing? Is our belonging fragile between us? Can wemeasure it at the management level? Because you'll seeteams with, with a lot of our organisational surveys, you'll see teamswhere, yeah, okay, great. You know, people are getting the work done andthey're meeting their targets and they're meeting thedeadlines, but the team is fracturing and they're fallingapart and the turnover is increasingor, you know, you go from having your topcontributors all of the sudden not engaging,those are, those are signals you can pick up fasterif you're actually measuring for belonging. And we've beendoing that and what's fascinating is that it's not just measuringfor a mean average, which is what most survey data does.We're also looking at the average against the outliers. Andso looking at some of the mediatedanalysis and the multiplicative analysis where we're actually lookingat, okay, what's the gap between the average and theunderrepresented and what are the identities that actually createyour underrepresented? And that's something with dei. I mean everythinghas been very much a factor of you only get one identity.And we're intersectional beings. And so how ourintersections of identity either bring us closer or push usfurther apart is very apparent and well documented.And yet if you look in the organisations, organisationsare typically not even measuring that anddon't even know how to measure it. And so it is one of those thingswhere you really do have to considerwhat that looks like, what you're. Saying there about the outliers versus the
Joanne Lockwoodhost
median. I thought that's really powerful because I've often found when Iwork in organisations that the challenges they focus on the NPS score.Look, we're doing great. 86% of our people say they're happy. My questionis, well, who are the 16% who aren't happy and what do we know aboutthose people, the demographic? Can we drill down at that? What insights canwe get? Because too often people are patting themselves on the back over thebig number. Not actually every person who's not happy is a person that we'refailing and why are we failing them? And that's, I think some of the balance,I think, so we're saying about looking at the medium and the outliers I thinkis a, is a fascinating way of looking at that and actually understanding thedemographic rather than just that homogenous number.
Andrea D. Carterguest
Absolutely. So, you know, really until, until 2022I guess was my first publication. So I, I do a lot of,I'm also an adjunct professor and so I still have todo a lot of research and a lot of journal basedpublishing. And that was the first publicationthat we published on looking at mediation analysisand why mediation analysis within theorganisation is so important. And at the time theydidn't even have the advanced statisticalanalysis to do it, which is why I think most peoplerely on just the mean averages and, and, and lookingat simple significance scores in your variables.And so you know, when you actually start to unpackthe data and you look at measuring that gap betweenthe norm and the underrepresented and we can use theword underrepresented, even based onunderrepresented for belonging as well. So who arethe people that don't feel that they belong? Butthat allows you to create predictability withinwho's going to stay and who's going to go. And what'sfascinating is that most people assume that it's,you know, in, in HR, they always label them, well, aplayer or an A employee, a B employee, a C employee.And so, you know, when a lot of layoffs are happening, they always get ridof the Cs and the half, the Bs, if you will. But thoseA's then become Bs and Cs very quickly.And so it's, it's actually not the right way to look at howyou're, you're looking at your employee base. But understandingthose metrics is really important because it actually allows you tounderstand where are teams breaking down. And nobodysucceeds or does their best in a silo. And so when we'relooking at these elements, you know, it's often not anengagement problem, it's often not a passion problem, it'soften an infrastructure problem. And if you're not measuringand measuring in a way that actually tells you what's going on,which averages will never tell you what's going on, it'svery easy to just skim over, you know, thesituation and give yourself a gold star. It's
Joanne Lockwoodhost
going back to Hertzberg's two factor theory. It's the detractors, it'sthe hygiene issue here that turns A'sinto C's. And it's. People don't set out to be a C person, they setout to be the best person they can be. But the environment we'recreating is detracting to the point where they, they're notmotivated and organisations still throw all their money atmotivation, not trying to sort out the root causes and the toxicityand the problems that exist. And I dare say, but yourapproach is that you can look forpatterns of whether leadership isfailing or not succeeding, and we can look at which teams,which leaders, which events are triggering this as well.
Andrea D. Carterguest
Yeah. And certainly when you look at the behaviours ofpublic versus private versus government, you'regoing to see different behaviours across those threedifferentiating factors. You know, we often see the,and it's funny because I do spend a lot of time speakingwith employment, employment lawyers, and they oftencome to me when, you know, there's, there's a big issuein trying to sort out the organisation and so I've had,you know, numerous conversations about the fact thatthe most toxic organisations are often theorganisations that started off as family runbusinesses that then became public. And we certainlysee that if you look at the spirits industry, thatindustry certainly right now, you know, they've lostalmost all of their top female CEOs and leaders. It's areally interesting industry because, you know,you're looking at factors where a lot of those alcoholcompanies, spirits companies were born from familyrun businesses that became popular. And you know, mostbusinesses start off as something small, family runand, and grow. And so if they're not actually fixingsome of their hierarchical fitting-in practices,they're actually weeding out some of their best talentbefore they even get started. And you know, I'm justusing spirits as, as, as a, as a example. I mean there's many moreexamples. So you know, that's, that's not justthat industry, but you certainly see that. And sowhen you're looking at these elements, when you're looking at these factorswhere toxicity is swept under the rug because,oh well, we scored, oh, we scored 74% on ourengagement this year and last year it was lower. Butthe survey made you, it wasvery clear that other people, it might notbe confidential. You know, that's going to change how yourespond. It's mandatory that you respond to this survey.But FYI, it's not necessarily confidential. Sowe'll know what you've said about you. Howtruthful are employees going to be? Especially
Joanne Lockwoodhost
if your sample size in your team or your department, yourdemographic is small. It's, I know most of these surveysystems do work out. If a population is below 20people, then it won't, it'll anonymize it. But there's still a lotof areas where you can go, I reckon that was that person there that saidthat based on the answer to that particular question, people candraw their conclusions. So yeah, is it truly anonymous? Is it,Are you really speaking freely or are you being caged, forgetting ifI tell the truth there, they'll know it's me. Well, and I guess when you
Andrea D. Carterguest
look at that too, I always find it fascinating when you're debriefingleaders on their survey results and theystart unpacking instead of getting curious about, okay, so whatdo we do next? How do we solve for this? Why is this so importantfor us right now? Instead of them looking at,okay, this is the data that came in, this is our gapscore. What you'll see is a Lot of leaderswho don't necessarily understand how they regulate ordysregulate a room. They get defensive and instead ofthem looking at what they want to do, they look at who to blameand why. Oh, that's gotta be so and so, or that's gotta be because ofthis. And they start rationalising the data,mitigating. The problems and things. Yes, yes, yes. It's been a
Joanne Lockwoodhost
tough year, profits are down. I've been stressed as well.
Andrea D. Carterguest
So, you know, when we look at any conflict orfriction or problem, even if we just look atsurveys and we look at, you know, mean averages,you're still going to find elements in there whereyou can grow from. They're not meant to beaccusatory. Survey data is meant to help yousolve. If you're looking at it through the lens ofgrowth. Why have we collected data? Why do wecollect subjective and qualitative versusquantitative data? After any quantitativesurvey data that you're collecting, the nextthing that you should be doing is looking at, okay,so let's get clear on what's actually happeninghere and asking better questions so that you canunpack those scores rather than being defensive.And I would say what I almost always see, theinitial reaction is, well, this is because. Or soand so did this. This is clearly this departmentand that's really a product of fitting-in culturerather than creating belonging culture. And itshows up right away. That almost says to me about the culture of the organisation,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
if someone's getting defensive, then they haven't got their ownbelongingness sorted. There's something in there that, where they don't feel,they feel under threat. Maybe people are then going to judge them and they can'tbe. Yeah, so all we're doing is passing thistoxicity pattern up the line and somebody else is picking up now andthey're feeling uncomfortable. So yeah, it's. And the other problem withsurveys is they're only valid for the 20 minutesthat you complete the survey. So if we're doing these oncea year, twice a year, they really are a smallsnapshot in time. Even if we're doing these micro surveys, thesepulse surveys about how you feel right now, these daily, daily touch points,checking in with people, then all we're going to get is historichow it was six months ago. Yeah, that's right. And so your
Andrea D. Carterguest
pulse surveys, your one on ones, your check-ins,your weekly check-ins, all of those things add tothe greater build of that data and your surveydata. But you know, a lot of HR departmentsFunctions are not necessarily looking atstructuring how that's possible so that peoplecan learn in real time. So what I see on average, andyou know, even just recently I had, you know, an HRdirector come to me and you know, she was talkingabout ergs and you know, she said, we've got likeeight active ergs. Our ERG leaders are exhausted,they're threatening to step down. You know, I'velaunched six new initiatives in the past year tosupport them. The engagement is lower than when westarted. Our executives are, you know, asking meto justify why we're investing in these ergs whenthe business results are improving, you know, andyou can hear the frustration and the frustrationisn't unique and it's because HR has typicallybeen an initiative based role, but initiativesaren't infrastructure. And so the more we're puttingon people without building infrastructure, the harderit is for organisations to actuallycreate those environments. And so if we look at DEI and we look at,at belonging and we look at culture and toxicity, a lot of this isbecause people are burning out. Ergs are certainly burning out becausethey've been giving everything nights, weekends, emotionallabour, strategic thinking and all of that work disappears a lot oftime, you know, it's, we're not sustaining them, we're not supporting them. HRteams are. You know, we've seen all of the McKinsey reportsand certainly Gallup about how frustrated HR teamsare right now in creating programme after programming. You know, whetherthat's mentorship platforms, leadership training, executiveroundtables, engagement surveys like we were just talking about,you know, there the complaint is always, well, you know,nothing's moving the needle on retention or performance. And it's like,yeah, because all we're doing is throwing an initiative afteran initiative after an initiative. And we're not actually even listening tothe ERG leaders who have so much data and influenceand all of their work is just going into the void.
Andrea D. Carterguest
We're not actually leveraging it or using it. And so,you know, I'm actually in the middle of writing a 15article series specifically on this because it's becomesuch a problem and talking specifically about why theinfrastructure of belonging is so critically important.And Jo, something that you said is still sitting with me isthat, you know, when leaders don't feel that they belongand I think as you go up through the levels,you know, leadership can be incredibly lonely because you often don't havepeople that you can speak to about what the challenges arefreely and openly. And so there's A lot of confidentiality that goes intowhat you're allowed to say and what you're not allowed to say. However, thatbelonging also starts with self first.And so, you know, when we're looking at how you'rebelonging to yourself and then what you're giving to your organisation, you actuallycan see the gaps of where people give themselvescomfort. How clear are they about what they need in orderfor them to create predictability and regulate their own work and theirown experience? And so that belongingness and theindicators of belonging are as much a measurement ofself relationship as they are to another, or as theyare to a team, or as they are to a greater team orenvironment. And so you can measure it in schools, you can measure it inorganisations, communities, and alsowith yourself. Do you think some of this is from a corporate
Joanne Lockwoodhost
perspective, from a workplace perspective? It's mapping on to theworld. We're living in a time where there's a lot of tension,whether it's political leaders, polemic rhetoric, divisivestatements. We have situations going on in Eastern Europe, we havesituations going on in the Middle east, we have situations going onin South America, situations all over the world. At the moment,there's a whole lot. There's a lot of tension. If you've got thenews, look at the media. There's a lot of things that are raisingeverybody's anxiety levels in the world. And is that. Do you think it's beingmapped into the workplace where people are feeling this tension? Well, you
Andrea D. Carterguest
can't separate. The thing is, is that you can't separate information.The way that your brain works, your brain doesn't separate,compartmentalise information. And so, you know, you're waking up inthe morning and, you know, maybe you pick up your phone ormaybe you're on social media and depending on what algorithms you'relooking at, you know, what news you're getting, you'realways going to see something that triggers.And media is right now designed to trigger us togenerate a reaction so that it actually stops us fromscrolling. And so ofcourse we bring that into work and of course it then shapes our day andof course that our day at work shapes how we show up at home withour loved ones. And so the brain doesn'tseparate that, it just layers it on. Andso when we look at those elements, notunderstanding your own regulation isalso something that is incredibly important rightnow. And, you know, one of the first studies that we did11 years ago looked at whether or not DEIwould polarise or bring people Together and the way it wasbeing rolled out at the time showed it wouldpolarise. And I mean, here we are and it has polarised, butI think it's polarised because of what itneeded to unveil. And so we're now in thisspace and time where we're lookingat the distinction between individuals andcollective thinking. There's always been tension aroundthat. The problem is, is that belonging isvery inconvenient. And what I mean by that isbelonging requires you to work through the friction evenwhen you don't want to. And so that element becomeschallenging when we're working in spaces or we'reliving in spaces where friction has essentiallybeen taken out. And what I mean by that is, you know, ifsomebody doesn't like someone, we stop speaking to them. If, youknow, if something is. Is too hard, we stopand we don't show up. You know, we might say we're gonna go to thisfunction and then, oh, well, actually, I'm not feeling up to it tonight, so I'mnot gonna go. And so it becomes very tricky becauseyou can't navigate around that unless you changeyour own behaviour. And you understand that friction and conflict is alsopart of your growth. And so I think whatwe've created and we've certainly seen on global stages isthat we have to be able to work through things. And otherwise,you know, when we don't work through things, this is where, you know, warsand violence and physical threatreally becomes a reality. And so we're seeing on a globalstage, those leaders who understandwhat it means to work through friction and conflict andthose leaders who are going to stick to their individual perspective.And I think it's, am I winning or are we winningor how are we creating winning together? Andbecause we've eliminated friction, we've actually eliminateda lot of what it means to win collectively.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Andrea, thank you so much. It's been an insightful conversation.How can people get hold of you? Yeah, so probably
Andrea D. Carterguest
the easiest way, what I'd love tooffer up, is a way for you toactually look at your own belonging metrics. Now,this is a very simple way of assessing the belonging thatyou're giving someone and the belonging that you're receiving. But you can go tobelongingfirst.com forward slash,belonging breakdown. And it allows you to reallyeasily assess what belonging you're giving and what you'rereceiving with a specific person. So you can do that with yourself, you can dothat with a specific work colleague or person in your world.And just see that initialassessment, what you're giving and what you're receiving. So I would highly recommenddoing that. Also, please feel free to join me onSubstack and for that you're just going to SubstackAndrea D. Carter. You can access a lot of the writing I've beendoing and certainly that article that I'll. Or the 15 articles I'll bewriting. And then of course, please join me on LinkedIn at AndreaD. Carter as well on LinkedIn. Fabulous. I'll go and
Joanne Lockwoodhost
hunt you down on Substack immediately as soon as we hang up. Wonderful. Thanks so
Andrea D. Carterguest
much, Joanne, for having me. A pleasure. And
Joanne Lockwoodhost
thank you so much. As we bring this conversationto a close, I want to express my deepest gratitude toyou, our listener, for lending your ear and heartto the cause of inclusion. Today's discussion struck achord. Consider subscribing to Inclusion Bitesand become part of our ever growing community drivingreal change. Share this journey with friends, family and colleagues.Let's amplify the voices that matter. Gotthoughts, storeys or a vision to share? I'm allears. Reach out tojoanne.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk and let'smake your voice heard. Until next time, this is JoanneLockwood signing off with a promise to return with moreenriching narratives that challenge, inspire andunite us. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world oneepisode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.
In this episode of The Inclusion Bites Podcast, Joanne Lockwood welcomes Andrea D. Carter to explore the concept of “Belonging as Infrastructure” and why it is essential for organisational culture. The conversation dives deep into the difference between DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) frameworks and belonging, challenging the assumption that simply rolling out DEI initiatives is enough. Andrea articulates how belonging differs by being an experiential infrastructure, focusing on indicators such as comfort, connection, contribution, psychological safety, and wellbeing. Together, Joanne and Andrea discuss how leaders can inadvertently cause harm by conflating DEI compliance with lived belonging, and why measuring these five validated indicators offers a tangible way to transform insights into actionable culture change.
Andrea D. Carter is a neuroscience-based workplace belonging expert, organisational scientist, and founder of the Belonging First methodology. With a record of working across the globe and conducting major research projects—most notably the largest belonging study in the mining industry—Andrea brings data-driven insights to improve employee experience and organisational health. She is recognised for her skill in translating complex scientific findings into practical, human stories that resonate with leaders and enable real change. Andrea’s evidence-based approach equips organisations to assess and act upon the lived reality of belonging in their workplaces, shining a light on the importance of structure as well as lived day-to-day experience.
Throughout the episode, Joanne and Andrea emphasise that DEI and belonging must work together but are not interchangeable; DEI provides the accountability and measurement framework while belonging delivers the lived emotional experience necessary for success, innovation, and team cohesion. They candidly tackle the dangers of “fitting in” versus truly belonging, the impact of toxic cultures, and the importance of understanding workforce outliers rather than relying on averages.
The key takeaway is that belonging cannot be left to chance or reduced to a tick-box exercise—it requires both robust infrastructure and a collective commitment to foster environments where everyone can thrive. This episode is a must-listen for HR professionals, leaders, and change agents seeking honest analysis, clear frameworks, and actionable strategies for embedding belonging at the heart of their organisational culture.
The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Inclusion Bites, SEE Change Happen Ltd or Joanne Lockwood. This episode is shared for general interest and discussion; we accept no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of any statements made.
