Want Higher Performance? Add Forgiveness. It’s Part of your Optimal Performer’s Belonging
We’ve heard it over and over. “A team is not a group of people who work together. A team is a group of people who trust each other.” I used to feel, “Yeah, that’s it, really, that’s it!”
And then I began to notice something. Nobody says, “I’m going to go do that amazingly hard thing, that’s completely risky, even dangerous, because I trust him or her.” Don’t get me wrong, trust matters. And a lack of it will definitely inhibit people from taking action. How many times have you heard the opposite? “Oh hell no, I’m not putting myself out there. I don’t trust him.” But, trust isn’t what propels people to take action.
What we do say though, as we run towards the risk, “I’m going to… (do that risky thing)… because they are my…” You can fill in the blank for yourself- family, best friends, or in the business realm, my customers, or employees… my teammates. I know you’ve said similar things. Right then and there, you’re actually the same place where the Navy SEALs, the US Women’s World Cup soccer team, and the All Blacks Rugby Team, go to the next level. Real belonging.
You see, it’s more than trust that compels us. Real belonging, not a sense of it. What’s the difference, real or a sense? Answer this question. Would you work for a sense of a paycheck? That’s what I thought. We fight alongside with and for those with who we love and belong. Not for, maybe, the ones we belong with.
I use this definition for real belonging in my work with people:
Belonging, it’s the state of being in a loving relationship with others.
Where you feel, own, and care for them, in their successes, dreams, and failures. And, they feel, own, and care for you in yours. It’s a two-way street.
In this reciprocal relationship, we have two key elements with respect to forgiveness. The first, own, and by that I mean, where we take personal accountability for another’s well-being and membership in the tribe. They are ours and we are theirs. And the second, failures. In order for us to stay belonging, we have to feel, own, and care for others in their failures as well as successes. Just as we need them to do that for us in ours. Growth and higher performance always follow mistakes and failures. The asking for and the giving of forgiveness allows us to keep re-choosing each other. Where it’s ok to be fallible as a complete individual and as a full member in a tribal us story, despite our failures, and keep returning to belonging. Like bricks with imperfections and mistakes that make up the wall, we are part of it, strong.
We are each other’s, and, we all fail as we progress.
Exploring the role of forgiveness in belonging for high-performance
I’d just finished reading one of the most marvelous books on using love as a business strategy, to create a company of remarkably high-performing people. It’s a real-life business transformation story about a company called Softway, once a collapsing company that turned into an incredibly performing one. I was utterly enthralled to read it just from the title, Love as a Business Strategy: Resilience, Belonging & Success. I mean it’s got two of my favorite words, love, and belonging in the title.
I’m always looking for readings and talks that might refine or even correct my understanding of real belonging. And wow, Chapter 9 on Forgiveness delivered wonderful insights with respect to how high performers stay in belonging. Or, should I say, how we return to belonging even when we’re injured by each other? I won’t create a spoiler here (you gotta read it for yourself), but Mohammad Anwar and his Bangalore team’s performance hinged on whether or not forgiveness happened. And this would determine whether or not each would hold back from the other, going forward.
In short, forgiveness is the vulnerable bridge that allows us to come back together, with our failings, and, be in real belonging to reap the higher levels of performance it enables.
As a leader, to belong means being vulnerable and accountable for how your actions and inactions impact your people.
Exploring the dynamics of forgiveness and belonging
After finishing the book I went back to the chapter on forgiveness. I found myself contemplating these aspects of forgiveness and time, in relation to belonging. Connecting the dots in my story, current, and past, especially as a former VP of people. Seeing the patterns in my clients’ companies and lives also. This stuff is so exciting because it unlocks the path to easier belonging and the massive potential that it unlocks in unite & fight together, versus fight/flight. I found myself looking for opportunities to share the concepts and see how they land with people. Will it ring true, and better enable belonging?
Frame: the roles or functions of forgiveness and time in sustaining real belonging
forgiveness for others, forgiveness for self
receiving forgiveness from others
offering a “sorry” when they were hurt by our acts, versus offering apologies for our actions of unintended or intended harm
time/patience for our compassionate acts of making things right to open the door for forgiveness and the move back into belonging
Entrusting belonging & forgiveness to the BizCatalyst360 Friendship Bench
I get a text from Dennis, “Hi Paul - excited to pass the baton to you as you lead Our Friendship Bench this coming Thursday - please pass along your planned topic for discussion as soon as you can so I can dig deep on my closing quote mashup. Thank you! Dennis” First, you gotta understand, Dennis is the man who’s got a real and meaningful quote for just about anything. Second, I couldn’t think of a better, imperfect, and more caring group of people in a space, to vulnerably offer this idea I’ve got about the relationship between forgiveness and belonging.
On the vulnerable side for myself, will this only make sense to me? I’m going to throw this out there to 30 people of incredible thought and opinion. Well, here goes. And to give you an idea of the space, here’s Dennis Pitocco’s description of the bench:
It’s all about being a part of something bigger than ourselves, embracing the magic of authentic community, thriving with people who share different interests, bound together with a common goal —that is, to rediscover humanity at its very best.
He’s patterned it off of Dixon Chibanda’s work in Zimbabwe, In the African country of Zimbabwe, war trauma and high unemployment can leave people in despair—until they find hope on a “friendship bench.” A Friendship Bench is quite literally a park bench — with a higher calling. Hopeless people can go there to talk with trained “grandmothers” —elderly women taught to listen to people struggling with depression, known in that nation’s Shona language as kufungisisa, or “thinking too much.” The Friendship Bench Project is spreading across the world, including Zanzibar, London, and New York City, as a safe place to listen and to be heard.
Ok, maybe I had less to fear than I thought about the implications of forgiveness in relation to belonging.
And the bench belonged. Forgave. Needed more time. Gave more time. Some forgave self. Some wrestled. Some received. The giving of time/patience of compassionate acts for making things right, to open the door for forgiveness, keeping the path clear to return in belonging.
To give you an idea here’s a link to the responses of that day’s Friendship Bench, and of course, a perfect quote by Dennis Pitocco.
The recap on LinkedIn: Click Here
Closing quote by Dennis.
“Forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?” Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on a wrongful act. It means, rather, that the wrongful act no longer remains as a barrier to the relationship. Forgiveness is a catalyst creating the atmosphere necessary for a fresh start and a new beginning and is a gift you give yourself.” By Bell Hooks, American author.
Thank you Mohammad Anwar, Frank Danna, Jeffrey Ma, and Chris Pitre, for sharing your transformative story about Softway. You gave me some wonderful insights in Chapter 9 of your book with respect to how forgiveness and time keep the path of belonging available to us.
If you want to increase the wellness and performance of your company through belonging, reach out to me.
The power of forgiveness in belonging seems to be in vastly untapped in our companies today.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and if you found this article helpful, please share it with another. I’d really appreciate that.
Have a great day and keep making our work world a better place to belong. Paul