Belonging Rules: Five Crucial Actions That Build Unity and Foster Performance
Brad Deutser
Matt Holt Books/An Imprint of BenBella Books (September 2023)

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has.”  Margaret Mead

In all of the major surveys that focus on employee satisfaction, respondents rank belonging and feeling appreciated among what are of greatest importance to them. When asked during exit interviews why they are leaving, highly valued employees offer essentially the same response. So what?

Today’ business world is more volatile, more uncertain, more complex, and more ambiguous than at any prior time that I can recall. The importance of belonging and feeling appreciated are more important than at any prior time that I can recall. Hence the value of the information, insights, and counsel that Brad Deutser provides in Belonging Rules.

He focuses on “five crucial actions that build unity and foster performances.” They are:

1. Turn into the Power: Obtain whatever is needed  to achieve success
2. Listen Without Labels: Eliminate biases, prejudices, filters, and stereotyping
3. Choose Identity Over Purpose: Establish and strengthen collective, shared identity– not your own
4. Challenge Everything: Expect much better and through the challenge, help to open new creative pathways in the brain through change
5. Demand 100% of the Truth: “Lay everything out on the table and begin the real work” rather than a self-serving portion of it.

Together these “five crucial actions” are the WHAT. That is, what must be done to build organizational unity and foster performance by those who comprise the workplace culture. Deutser explains HOW and details are best revealed within the narrative, in context. The five actions are not only separate but related…they are INTERDEPENDENT.

As I read this book, I was again reminded of one of Margaret Mead’s most widely quoted observations: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

These are among Brad Deutser’s concluding thoughts: “Belonging is a way of life and the only way to lead. When you believe in belonging and believe your future is TBD, you begin to create the worlds you want to live in and lead in. You challenge your own ideas and biases and are open to wildly different possibilities. You create a space for others and yourself, and that is where the alchemy and the magic collide to change tomorrow.”

Here are two concluding suggestions while you are reading Belonging Rule: Highlight key passages, and, record your comments, questions, action steps (preferably with deadlines), and page references as well as your responses to questions posed in exercises and to lessons you have learned. (Pay close attention to the key reminders in introductory head notes and end-of-chapter reminders.) These two simple tactics will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent reviews of key material later.