[Cold open - Sofia's well-stocked lonely room] Sofia runs a small shop she genuinely cares about. Not a massive company. Twelve people who come in every morning and sit near each other all day. She read the right things, she paid attention, she did the work — so she put in the good snacks, the real coffee, the team outing at the end of the year, the wellness day, the little bonuses when the numbers were up. She spent time and money on all of it, and she meant every bit of it. And then one quiet afternoon, one of her long-time people sat down across from her and said, kindly, with no drama: 'Sofia, I like working here. I just... don't really feel like I belong here.' Sofia was hurt. More than she expected to be. Because she'd given so much. She'd tried so hard. And the thing that really got her was this: by every measure she knew, she'd been a good leader. The snacks were there. The perks were real. The intentions were good. So why did her room feel hollow? That question is what this episode is about. And the answer is going to turn something upside down that most leaders never think to question.
[What belonging actually is] So let's be honest about what belonging even means, because it's one of those words people use a lot and almost never pin down. Belonging is not happiness. It's not being satisfied with your pay, or liking the food in the break room, or even liking your boss. Belonging is a feeling that goes deeper than all of that: it's the sense that the people near you actually know you're there. That if you were gone, they'd notice — and not just because the work wouldn't get done. That you matter to the specific people you spend your days next to, not just to the job they hired you to fill. When that feeling is alive, people will go through hard stretches, take the imperfect assignment, stay when it would be easier to leave. When it's missing, a bigger paycheck doesn't fix it — and neither does a nicer snack. Now, Sofia gave her people a lot of things. What she didn't give them was each other. She gave them stuff from the top down. She never built the thing that runs sideways — the giving that happens between the people themselves, not from her. And that's the difference. Perks come from the top. Belonging is made between people. It grows in the small gives that happen sideways, between people who actually know each other.
[The shape of giving that drains a leader] Now, here's where most good leaders get stuck, because they hear that and they think: okay, so I just give more. More personal, more visible, more one-on-one. I'll learn everyone's birthday, remember their kids' names, write the personal notes. And all of that is good. None of it is wrong. But it runs into the same wall Sofia hit, just slower. Because if you are still the only source — if all the giving still flows from you out to your people and stops there — you are a well. One filler, many drinkers. And even the best well, dug by the most caring leader in the world, runs dry when enough people are drinking from it. What Sofia learned is something most leaders are never taught: your job is not to be the source of belonging on your team. Your job is to start the flow between your people — and then get out of its way. That is a completely different job, and it changes everything you pay attention to.
[What starting the flow actually looks like] So what does that actually look like? Not the theory — the real, small, specific thing you do on a Tuesday. Let me tell you what Sofia learned to do, because it's simpler than it sounds, and it's nothing like a team-building day. She started watching for the small gives that were already happening on her team and had been invisible before. Marcus, who always stayed a few minutes to help the newer person figure out the printer. Yara, who remembered when someone had a hard week and brought them coffee the next morning without being asked. The two people who swapped coverage when someone's kid got sick, without ever mentioning it to Sofia at all. Sofia had been walking past all of that for years. Not because she was careless — because she was too busy being the source. Now she started naming it out loud. Not in a big meeting, not a public-board-of-achievements, just a sentence in passing: 'Hey — I saw that. That matters.' Then she started connecting people who didn't know they had something to give each other. The person who'd figured out the thing the new person was stuck on. The two people who had a shared problem and hadn't met yet. She made introductions and then stepped back and let them have it. She stopped solving things herself that someone else on her team could solve better. Not because she was lazy — because every time she solved it herself, she stole a chance for one person to give something to another. She started asking people what they were good at that nobody at work had ever asked them about. And she let those answers travel. That is what starting the flow looks like. No big event. No budget line. Just making the sideways giving visible and easy.
[Why this matters so much to people] Let me tell you why this is not a nice extra. It is not a culture perk on top of the real work. The real work and this are the same thing — because what you are doing when you make it easy for people to give to each other is meeting one of the deepest needs a person carries. People need to be needed. Not employed. Not paid. Needed. There's a real difference. Being employed means someone chose to trade money for your hours. Being needed means the specific person beside you wants what only you can give. Researchers who have spent their lives studying what makes people feel like they belong at work have found, again and again, that feeling known and mattering to the people right next to you matters more than almost any other factor — more than satisfaction with pay, more than the perks, more than even how much someone likes their boss. Not because pay doesn't matter. It does. But belonging runs on a different wire. It runs on the giving that goes between people, not on the giving that comes down from above. And when that wire goes dead — when people spend eight hours a day next to each other and still feel invisible — you can add more snacks and they will still feel it. Sofia's people liked her. They liked the snacks. They liked the holiday outing. They just didn't feel like they were in each other's lives. They had a nice job. They didn't have a jar.
[The pushback - 'isn't culture the leader's job?'] Now I want to take the real pushback seriously, because it's a fair one and you might already be thinking it. You said my job is to start the giving between people and then step back. But isn't the culture of this place my job? Am I not the one who sets the tone, who models the way, who carries the whole thing on my shoulders? If I step back, doesn't it all fall apart? Good. Keep that question. Because there is something true in it. Yes — you set conditions. Yes — how you behave in this room shapes what people think is okay. That part is real and it does not go away. But here's the trap most leaders fall into: they confuse being the one who sets the conditions with being the one who provides the belonging. Those are not the same job. A good host prepares the counter and creates the right conditions for a good meal — but they do not chew the food for their guests. The meal happens between the people at the counter, not because the host poured everything into each plate. When you try to be both the one who sets conditions AND the source of every connection and every belong moment — when you are filling the jar all by yourself while everyone watches — you end up exhausted, and your people end up passive. They wait for you to generate the culture instead of building it themselves. That is how you get a room full of people who like working for you but don't really know each other. Sofia's people liked her. They were waiting for her to be the whole jar. She needed to put the jar in the center of the room and teach them all to fill it.
[What gets in the way - and why leaders do it] So if this is the move, why don't more leaders make it? In my experience — and in the books these episodes come from — it almost always comes down to one of three things. The first is that they don't trust it. They think: if I'm not the one doing it, it won't happen. And that fear is honest. But it almost always says more about the leader than about the team. When you are the only source for long enough, your people stop trying to be sources for each other. You trained them to wait. So when you finally step back and the jar just sits there, it isn't proof that people can't give to each other — it's the hangover from a long time of being a well. You have to stay with it through that first awkward pause. The second thing is that they don't see the small gives. They are watching for the big stuff — the extra hours, the above-and-beyond, the clear win. The Marcus-staying-to-help-with-the-printer is invisible to them, because they were never looking for it. And what you don't see, you can't name. And what doesn't get named stays invisible to everyone else too, so it stays small and fragile and alone instead of growing into a pattern. The third thing — and this one is the hardest to say out loud — is that some leaders need to be needed in a way that makes room for everyone else hard. When you are the source of all the good things, you are the center of the place. People come to you. They depend on you. That feels important, and it is important — to you. But it is slowly making your people smaller. Every time you carry something one of them could have carried, you are not just helping. You are also, quietly, keeping them from the feeling of being needed that they are hungry for. Sofia had to sit with that one for a while.
[What Sofia found when she put the jar in the center] So Sofia sat with that. And then she tried the move. She put the jar in the center of the room — not literally, but you'll understand what I mean in a moment. She started with one simple habit. Every team meeting, she opened with the same two questions. First: 'Who helped you this week, or who did you help?' And she waited. She did not fill the silence herself. She just waited. The first week, it was a little awkward. Three people said something small. Marcus mentioned the printer. Sofia said, out loud: 'That's exactly what I mean. That's the kind of thing that makes this place real.' Second week, five people had something. Third week, eight. Not because she'd demanded it or built some policy around it. Just because she'd made it the thing you paid attention to, the thing that got named in the room instead of passing invisible. Then she did the second thing: she started keeping a loose mental track of what each person was good at, not in a chart somewhere, not some formal system — just in her head. And when someone needed something she knew someone else on her team had, she made the introduction. 'You two should talk. She figured out exactly this problem last quarter.' Then she left. She stopped staying in the room for those conversations. Let them have it. What she found, slowly, over about three months, was that her people started turning to each other. Not past her — toward each other. And the thing she did not expect: she felt less tired. Not because the work got easier. Because she wasn't carrying the belonging of the whole place by herself anymore.
[The thing you can't buy and the thing you can start] Now, I want to be honest with you about what this is and what it is not. It is not a program. It is not a workshop you run once and then go back to normal. It does not come in a box. The perks come in a box — the coffee subscription, the wellness app, the team-building day — those are things you buy and install, and they are fine, and they do almost nothing for belonging. What starts the giving between people is much smaller than all of that, and also much more personal, and also completely free. It is attention. It is naming the small things that are already there. It is being the one who makes the introduction and then gets out of the room. It is asking people what they are good at that nobody here has asked them about yet. It is making the questions that matter the ones you open your meetings with. None of that costs a dollar. All of it takes presence. And here is the thing about that: you can start any of it this week. Not a planning session, not a policy, not a budget approval — this week, on the next Tuesday, in the next meeting. The jar is already there. The people are already in the room. Someone in that room helped someone else this week and nobody noticed. You just have to be the one who sees it and says it out loud.
[This week - make one give happen between two of your people] So here is your one move this week. And notice that it is a give — not a test of your team, not a diagnostic of what's wrong, not a survey. A give. Look at your people. Think about who on your team has something real to offer that nobody else on your team knows about yet — a skill, a piece of knowledge, a hard-won lesson, something they are genuinely good at. Then think about who on your team has a problem, a question, a place where they are stuck, that this person could actually help with. Make the introduction. One sentence: 'You two should talk. She knows exactly this. I'll let you have it.' Then walk away. Don't stay. Don't manage the conversation. Don't follow up in the meeting. Just let those two people have the thing you just started between them. That is a give. You gave each of them something: the person with something to offer got to be needed. The person who was stuck got real help. And you gave yourself something too, though it is harder to name: you gave up being the only source, and something in the room will begin to shift. Do that once. That is the week. And if you want to make it land, when you see those two again, name what happened: 'I heard that worked out. That's what this place is when it's working.' One give, between two of your people, and your name on the fact that it happened. That's where the jar starts.
[Outro] So that's the thing Sofia learned. Perks are fine. Free snacks are a small kindness. A holiday outing is a nice day. But none of it builds the thing people are actually hungry for — the sense that the people beside you know you're there, that you matter to them specifically, that you belong to this place not because you were hired but because the people in it have woven you in. That thing is built in the small gives that go sideways, between people, when someone sees a need and fills it and someone else sees that and starts doing the same. Your job is not to provide that. Your job is to put the jar in the center of the room, drop in the first thing, and make the giving visible until your people see it and start filling it themselves. Do it once this week. Make one give happen between two of your people. Then watch. Next time, we go deeper into what gets in the way of that in the harder moments — the ones where the jar is there but nobody wants to be first. That's a real one, and it has a real answer. Watched over, as always, by Daisy. I'll see you there.