Many leaders I meet want their AO work to support more belonging. At the same time, they are wary of language that asks people to treat the organization like a “family.” For some, work is primarily a way to make a living; for others, it’s a deep source of meaning. Trying to turn everyone into one big, emotionally fused unit can create pressure to conform, blur boundaries, and make it harder to hear dissent – which is exactly what an adaptive organization needs.
From a systems perspective, belonging in AO is less about emotional closeness and more about clear identity and boundaries. People need to know: Who are we as an organization? Where does this team begin and end? What is asked of me here – and what is not? When that is fuzzy, “agility” can feel like permanent shape‑shifting where you’re never sure if you are inside or outside of anything stable. In this issue, I share a story of a group that tried to create belonging by being “like a family,” and how they shifted towards clearer identities and boundaries instead – plus an AO move you can try if you want belonging to be solid enough for real difference and disagreement.
From the field: “we’re like a family” – until we’re not
A product organization in a growing company prided itself on its culture. People used words like “family” and “tribe” to describe their teams. Leaders were accessible, decisions were informal, and AO‑style experiments were easier to start because relationships were strong. For a while, this worked. Then, as the company scaled and pressures increased, cracks started to show.
The same closeness that had once felt supportive began to feel suffocating for some. People hesitated to raise hard feedback because they didn’t want to “let the family down.” Boundaries between work and non‑work blurred; expectations about availability grew fuzzy. When a restructuring hit one area, those who had been told they were “like family” felt deeply betrayed. Meanwhile, others who had never wanted family language in the first place quietly disengaged.
At the same time, the AO structures they had installed – swarms, cross‑functional teams, new roles – were creating real confusion about identity and belonging. People were moved between teams in the name of agility, but no one helped them answer basic questions: “Which group am I really part of? Who do I ‘belong’ with day to day? Where is it OK for me to say no?” In 1:1s, people described feeling both over‑entangled and strangely rootless.
Instead of launching a big culture program, we started by talking more honestly about organizational identity and boundaries. With a cross‑section of people from different teams, we explored three questions:
- What is this organization really for – what would be lost if it disappeared?
- What does it mean, in practical terms, to belong here (and what does it not mean)?
- Where are our current boundaries too tight, and where are they too porous?
The conversation surfaced some important distinctions. People said that belonging here should mean: understanding and caring about the purpose, being treated fairly, being able to contribute without having to hide core parts of who they are, and having at least one stable “home base” team or circle where they are known. It should not mean: being available all the time, sharing private life beyond what feels comfortable, or never disagreeing.
Out of these dialogues came a few specific moves. They clarified a small set of identity statements in plain language (“In this organization, we…”), which focused on purpose and how they work together rather than on being a family. They defined what “home” means in their AO design: even if you swarm across domains, you have one stable team or circle that holds your development and where you return. They also began explicitly naming belonging boundaries in leadership conversations: where it is healthy to invite more closeness, and where it is vital to say, “Here, we stop.”
Over time, the emotional temperature lowered a little. People felt clearer about what they were being invited into and where they were free to step back. Belonging became less about warm metaphors and more about concrete clarity: “This is who we are. This is what we expect. This is what we will protect together.”
Try this AO move this week – map “home”, “field”, and “edge”
You don’t need a big DEI program to start working with belonging in AO. You can begin by helping people see three simple places in your current design: home, field, and edge.
- Ask each person: where is “home” for you here?
In a team meeting or swarm, invite people to write down, for themselves, what they currently experience as their “home” in the organization: the group where they feel most known and held – or, if that doesn’t exist, the closest thing. Notice patterns: do some people have no clear home? Are others trying to belong to three places at once? - Map your “field” – where you move and swarm.
On a simple diagram, show where people regularly go beyond home to do AO work: cross‑functional swarms, projects, communities of practice, customer journeys. Label these as “field” – places you go to work on the system. This helps people see that moving across boundaries is expected, but does not erase the need for a stable base. - Name the “edges” – where boundaries are healthy.
As a group, identify a few important boundaries that protect healthy belonging: for example, limits on working hours or channels, clear lines around performance vs. personal life, or decisions about what your organization will not ask people to sacrifice. Write these as straightforward “Here, we do / do not…” statements. - Turn this into a short identity statement.
Using what you’ve just mapped, co‑create a brief, concrete description of belonging in your context, such as:- “Belonging here means understanding and working for [purpose], having a clear home team, being treated fairly, and being able to disagree without fear.”
- “Belonging does not require us to be family or to share everything; it does require that we respect each other’s boundaries and differences.”
- Test it in one AO decision.
Over the next month, use this clarity in one real decision about structure or AO practice: for example, how you form a new swarm, how you rotate people, or how you handle a reorganization. Ask explicitly: “Given what we said about home, field, edge and belonging, how does this move support or undermine that?” Adjust the decision if needed.
If you keep coming back to these three places – home, field, edge – you’ll likely find that your AO work becomes easier to bear. People can stretch into new patterns because they also know where they stand, what they are part of, and what they are not required to give.
You want more?
If you’d like support in working with belonging, identity, and boundaries inside your AO journey, you can
Agile Adaptive Organizations 
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