How to Make Belonging the Centerpiece of Your Events

Author: Michelle Russell

“People want to see themselves reflected” in both speakers on stage and their fellow attendees, said DEI expert Ritu Bhasin.

A former civil litigator in Canada and instructor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, Ritu Bhasin now heads up her own leadership and DEI consulting firm focused on the values of authenticity, belonging, and intersectionality. She is the best-selling author of We’ve Got This: Unlocking the Beauty of Belonging and, as a frequent speaker, applies that expertise to events. One suggestion she made on a Speakers Spotlight blog post: Ask your speakers and emcees to incorporate personal stories on the stage. “If your first icebreaker of the day was asking everyone to share their favorite childhood memory,” she writes, “then ask your keynote opener to do the same. When the people on stage are engaging in these activities, that helps normalize and embed vulnerability and connection into the event.”

Ritu Bhasin

Convene asked Bhasin, who said she has presented at “countless conferences,” for more on how planners can make belonging — which she defines as “the profound feeling that we hold inside ourselves of being honored and accepted for who we are” — central to their participants’ experience.

Pay Attention To Diversity

It’s critical, Bhasin said, that “the people who are on stage are representative of the identities that I possess, in addition to having fellow attendees reflect my identities as well. People want to see themselves reflected.”

Your First Impression Sets the Stage

“This was important pre-pandemic but I think post-pandemic as well, that as human beings, we’re animals and we not only crave being in the company of others, but a lot of our emotional regulation happens — we co-regulate — when we are in person with others,” Bhasin said. Therefore, “the spirit, the vibe of the initial kickoff of the event is fundamental for creating a space where people feel like they will be able to be authentic and vulnerable in navigating this experience vs. is this going to be one of those conferences where I need to put on a persona?

“How we actually kick off the event and who we put on the stage, how they introduce the learning that will be happening in the experience to come, the words they use about the opportunities to connect — they directly impact whether people will experience belonging or not. When conferences and conventions feel formal and rigid and don’t have an opportunity for personal connection and interaction at the outset, it can cause people to shut down and put on a persona and then the mask doesn’t come off for the entire experience.”

When she speaks at conferences, Bhasin said that “the first five to 10 minutes are everything.” It’s setting the stage for connection — “for whether you’re going to exhale and become an open vessel,” she said, “to energetically absorb my message or not.”

Don’t Be a Buzzkill

The official kickoff to an event is often a reception with food, drinks, and music — an “excellent” start, Bhasin said. “But then, you’re sitting at the table and someone really serious and stuffy gets up to talk, who has a fancy senior leadership role and speaks from behind the podium and has a script in front of them with some slides and talks at the audience. And then the sponsor comes up and does the same thing — that vibe and energy that was created starts to go down.”

While she said she understands why “we want important people to grace the stage,” she wants to “throw it out there” that that’s less important to include at the beginning. “Have them at lunch,” she said, “have them at the end of the day.”

Be Emphatically Authentic

Bhasin teaches about belonging and authenticity for a living, so she has “it easier than most presenters. I’m on a mission to help people to sit in the vulnerability of who they are and bring that spirit into how they live and how they work and lead. However, you could be talking about fiscal forecasting, you could be talking about AI, you could be talking about health care — the ‘you’ you bring on stage should be your authentic self and the vehicle through which the information passes.”

Build Social Connection Into the Program

Incorporate icebreakers at the beginning of sessions and make sure to weave team events into the program. “We’re in a loneliness epidemic in our society and people are hungry for in-person interaction, and so having more of those team experiences is really important,” Bhasin said. “I also think that experiential learning — table work, speakers pausing to allow people to share and brainstorm and do an exercise at tables — is also really helpful. Anything that enables one-on-one connection.”

The Physical Environment Matters

Tightly packed room sets are not ideal, Bhasin said. “So, if we were doing roundtables, there should be enough space so that people can walk around, there’s flow. I pre- fer roundtables over a theater-style room set, but when you have 2,000 people, you’re going to have to do theater-style.”

Tailor Experiences to Your Audience

“I work across industries and there are some industries where they do things where there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that that same experience would be effective with another industry,” Bhasin said.

She advises planners to take a step back and ask themselves about the unique needs of their industry and audience. “Based on who they are,” she said, “what drives them to experience belong- ing, joy, and creativity? Think deeply about the generational differences” in the audience as well as “the other identity markers” of gender, race, ethnicity, culture, geography, nationality, and position, meaning whether there will be both junior- and senior-level professionals present.

“When we think about this from a macro perspective and have an understanding of who will be in the room and their needs and values and drivers — and what belonging could look like for them,” she said, “that’s what ultimately can help us to create and shape a better experience.”

Michelle Russell is editor in chief of Convene.

Emotional Engagement

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