BELONGING – The Science Behind Inclusion A Conversation with Rajkumari Neogy
Speaking with Rajkumari Neogy (Biracial identity, Asian Indian & French Canadian: s/he) is to experience a convergence of parallel worlds.
Her executive coaching is a crossroads where epigenetics, the human condition, neurolinguistics and corporate culture meet, and with companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon requesting her insight into organisational development, it’s a helluva busy intersection to be standing.
We caught up with her earlier this year to discover more about the science of belonging, how it is used to build inclusive workplaces, and to find out exactly what epigenetics is all about.
Rajkumari, to start off may you give us a beginners guide to the science of epigenetics.
Hi sure, epigenetics is the study of how behaviour and environment can cause changes in the way a person’s genes work. These interactions, or marks, don’t modify our DNA sequences, but can change the way the sequences are read.
What would a real life situation of this possibly look like.
Humans by design are wired to form relationships and belong, whether this is at home, in communities, work, relationships, hobbies or with friends, so when someone has the experience of emotional pain, such as exclusion, our bodies register it as physical injury. Although no physical pain may be experienced, our bodies on a cellular level, their chemical and protein processing capability, reacts like we’ve been kicked in the shin. It hurts that much.
If an environmental stress, like exclusion, were to happen repeatedly it can disrupt these processes in ways that cause epigenetic mechanisms to produce heritable marks for future generations.
So every day ‘negative’ scenarios we face have implications for future generations.
Yes. We’re not ‘just’ heritable genes, but heritable of environmental ‘marks’ that transform how our DNA is read from one generation to another. Epigenetics show that our environment and culture are interweaved with human development.
Can you tell us a bit more about environmental stress.
Before I do let me elaborate on the inheritable factor as it’ll add perspective. Just as our ‘every day’ affects the cellular biology of our descendants, we carry traits, tragedies and traumas of ancestors in ours. Dating back 200 years or more depending on the sources cited.
Back to 1821.
That far back. So when we speak about environmental stresses, we could be talking about the current pandemic, political turmoil, economic austerity, racism or war but we are also speaking about those stresses dating back 200 years or more.
Rewind global history to the 19th Century to a world where slavery, colonialism, civil war and genocide are current affairs. When social behaviours suffered major disruption and had to reestablish themselves under very different environmental (and therefore epigenetic) conditions. These factors are still ‘marks’ in the reading of our DNA today.
Ok, so the big question here is why is this so important for corporate leaders to understand.
Go back to the example of the individual who feels excluded. May be this lack of belonging is happening at work, repeatedly. Well depending on who that person is as an individual and their own historical archives they will start shutting down in their own particular way. Their own tailored exclusion as it were.
And over time this bleeds into things like imposter syndrome or team dysfunction.
Remember that past generations have had to overcome some serious strife in many differing capacities that titrates down to us, then BAM! we find ourselves at work in a meeting that is unravelling because acquired behavioural characteristics inherited from our predecessors’ environmental influences come into play.
It plays into our social responses.
Very much so, and I’d point people in the direction of Stephen Porges’ work here. Our nervous system has a third type of response beyond its well know two-part antagonistic system. It’s called the social engagement system (SES) and it helps us navigate relationships. Beyond the better known fight-flight and freeze-faint defence responses, our SES requires a sense of safety in order for it to be ‘turned on’.
When we experience our environment as safe, we operate from this beneficial SES.
Right, but if we have current or hereditary unresolved trauma we may live a responsive existence based on perpetual fight, flight or shutdown. As seen in our unraveling meeting example.
Consider another example, a Black employee here in 2021 within the US. They are carrying environmental stresses inherited from their ancestors, trauma related to slavery, Jim Crow, and voter suppression just to name a few examples. Add environmental stresses specific to their own timeline, such as systemic racism, and then potentially triggering incidents, the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd come to mind.
This Black employee is unlikely to feel psychologically safe during inequitable workplace interactions and conversations. While their workplace systemic racism is unchecked, their sense of safety and therefore belonging will be minimised.
Employers need to create psychologically safe workplaces.
Often corporate leaders I speak with question their obligations around employee trauma. ‘It’s not our responsibility that employees have life trauma’ is a common reaction. Specifically I’ve been asked ‘What’s the point of being nice to employees?’. These questions are an entry point into a discussion concerning the business case for inclusion, because when an employee doesn’t feel psychological safe, parts of their brain shut down meaning the company is leaving dollars on the table: leadership is actively participating in lowering the firm’s profit margin.
So if a company would like its employees creative, motivated and committed, then there has to be understanding that every single interaction had with every single employee at every single moment is either building or dismantling trust. Either making or losing money.
Rajkumari tell us about your work, how you go about creating belonging for these companies.
First off, the upside is that epigenetic marks are not set in stone. They can be influenced and transformed. And that’s where I come in.
For me, I really enjoy distilling this complex ideology into the reality of workplace interaction. Using a framework designed for a trans-generational mindset allows me to apply an epigenetic lens to specific team interaction, leadership style, and general organisational dysfunction. Once this lens is utilised then, for example, team members can start replying with compassion, and this understanding relaxes their emotional state. It doesn’t make everything better instantaneously but begins by creating empathy and a move towards a workplace based on belonging and a narrative of understanding.