Ep 58 Aga Bajer: Belonging is a Verb
Episode description
My guest is a woman after my own heart. Aga Bajer is obsessed with the opportunity to create thriving cultures by understanding what it is that people need to do their best work.
Aga wears many hats as the driving force behind CultureBrained®, where she steers the ship as both founder and CEO. Beyond leading her company, Aga is an author and a captivating keynote speaker, known for sharing insights that resonate deeply with her audience. She's the voice and brain behind the CultureLab podcast, where she dives into the intricacies of organisational culture, and has built a vibrant community for culture leaders around these conversations. Her impactful contributions, books and thought leadership in her field have earned her a spot as one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices of 2024, marking her as a must-follow for those interested in the world of company culture and leadership.
I absolutely loved our conversation. Aga challenges some of the ‘truths’ that we as a society seem to have accepted with very little rigour. She shares the insights she has uncovered through her research as well as her own experience. For Aga, her work is personal and this shines through our interview. The need for people to feel a sense of belonging is the central theme of this episode and Aga also shares with us what it takes to help foster a sense of belonging in organisations.
Interview highlights:
- Aga shares and expands on her insights on the 3 things people need to do their best work – fun, meaning and belonging
- She shares her fascinating career journey from starting an ice cream factory aged 22 to later joining large consulting businesses, in a quest to understanding how to build an environment where people can thrive.
- Her fascination and obsession with understanding the impact of environment on people and their ability to do great work and to thrive.
- She introduces her consultancy CultureBrained® and it’s “crazy dream”, a mission to make work synonymous with fun, meaning and belonging.
- Aga explains CultureBrained’s approach:
- Codify culture
- Embed and activate it
- Evolve culture
- She shares that a big part of this is focused on creating a community of practitioners, a creative space for heads of people and culture, CEOs, CMOs, all finding new better ways of cultivating healthy cultures
- We talk about the Fireside Chats that Aga hosts for her members – a small, deep, intimate format. She confesses that, as a business owner, this can be quite terrifying to run this kind of format, when the rest of the world seems to be pulling in the other direction of big, mass, scaled.
- Our discussion moves to Dunbar’s number – Robin Dunbar’s theory that the maximum number of people we can manage to be ‘friends with’ is 150 people – and how this inspired Aga in how she manages her CultureBrained community
- Aga shares the story of how she came to be writing her book, which originally started as an exploration of the concepts of fun, meaning and belonging, but eventually moved to single-mindedly explore the topic of belonging
- She shares a fascinating insight into scientific research which reveals that belonging is actually the Number 1 human need (in conflict with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs)
- Aga takes us on a deeper dive into the topic of belonging and why she is so personally invested in exploring and understanding it. She talks about her personal experiences as well as what she has observed in organisations and teams
- She explains the three things we need to generate Belonging, providing deep insight on what it takes, including being valued as well as creating value
- The strong link between belonging and organisational performance, which is backed up by scientific research
- The cost of “Unbelonging” and the benefits of Belonging
- Aga’s ambition for the next five years towards a more regenerative society and what that could look like for business
Connect with Aga and CultureBrained