As primarily social beings, when we spend time together; our brains wire together and our bodies step, hearts beat and lungs breathe in similar rhythms; mirror neurons in our brains engage. As author Daniel Goleman so aptly states: ‘when we wire together we fire together’.

As social and neurological beings, when we feel: included, accepted, appreciated, respected, regarded, thanked, welcomed, remembered, noticed, asked or celebrated our brains generate ‘happy’ chemicals and we feel good. Actually we feel great.

In addition; we think well, we’re more likely to be creative and innovative, to be productive and effective, and to be optimistic and happy. We’re also more likely to engage well with one another, collaborate, solve problems together, trust each other, manage conflict in a productive way and have really good conversations.

If you agree that this is generally true for you and you acknowledge how you feel when you experience any of the acts of social inclusion just mentioned; you’d possibly also agree that the following question is an important one to ask.

Would paying more attention, spending more time and/or placing more value on acts of social of inclusion be of benefit to your family, your team, your community or your organisation?

For most of the answer is most probably, yes.

Understanding the impact of this benefit and being able to engage in actions that create it is one of the most important functions that any of us interested or invested in social wellbeing and leadership can undertake.

The intent to work more often with acts of social inclusion, emanates from a generative motivation.

Investing in relationships in such a way fosters shared understanding, mutual respect and connectedness. When this occurs we know where the other is coming from and we recognise their intention.