Difference is the Flip Side of Belonging | #MaverickNotOutsider

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The tagline of this online project, Belonging Across Cultures is From Difference to Connection. Author Across Cultures, Yang-May Ooi, started this project to highlight the things that bring us together from our Differences across social and cultural divides towards meaningful human Connection. But as this project has continued over the last months, she realised that Difference is the flipside of Belonging. And that by leaning into our Difference instead of moving away from it, we can find valuable contributions that can enrich our sense of Belonging.

From Outsiders to Mavericks: Transforming Belonging

When we talk about Belonging, there is an implied sense that there are also those who do not Belong – or whom we do not allow to Belong. They are the Others, the Outsiders, Strangers, Alien Peoples – those who are Different from Us. Them.

I have been an Outsider. I am sure you have too. Think of any time when we were new to a group or a community or a workplace. We were the ones who were Different. We were Outsiders until we became Insiders.

Difference is the flip side of Belonging. So it feels to me important to look at Difference in order more fully to understand Belonging.

Awhile ago, I started a separate journal on Substack to tinker with this idea of the flip side of Belonging – to see what might emerge if I explored Difference not as something to move away from towards Connection but as something of value in itself. Could Difference be something positive to be celebrated within Belonging?

Outsider Thinking?

In particular, I want to explore how Difference might be valued as a gift not just to each of us as individuals but to our communities, society and even the world. I wondered about calling this idea Outsider Thinking at first. We may be or have been Outsiders in the way we look or dress, in our beliefs or where we are from. But even if we might be the most insider of insiders in our community or area, we have all felt like Outsiders at some point in our lives – eg at a new school or new job, joining a new sports team or choir, holding different opinions to the majority around you and so on.

Those experiences can make us think. They can open us up to empathy, putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes. Why is something done this way? Why do I expect it to be done another way? Why do these people think the way they do? Why don’t they think like me? Why don’t I think like them?

But even without the experience of feeling like an Outsider, we already use one aspect of Outsider Thinking. It is sometimes called “playing the devil’s advocate”. In a discussion or business meeting, there is value in someone taking on the role of Not Agreeing and actively finding weak points or challenging the majority view in the room. It is a way of stress-testing an idea. However, the devil’s advocate role is not empowered to come up with new, fresh, innovative ideas. It is primarily a negative one – to challenge and find weaknesses.

The richness of a different perspective

Taking the view of an Outsider has a richer dimension – it naturally includes different possibilities that might not already have been considered by the group, emerging from the experience and point of view of the Outsider in the room. There is the saying that to a hammer, everything is a nail. So in a roomful of hammers, there is only one solution, hammer the problem into the ground! But if there were an Outsider – say, a screwdriver or other tool – how might the problem now look?

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There is value in challenging received wisdom and in being curious. There is also value in bringing our different ideas and experiences to the table. We don’t actually have to be an Outsider to bring such value – we can all think like an Outsider, whether from our own experience or from putting ourselves into the shoes of an Outsider hypothetically.

Evolving into Maverick Thinking

But the word “Outsider” seems to me to carry a sense of exclusion, of not-belonging. I picture someone standing on the edge of a circle, looking in. The people inside are laughing, talking, connected. But the Outsider is alone, watching, wondering why they don’t fit in. Referring to ourselves – or others – as an Outsider can feel cold, isolating, and excluding.

I began to wonder: How we can reframe the idea of being an Outsider. What if, instead of seeing it as a negative, we could see it as a stepping stone to something more powerful?

Could there be a more empowering word to describe us, we who do not quite fit in?

Maverick.

The word had been circling on the edges of my consciousness for awhile. And then it asserted itself into my thoughts, stepping out centre stage and into the spotlight.

A Maverick stands out from the crowd but in a way that is full of energy and possibility. A Maverick chooses to emerge out of the circle voluntarily, they are not left out against their will. They are not afraid to step out of the box or ignore convention. Society might see them as rebels but they are rebels with a cause, visionaries who see the world not as it is, but as it could be.

What if we could transform the Outsider’s sense of exclusion into the Maverick’s sense of autonomy and agency? By changing how we describe ourselves, could that shift how we see ourselves – and those others we might consider Outsiders, and also in how we live our lives?

Mavericks in Action

That was when it struck me that many – if not most – of the innovators, outliers, creatives and inspiring leaders have been Mavericks. To name only a few…

Malala Yousafzai, the activist for girls’ education, was / is a Maverick Thinker who refused to accept the dogma of her society under Taliban rule that girls should not go to school.

Nelson Mandela, political prisoner for 27 years under the apartheid regime in South Africa, was a Maverick Thinker who refused to take the expected route of vengeance on the white oppressors and instead created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission where perpetrators of abuse and violence received amnesty for telling the truth about what they did.

Charles Darwin was meant to become a vicar but was a Maverick Thinker by trusting his observation of the natural world on the voyage of the Beagle over the religious doctrine of his time and setting out his theory of natural selection that changed the way we see nature, reality and history.

Groups and their Groupthink

I feel very much that in order to Belong Across Cultures, we need to bring our whole selves to whatever culture, old or new, strange or familiar, that we may find ourselves in. Not just the bits of ourselves that fits in with the culture around us.

That culture might be the culture of a new country, a new city or a workplace culture, an organisation or school culture. The way that groups of friends relate and the habits and familiarities of any family – those, too, are cultures.

Any place where people come together, a culture will emerge. And there are likely to be times when we feel a bit out of it – whether we have been long time members of that group or whether we might be the newbie.

And often in that moment of feeling different or not quite fitting in – maybe we disagree with what everyone else is saying or we see things differently for whatever reason – our instinct can be to do or say what everyone else is doing or saying, or to stay quiet in deference to the group.

But what if there is value in our different point of view? What might our different / unusual/ unique/ interesting/ unfamiliar perspective add to the discussion? Could something novel/ different/ intriguing emerge from our idea sparking off the others’ ideas? What if instead of trying to fit in, we spoke out or acted in a way that showed fully who we are?

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A caveat: Sometimes, in that moment, it may be literally the safe thing to stay quiet if the others’ response is likely to be abuse that could harm us. I am not advocating speaking out at all costs. We each need to judge the situation for ourselves. And I myself have stayed quiet at times when I judged it unsafe to say anything. Cancel culture in our present time can be dangerous physically as well as mentally and is not to be taken lightly – as I have written about in Can We be Friends with People Who Disagree with Us?

It’s not just cancel culture but there are other situations where the people around us are not ready or open to hearing anything different from the prevailing point of view. In a workplace situation, our boss may only want us all to agree with him/ her and the naysayer may be seen as a troublemaker. At home, the family dynamic may be such that the one who does not toe the family line is mocked.

Groups are powerful, even small units, in controlling the behaviour of their members, often by unspoken rules. And so too is their Groupthink powerful. That power can be unhealthy, mean and destructive – as we can see in the news and on social media in the divisiveness that seems to be all around.

#MaverickNotOutsider

I believe very much that Belonging is not about giving in to Groupthink and subsuming our individual identity and values to the larger entity. Freedom of speech and thought, democracy and justice, equality and compassion are all values that are the foundation of the world I want to live in. My worry is that these are all being undermined by the power of Groupthink and the division and factionalism of more and more Groups who all feel that theirs is the only right way.

Which is why it feels to me more important than ever to encourage Maverick Thinking – even while it can be daunting and risky to be the only one in a Group with the Maverick Mindset.

I do not have any pat easy answer for how to dissolve the power and control of Groups and GroupThink. That is what this project is all about – it’s my exploration of how we can find Belonging wherever we may be, in whatever culture we find ourselves while also being able to live fully our true selves and stand tall in the power of our Difference, the quality that makes us uniquely who we are.

One way I feel to start to change the status quo is with small steps and a light touch, a bit of playfulness. And the key message for now, for me, is to re-imagine the outcast Outsider as the more innovative Maverick.

I will still be writing on Substack about Maverick Thinking: The Gift of Difference but I will cross-post some of them here from time to time, especially those stories that may enrich our discussions here on the theme of Belonging. Look out for these bonus stories under the playful hashtag #MaverickNotOutsider.

What do you think? Have you ever felt like an Outsider? How would you feel being described as a Maverick? Do drop me a note via the Contact page or add a Comment below. Or even if this simply provokes a chat yo may have with someone you know, that would be a great way to share a bit of Belonging… and Maverick Thinking!

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Photos:

Pancake – https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-a-person-flipping-a-piece-of-bread-on-a-pan-6798863/

Tulips – https://pixabay.com/photos/flowers-tulips-garden-standing-out-7249076/

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