Belonging, Identity and the Paradox of Our Many Teams
It’s mid-December and the project team you’ve been working with for the last six months is having Christmas drinks on Friday night. That’s the same night and time that your line-managed team is gathering for a party. Which one do you go to?
This is the way my colleague Philip Atkinson pinpoints the dilemma of teaming in organisations. Most of us are in multiple teams at the same time, so the multiple-Christmas-party scenario is a very real one.
Stepping away from the practical nature of how you’d navigate this situation, let’s look more broadly at what’s involved – and what’s at stake.
If you didn’t go to either party, you might feel you’d missed out, or even left out. This touches something deeper: belonging and identity. What will people think of me? Am I an outsider? Am I really one of them? And of course, attending one event and not the other carries the same emotional tension.
We meet this dynamic elsewhere in life. Consider the “work–life” dilemma: your child’s Christmas play is on the same day as a big meeting. Are you primarily a parent that day, or the critical linchpin in the business? Where do you belong? And whichever choice you make, what does it say about you?
But the point here isn’t how to solve these dilemmas – tempting as that may be. It’s to notice what these dilemmas reveal about who we are, and how we belong within a complex web of dependencies: family, friends, projects, professions.
We often hear consultants and team coaches ask, “which is your first team?” or “primary” team. The inference is clear – one must be more important than the other. Yet our identity isn’t defined by a single team; it’s shaped by how our teams connect. And those connections often extend far beyond our immediate participation. .
This is where Extra-Dependent teams come in.
The Nature of Extra-Dependent and Inter-Dependent Teams
At Organisational Coaching Hub we specialise in working with Inter-Dependent and Extra-Dependent teams. Extra-Dependent teams consist of people who share common skills, approaches and tasks – what we call a Practice. Each member provides that practice outside the team, which is why David Kesby coined the term Extra-Dependent. It also means everyone in an Extra-Dependent team is already working within at least one other Inter-Dependent team.
Inter-Dependent Teams, by contrast, bring together people with different skills, approaches and tasks who need each other to achieve a shared outcome – think of a project team.
Our research shows that as many as 50% of teams in organisations are Extra-Dependent. That means at least half your organisation may experience the belonging dilemma. But what leadership guidance do they receive to help them navigate this? Is it to ask, “Which is the more important team?”
Yet some Extra-Dependent teams contain crucial organisational capabilities – country managers, risk managers, engineers, sales, project managers. And many Inter-Dependent teams hold the keys to delivery – project teams, product teams, account teams, scrum teams. So which is more important?
The question itself misunderstands teaming.
People often say they are “80% in X team and 20% in Y team,” but that is a comment about time, not belonging. In terms of identity, people are 100% in each of their teams. It’s much like the work–life dilemma: when you go to work are you no longer in a relationship with your partner? And do you stop being a professional when you go home? Of course not. You are fully both.
We All Belong to More Than One Team
Every one of us operates across multiple teams: some formal (workplaces, professions), others intimate (family, friends, community, faith). Some chosen, others inherited. Each shapes a part of our identity.
And many of these teams are extra-dependent.
Your effectiveness at work may depend on support at home. Your presence with family may depend on understanding from colleagues. Your wellbeing may depend on friendships entirely outside both.
At this time of year, those overlapping dependencies become particularly visible. The work team wants to celebrate the year’s achievements. The family team wants to gather, rest and reconnect. Your social team wants laughter, release and nostalgia.
And everyone wants a piece of you.
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The Christmas Paradox: Reflection and Anticipation
The festive season also sits at a strange intersection. It’s both an ending and a beginning.
At work, we’re closing projects, tying up loose ends, and reflecting on performance. At home, we might be looking back over a year’s joys and losses. And yet we’re also anticipating the year ahead, our resolutions, and maybe a reset.
This tug between looking back and looking ahead feels a lot like the tug between our teams. Are we celebrating what we’ve achieved together, or preparing for what comes next? Are we reflecting on the past, or imagining the future?
In extra-dependent systems, both matter because reflection and anticipation are part of the same continuum. A healthy team (or person) recognises that the way we end one cycle influences how we begin the next.
Belonging Isn’t Binary
So when you’re choosing between Christmas parties, it can feel like a trade-off: if I go to one, I’m letting another down. But belonging isn’t binary.
Engaging a teaming mindset helps here. Rather than thinking, “Which team do I belong to more?” we might ask, “How do these teams relate to each other through me?”
Your presence at one event might strengthen your capacity to show up better for another. Resting with family might replenish the energy that helps you lead at work. Celebrating with colleagues might reignite your sense of purpose that enriches life at home. Maybe think of yourself as a bridge rather than a boundary.
Still, it’s hard to ignore the quiet hierarchies that exist between our teams. Some will carry more weight than others – family before friends, work before hobbies – and our choices often reinforce those unspoken rankings. Saying yes to one invitation can make another team feel a little less valued. It’s rarely deliberate, but belonging isn’t just about how we feel, it’s also about how our actions are read by others.
The Hidden Lesson of the “Favourite Child” Question
People sometimes compare these dilemmas to being asked, “Who’s your favourite child?” An impossible, unfair question. Each relationship offers something different, and choosing one doesn’t diminish the others.
The same is true for our teams. Each reflects a different version of us: the professional, the parent, the friend, the volunteer, the mentor. None alone is the whole story, but together they form something closer to it.
True teaming is about recognising this interplay – a belonging that spills across boundaries, not neatly contained within them.
A Reflection for the Season
As the year draws to a close, it’s worth pausing to consider the teams we are part of – at work and beyond it. The ones that celebrate us, challenge us, frustrate us, and make us feel recognised.
If December is full of competing invitations, maybe that’s a sign of richness, not conflict. It means we’ve built connections that matter in more than one domain.
So whichever party you end up at this year, raise a glass not only to the people in the room, but also to the people who aren’t there – the other teams who shape who you are. And remember, some of them may be missing for the very same reason you are choosing: they’re with their other teams, honouring their own pattern of belonging. And that’s OK.
And perhaps, as you move between them, you might find that your true “team” is the web of relationships that connects them all.
