Bill Kugelberg is the founder and partner of The Myriad Consulting Group, which is a full-service strategic corporate communications firm focused on growing sales, increasing profitability and enhancing the relationships businesses share with their clients, employees and suppliers.

Over the past 10 years, I’ve had the opportunity to work as a Diversity and Inclusion facilitator with a Chicago-based company called The Kaleidoscope Group. During this time, I’ve been able to spend thousands of hours with employees and management from several different types of businesses, discussing basically how to either ‘create or build on an environment where everyone feels valued and part of the team.’

The key word in that phrase is ‘everyone.’ Because, honestly, how hard is it to make people feel valuable or part of the team that we are comfortable with? It’s pretty easy in most cases. But what about people we aren’t comfortable with? How difficult can it be to make those people feel valued and part of the team? It really depends on how much effort we want to put forth or if we need them to be productive in order to accomplish our goal.

One statement I always hear when we discuss this in our sessions is “I’ll start doing this when my boss starts doing this. Until then, I’m not doing it.” In addition to this being an unfortunate attitude from someone in the workplace (and there can be several reasons why someone may be acting this way), it also passes along responsibility for one’s own actions. Let’s just say everyone in the organization had this same attitude – I’ll start doing this when my boss starts doing this. Ultimately then, one person is responsible for creating an environment of value and teamwork – the CEO or head person in the company. But what if this person doesn’t create an environment where people feel valued and part of the team? Is the company doomed to treat people unfairly and create a workplace people dread returning to work every day?

The question you have to ask yourself is this - “Is there someone I work with that I can make feel valued and part of the team, regardless of if I’m comfortable or not with them.” The answer, of course, is yes. There are people you work with that you can make feel valued and part of the team. And how do we respond when we feel valued and part of the team? We respond tremendously positive.

When I was in the Navy, I had a senior chief who was my boss. There came a point when I would do anything he wanted me to – we liked to say that we would run through a wall for this person. How did he get us to act like this toward him? Easy – he acted like he cared about us and he listened to what we had to say. It doesn’t mean he let us do whatever we wanted or used all of our ideas. But he made us feel valuable to the organization and part of the team.

 Instead of looking for ways around the wall, what are you doing to go through the wall? Regardless of your place in the company, what are you doing to create an environment where people feel valued and part of the team? Because at the end of the day, isn’t that what all of us really want – just to be valued?