30 April, 2026
Small Moments, Big Culture: Insights from Week 0 of the Inclusive March Challenge
Week 0 kicked off the Inclusive March Challenge 2026 with a simple Team Cultural Awareness Bingo. What appeared as a light ice-breaking team activity quickly evolved into a moment of connection, vulnerability, humour, and self-reflection across teams in the financial sector. Once again, it showed that culture isn’t built through documents or strategic frameworks alone, it develops through everyday interactions with those around us. As cultural theorist Raymond Williams (1976) famously wrote, “culture is ordinary.” It is not reserved for experts, grand traditions, or high-level strategies. It lives in daily habits, stories, jokes, misunderstandings, discoveries, and the countless small interactions that shape who we are together.
Bringing together insights shared across participating teams, this article aims to weave them into a collective story of what can be learned when we pause, reflect, and have honest discussions with one another.
A Simple Game That Opened Big Conversations
Culture Bingo revealed far more than anyone predicted.
Teams found themselves surprised by their colleagues’ backgrounds, languages, regional identities, and personal histories, life stories that people often carry quietly. What started as small facts turned into genuine moments of discovery in the teams. The exercise was a reminder that even in longstanding groups, there is always more beneath the surface and that opening a safe conversation space increases connection within teams, lending itself to a more positive team culture.
What was also expressed by teams was that systems of power and inequality are not abstractions, they shape everyday experiences. As feminist cultural theorist, Bell Hooks (1994), remind us, these experiences accumulate, often silently, and influence how people feel in a space. This recognition gently shifted the conversation from awareness to responsibility. People began asking:
What do we do when these experiences appear?
How do we support each other when they surface?
What does allyship look like in practice?
In that moment, culture became visible not as something we discuss, but as something we choose to enact.
The Diversity We Don’t Always See
Another insight that surfaced was the recognition that diversity goes far beyond what is visible.
Even in teams that appear similar at first glance, people carry deeply diverse cultural stories shaped by region, language, migration, class, values, traditions, and the experiences that shaped their belonging.
Cultural theorists, such as Stuart Hall (1992), often speak about “invisible difference,” the aspects of identity that quietly influence how we move through the world.
Participants highlighted a palpable sense of diversity even within seemingly homogenous teams. Posts from participating teams reveal that being Belgian did not erase regional distinctions, being the cultural, linguistic and historical differences between Flanders and Wallonia, rather they create varied perspectives and approaches. This internal diversity enriches collaboration, prompting teams to negotiatiate multiple identities and fostering and richer more inclusive environment despite a shared national label.
Week 0 broadened our understanding and teams realised that diversity isn’t just demographic; it’s experiential, cultural and emotional. Memories, rituals, family histories and humour, to name a few, are elements that shape us long before we enter the workplace. Everyone brings a whole cultural universe with them and recognising this allows for more empathetic, compassionate teams, enhancing the overall team culture.
What Week 0 Taught Us About Culture
If there is one lesson that ties all reflections together, it is this:
Culture lives in the everyday.
Appearing when…
Someone shares a story no one knew before.
Colleagues meet difference with curiosity rather than judgment.
People acknowledge uncomfortable truths about discrimination.
Someone chooses action, not silence, when support is needed.
Ultimately, it appears in the quiet trust that forms when teams genuinely see and hear one another.
The Inclusive March Challenge started with a game, but it revealed something deeper:
People are ready for these conversations, they value them, and they create bonds stronger than any strategy document can produce.
Conclusion
Week 0 showed the power of simple interactions. Teams entered the activity as colleagues and left with greater connection, deeper understanding, and a shared sense of responsibility for the culture they shape every day.
If a single Bingo exercise can unlock this much insight, the rest of the Inclusive March Challenge promises even more growth.
Here’s to a month of listening, learning, and living inclusion, together.
