How to Keep a Workplace Happy in a Divided Political Moment

Q: How do workplaces navigate this moment of intense, divided politics?

It may be wise to pay attention to, “What do we want to create?” We may be better off focusing on how we talk to each other rather than what we say. A little bit less about content and a little bit more about process. In that circumstance, advocating for colleagues to take on your political position might not be considered a win. The workplace is not convened to have you hash out your personal politics. Very few workplaces exist for that reason.

People get confused about that, especially these days. The pandemic blurred some of the lines of personal and professional, even more than they were before. I wonder if this isn’t a time where people feel a little less clarity about where their politics belong and where they have jurisdiction to bring their personal aspirations and hopes for what it means to be a citizen more broadly. But there’s a distinction between being a citizen of a society and being a citizen of an organization.

Q: Would you expand on that?

Clearly people are both. We contain multitudes. But “bring your whole person to work” doesn’t mean that your whole world fits within work. You are a fuller person than what your job asks you to function as. Say you’re passionate about bowling. Can you still understand that not everybody is? Would you insist on working only with people who bowl?

We want people’s personhood to be able to show up, but that’s not exactly the same as bringing in personal passions and advocacies. For many reasons, identity at work can be confusing. Perhaps it’s an additional pressure in the current political context because of identity politics and because of a sense of work being everywhere in our lives. I’ve spoken with people at various professional levels who have been questioning how to draw a line between what version of myself do I leave at home and what version of myself is relevant at work?

Q: What if someone is talking politics in the workplace?

Ultimately, I think it’s less about what you talk about and the more about how you talk about it. And I don’t think that hard and fast rules are going to help us very much here.

If you wind up talking about politics for whatever reason, it might be net positive or negative, depending on how it goes. For example, talking with colleagues from a position of curiosity, listening with interest in what they say and gaining an understanding of what they care about is one thing. It’s another to criticize or condemn their candidate, and maybe worst of all, show disgust or contempt.

These conversations have an impact. That kind of toxic behavior doesn’t stay within the conversation, and I think it’s particularly dangerous in the workplace. From emotion science, we know contempt is a combination of anger and disgust. It easily happens in this domain, where people are expressing such strong public feelings about other people’s values and preferences, including the presidential candidates. Conversations at work that include contempt are particularly worrisome. I’m uncomfortable with contempt as part of everyday norms in our conversations at work.

These are real relationships with real colleagues with whom you likely need to talk and work again. You might need to walk into the next room and to talk with them about a project deadline or who’s going to do what to collaborate on some sort of outcome or deliverable, the feelings about a contemptuous conversation will go with you. We do impact each other. People need to be aware of the context that they’re co-creating.

Q: What makes for a positive workplace?

Obviously, it’s better when we are enjoying and feel happy to be a member of our organization. And the relationships we have with other people in the workplace contribute to that. In other words, it’s not only the transactional collaboration components of work that matter. If we enjoy the social environment and the team process is effective, we contribute more and grow together.

The flip side of that is that we spend so many hours at work and collaborating on projects that it’s kind of ridiculous to think about a pursuit of a happy, learning-full life if we’re neither happy nor learning with our colleagues.

I’m often thinking about how much time people spend from young childhood through early adulthood aspiring, learning how to be a member of a profession, and then how disappointing some of the interpersonal dynamics are at work. People just wind up wishing for the weekend.

So, it’s certainly my hope that we can take greater advantage of the very intentional design of spending time exactly with these people, in this profession, and in this context that many people in a knowledge economy have worked toward for so many years.

Q: Would that intentional design include keeping politics out of the office?

Making rules about what people can and cannot discuss is complicated. It gets managers— especially middle managers—in trouble. If you say, “No politics in the workplace,” what exactly does that mean? Does that mean if someone has a mug with an advocacy on it, that shouldn’t be there? If someone says that they’re going to vote, does that violate the rule? It’s just confusing.

I think forcing clarity around things that are not so clear can actually be muddying. That’s why I’m less interested in the policing energy. I think the ask of us as organizational citizens is that we support a society at work that can work. And then it’s up to formal and informal leadership to cultivate a healthy culture.

It’s a dicey time. I’m making a bid for wisdom and compassion and empathy. I’m suggesting we prioritize learning and curiosity. And then draw some lines like: We are the kind of workplace and the kind of micro society where people are intentionally trying to get along and looking to support each other’s ability to work and work happily.

I think organizations have jurisdiction to underscore the set of obligations that come with organizational citizenship. Again, organizational citizenship is not exactly the same as citizenship of your nation, so you might have to reorient and think through what’s expected from each.

It might be helpful for leaders of all levels to underscore that we can respect differences of point of view and to ask everyone to do whatever they can to be the kind of organizational citizen who helps everyone thrive during this time.

Q: Do leaders need to make that ask explicitly?

Many organizations don’t have that ask as basic premise. And so to suddenly assert it is going to be a little odd. Your underlying organizational culture will show here. It may be that issues around politics at work are just an expression of other frustrations. This is just an escalation; it’s not new dynamics.

If people are already tense at work and not feeling heard and not feeling they can show up as their full selves, they might wind up using their political affiliations as a kind of wedge, so it can get a little bit complex.

One of the ways people feel a sense of psychological safety is by knowing they have a voice at work, have the ability to resolve and address disagreements, and are able to discuss norms. We know how our organization has dealt or not dealt with stressful periods in the past. This is a moment where organizations separate themselves—strengths and weakness in the group dynamics emerge under duress.

Q: Will the election, the tone of politics, and the way people are feeling right now intrude on the workplace?

It’s going to be a factor in our work lives. Will it interfere with capacity to work more so than any other contextual factor? There are lots of reasons that people are fearful and feeling defensive, and self-protective, and worried about their loved ones. It’s a time of heightened feelings. We’ve had such an intense set of years including a pandemic, political unrest, and now another U.S. presidential election. But clearly, it’s not the first time ever that people in organizations have lived through political conflict.

Q: How should we think about our own behavior in the workplace?

I think there does need to be a wisdom and some personal responsibility around when and how you speak with colleagues.

When we are feeling defensive, self-protective, and wanting to react to the world—maybe from a place of defeat or desire for control or even self-righteousness—we are really not our best selves. That might be the time to double down on a little bit of reflection. Take a walk; spend some time pondering, “What am I this distressed about?”

Or if you are just really jazzed about politics, figure out the place to express those thoughts. The workplace may not be the right forum. It’s not where we vote. So I would encourage people to be responsible for their impact on the everyday dynamics of the workplace. I’m impressed by organizations that can navigate the complex conversational dynamics across political difference. A lot of my career has been about cultivating more courageous organizational community so that there is deeper capacity to address the hardest problems of our time. These kind of organizations are beacons of hope for what organizational citizenship can look and feel like—and I feel encouraged by the promise of what that means for business and society