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Divisiveness In Your Workplace? Tips For Bridging The Divides

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We’re living in a high-decibel age of competing echo chambers. While respect, empathy and trust are more important than ever, those basic human qualities are in dangerously short supply.

Most everything seems to be fair game for criticism from one quarter or another. Even the vocabulary people use. When organized gangs of smash-and-grab thieves rampage through stores and make off with carloads of stolen merchandise, some commentators are attacked as racist for using the words “looting” and “looters” in describing the criminal behavior.

Every issue in our society seems to have a political angle that someone can savage for news cycle advantage. Comity is nonexistent.  

As former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour says, “Successful politics is addition and multiplication, not subtraction and division.” Apparently, a lot of people didn’t get that math lesson.

Symptoms of the social turmoil are all around us.

Teachers in many public schools can’t give a Band-aid or aspirin to a child without parental permission, yet some of those same teachers unilaterally decide it’s okay to teach transgenderism.

Some groups seem determined to demonize patriotism.

While some are doubling down on race essentialism (the belief that racial categories are associated with distinct values, beliefs, practices and lifestyles), others insist that such a view actually encourages racism.

Many of the most vocal activists apparently see nearly everything through the reductive lens of identity politics. The attacks often stretch the imagination. One member of Congress said energy company executives who promote fossil fuels are “a striking example of White supremacy,” then berated them for what she called “environmental racism.”

Cancel culture and public shaming seem to be more common than sincere attempts to find common ground. All this hubbub led political strategist James Carvell to opine that today’s loudest faultfinders “should be sent to a woke detox center.”

It’s clear that tribalism, virtue signaling, and ferocious aggression are out of hand in the public arena. And expecting people to check their politics at the workplace door is a naïve aspiration.

One person working to bring sanity to the situation is Melinda Briana Epler. She’s CEO of a company called Change Catalyst and has worked for more than 25 years developing business innovation and inclusion strategies for Fortune 500 companies and global NGOs. She’s author of How to Be an Ally: Actions You Can Take for a Stronger, Happier Workplace.

The current challenge, of course, is that we’re experiencing a modern-day Tower of Babel where a lot of people are talking (in some cases, screaming) past each other with no real interest in reaching agreement on much of anything.

But maybe, just maybe, the workplace is a good place to build the respect, empathy and trust that’s so lacking in the town square. Melinda Epler offers some ideas worth considering.

Rodger Dean Duncan: You focus on the commendable goal of creating a workplace of togetherness where all people can feel safe, valued, and able to thrive. Yet some of today’s loudest activists insist that a large portion of our society consists of privileged oppressors who are somehow responsible for the sins of their distant ancestors while others should regard themselves as helpless victims. What’s your advice to people who genuinely wish to form respectful alliances and relationships but face that kind of divisive rhetoric?

Melinda Briana Epler: If you’re interested in building genuine connections and deep understanding, look beyond the rhetoric. What are people experiencing that led them to say those words?

When I first started hearing the word privilege, for example, I didn’t like it. I worked hard, I’ve faced significant challenges in my life, I didn’t want to hear that I was somehow doing something wrong by having privilege. But privilege isn’t about doing something wrong, privilege is usually something you are born with.

I explored this in myself and realized, even with the challenges I’ve faced, I do have privileges other people don’t have. People treat me differently because I have white skin. When I was younger, I thought racism was in the past. Black, Indigenous, and other people of color feel racism regularly—the fact that I didn’t is a privilege. As a woman, I earn less pay than my male colleagues, but more than my colleagues who are Black, Indigenous, Latina, and disabled women. My struggles and hard work are absolutely real and true. And I have some privilege that kept it from being even harder.

Duncan:  What about the notion of oppression?

Epler: Oppression is another word that took me a while to come to terms with. Humans have done some very cruel things to each other. It can be painful or uncomfortable to think about this. We often want to believe that it’s history and move on. But the repercussions of our history are still playing out today. For example, in the US, people enslaved Black people for several generations. When they were freed, laws still kept them from jobs, owning homes, voting, equal education, and more. These laws lasted until the 1960s, not ancient history. It hasn’t even been a generation, so we’re still working through the biases and barriers left behind.

No one should be defined by oppression, whether we experienced the impact of it through the lack of opportunity to succeed and thrive on one hand, or the privilege to get ahead on the other hand. And yet ignoring this disparity isn’t fair, is it? How can we create a world where we all have that same privilege to get ahead?

If you find yourself resisting what someone is saying, take a moment to investigate that. What are you resisting, and why? Is there something you need to learn more about to better understand someone’s experience?

We often close off to words that make us uncomfortable. I encourage people instead to listen with empathy, find commonalities, and explore and value differences. We are all on different stages of our journey to learn, build empathy, and take action in support of one another.

Duncan: What about social constructs that seem to encourage some people to regard themselves as helpless victims? Doesn't that perspective undermine the trust, collaboration and self-determination that are so critical to an interdependent society?

Epler: There is an imbalance in opportunity and access—as I mentioned earlier, we're still working as a society to correct biases and barriers people experience due to their race, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and other aspects of identity. That doesn't mean historically marginalized people are "helpless victims.” No one should be defined this way. But it does mean that they may have to work harder to move through those biases and barriers and get to the same place. It’s an imbalanced system.

When we recognize that we have different experiences, when we listen to one another and work to better support one another, it actually builds trust and collaboration rather than eroding it. Trust and collaboration are keys to healthy, productive, innovative teams. Our self-determination can be impeded and obstructed by each other, history has taught us that. We are interdependent, I agree. As interdependent humans, it's important that we ask ourselves how we want to show up for each other: supporting each other, or potentially holding each other back?

Duncan: It seems that some corporations allow themselves to be intimidated into doing the right thing (advocating for equality, fairness, etc.) for the wrong reasons (negative publicity, threats of boycotts, etc.). What formula do you recommend for creating honest dialogue that produces what you call allyship?

Epler: Many companies do decide to change when people from their communities push them to change—whether that is customers, employees, or other stakeholders. Often when that happens, it’s not genuine change, at least at first. It can look pretty performative, like making public statements or pledges, rather than implementing strategic change and holding people accountable for it.

Creating honest dialogue often starts by listening with empathy. After George Floyd was murdered last year, several leaders and DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) practitioners conducted listening tours across their companies to truly understand people’s experiences. They listened to people’s experiences with police violence and structural racism, as well as biases and microaggressions in their workplace. Microaggressions are little things that we say or do that can make someone feel belittled, disrespected, othered, and like they don’t belong. When experienced regularly, they can significantly affect someone’s wellbeing. Lastly, they listened to ideas for solutions. After listening, these companies created a strategy and took action.

Duncan: Listening with empathy is of course critical to understanding what other people are experiencing. How can an organization encourage such a practice without denying people’s right to their own honest opinions?

Epler: People have a right to their opinions. And it’s important that we work to ensure we aren’t harming people with our words. That can make it difficult for organizations working to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Some people are still very early on their journey and may unintentionally say harmful things. A few of those folks might actively oppose diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our research shows that’s only about 3% of the population, though they are often very vocal. Most people early in their journey are observing and learning about DEI and uncertain how to take action. Provide a psychologically safe place to ask questions in an Allies group, or meetings with HR business partners or DEI teams. Also, most harmful conversations are often in the internal company chats, so it’s important to create ground rules and enforce those.

Duncan: How can leaders create psychological safety?

Epler: Psychological safety is essential for innovation as well as inclusion. People can’t be engaged and contribute creatively if they aren’t safe to be themselves. Our research at Change Catalyst shows low levels of psychological safety for people with disabilities, people who are nonbinary, Indigenous, Black, Latinx, and LGBTQIA+.

We found that 96% of people who feel strongly that their company cares about DEI feel safe in their workplace. So that’s a good place to start: create a plan, communicate that plan, and hold each other accountable for achieving that plan together.

Leaders have a huge role to play here: reduce out-groups so everyone feels an equal member of the team, work to understand biases and microaggressions and intervene when you see them, model and support risk-taking, show people you trust their expertise, and work to build empathy and mutual respect across teams. Make sure you’re creating space for people to get to know each other, especially in remote and hybrid workplaces.

Duncan: Why does allyship matter to you?

Epler: Allyship has the ability to transform the world and our workplaces. When we support one another, we thrive together and we build business solutions that benefit all of us.

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