Robinson & Johnson (2024) suggest that every four years, a U.S. presidential election brings voters to an intersection where they decide whether to turn right or left. Halting at these intersections often brings heightened tension and polarizing discourse within our workplaces and society. Taking proactive measures to ensure the safety and well-being of employees and providing an environment conducive to effective collaboration among employees can help prevent fraught work environments from forming. Here are some practical procedures that employers may want to consider implementing throughout standard day-to-day operations, before and after an election, to efficiently navigate establishing ground rules and policies, fostering environments of open dialogue, and providing support.
We can use Everything DiSC® Productive Conflict to help workers improve self-awareness around conflict behaviors. Rather than focus on a step-by-step process for conflict resolution, Everything DiSC Productive Conflict provides participants with techniques to curb destructive behaviors and effectively respond to conflict situations. The program features an exploration of DiSC® in a conflict context, provides an opportunity for participants to explore their destructive conflict responses, and offers them a method for making more productive choices in their response to conflict.
Participant Take-Aways
*Appreciate how their style of handling conflict affects the people around them
*Learn how to “catch” themselves when going down a destructive conflict path
*Learn how to reframe a conflict situation and choose more productive behaviors
*Build a common language in the organization around appropriate conflict behavior
DM me for more info or an example.
Learning in the 21st Century
This is a short point made by one of my favorite Antioch professors Dr. Jon Wergin about how to resist “drive-by learning” and allow your mind to consider new ways of thinking. This is how we can rebuild our communities, our society and our country.
The water we are swimming in and how we can adapt
Based on Deloitte, Gallup and McKinsey analyses, here is what we are facing now in our organizations:
•77% of managers don’t believe in their talent acquisition strategy
•77% of managers don’t believe in their talent acquisition strategy
•73% of employees aren’t engaged
•70% of team members don’t feel considered
•Organizations need help finding and engaging their people.
•Gig economy: by 2020 40% of all workers will be contract
•Skill sets needed in 2030: decrease in basic cognitive, small increase in higher cognitive, large increase in social/emotional
•Continuous learning needed
•Shifting organizational structure – matrixed organizations
•Agile systems, processes needed
• Rapid pace of change
•Disruptive forces
•Globalization
•Demographics diverse in country of origin, age, ethnicity, culture, gender, language
•Technology advancing rapidly
This results in things people in organizations have to do differently now:
•Change direction quickly
•Communicate effectively
•Accept and work well with differences of perspective
•Form effective teams quickly
•Create teamwork with nontraditional arrangements
•Define selves by effectiveness not by title
•Create psychological safety so good ideas can surface
•Create personal connection amid increased technology
•Hire using more than resume – fit now more important
•Share power and information
We have tools to enable you and your organization to adapt and be successful! See our products on this site for more information and call me with your questions or to order!
Accepting difference in identity can start with accepting differences in personality
A good start to see where you are more or less flexible about working across differences is to take the Everything DiSC Workplace profile and see where your comfort zone is. The report will also give you tips on how to set the stage to adapt to other styles to cause greater understanding, buy-in, and improved working relationships. Take advantage of my Holiday Sale of $57 each (retails at $74)! Just go to Products, then select Everything DiSC Profiles, then purchase the number of Everything DiSC Workplace (English) profiles you want. They make great holiday gifts!!
What it will take to be the United States
I hear people, including me, bemoaning the divisiveness we are facing today politically. I see some root causes of that:
increased complexity of our collective problems which is hard to grasp and understand so we oversimplify
communicating via social media which encourages short phrases or sentences, statements of belief, and “agreement” or “disagreement”
wanting to be right as opposed to curious
not trusting that we will be able to handle a view that is different than our own
the tendencies of our media outlets which value “either/or” headlines so we will click on them
media coverage of statements made by those in positions of power which inflate their influence
an overreliance on positions vs. interests when we communicate what we want.
Regardless of who “wins” this upcoming election, we still have to work together to build a society we want to live in. Here’s what I propose that will take from all of us:
prioritizing the issues that matter the most to us and being willing to say why they do
making time to have conversations so we make time for curiosity and understanding rather than agreement or disagreement
asking more questions when someone says they disagree - like “what leads you to think that?” or “tell me what experiences you’ve had where that becomes important to you?”
not relying on “the news” to understand issues - but find resources that are more neutral and that engage us in conversation
proposing in-person (including virtual) conversations when it looks like social media vehicles are not advancing understanding
valuing each other so that our opinions and whether or not someone “likes” them is our only way of determining our value.
I’m sure there’s more - but I’d rather focus on this than the sports metaphor of people “winning” and “losing” an election.,
Making America Great Again is in our Power
Instead of reading Facebook posts and your favorite media outlet's headlines, I hope you will take a minute to think about what each of us can do to make America truly great again.
I have these questions in my soul and I imagine you do too. I turned to Parker Palmer's wisdom in Healing the Heart of Democracy (2014) and here are some of his suggestions.
Our political talk is often about people who aren't in the room. We can choose to talk with people who may have different positions with honest, curious engagement. Where do we have common ground on the issues we most care about? This is what We The People looks like.
Dividing us, as the bipartisan Senate Intel Committee has found was the intent of those who want to destroy democracy, is a way to disempower all of us. How many times after reading what you see on a screen do you think consensus is impossible or even undesirable? For now, think about all the ways you do hold tension with others and solve problems in other aspects of your life and begin to believe that it is possible for us to do this on a larger scale.
If you think politics are controlled by Big Money and you are powerless as a single voice, consider what Bill Moyers said:" The antidote, the only antidote, to the power of organized money is the power of organized people." Sixteen states have now called for a Constitutional Amendment to nullify the impact of Citizens United and at least 15 more have calls in the pipeline. This is because people from the left, center and right on the political spectrum have learned how to hold their differences, find common ground, and make common cause on an issue that effects all of us.
Do you believe change is possible? Do you have faith in our shared humanity? Parker Palmer has a way to reduce conflict in communities - he invites people on both sides of a contentious issue to spend a day together. Before 2 pm they are not allowed to reveal their position on that issue. But before 2 pm they are encouraged to tell each other stories that led to their position. He says that time and time again the conflict dissipates and the conversation moves forward after 2.
This one is on us. Not those in Washington, not on your elected officials. not on the people outside the room.
Warmly,
Karen
