Connecting Across The Aisle With Colleagues

What happens when office politics and real-world politics collide?

Dealing with office politics is one thing, but when you add real-world politics into the mix it becomes an even more difficult issue to navigate. What do you do when team members have such opposing views that it starts to drip into everyday interactions?

In a Gartner study earlier this year, 36% of employees reported that “the topic of the 2020 U.S. presidential election has led them to avoid talking to or working with a coworker because of their political views.” This is something that can absolutely tank productivity if not properly addressed. Whether it’s because of moral values, political sides, or clashes in styles of communication; learning how to live and work alongside people who think differently to you is essential in order to minimize the stress in your life.

When Things Come To A Head, Keep Your Head

We spend a vast majority of our days dealing with our work colleagues and it’s unrealistic to expect people to completely compartmentalize their feelings on the events happening in the world around us during this time. It’s inevitable that things will come to a head now and then when you work alongside people with conflicting views, but there are ways that you can mitigate disaster when this happens. Staying logical and objective is the way forward in these situations; it will ensure everyone feels listened to and valued and will ensure that things don’t escalate to the point of HR intervention!

You Don’t Have To Agree With Someone To Respect Their Right To Be Heard

There’s a difference between a colleague who is creating a toxic work environment by trying to enforce their beliefs or ideas on others, and someone who is simply expressing their opinion. You can be assertive without being aggressive and it’s important to know the difference, because in a lot of instances these situations start with someone simply expressing themselves and only escalate when that person feels ignored or dismissed. Having respect for your colleagues will ensure that no matter how passionate you are about how “wrong” they are, you will still treat them with the respect you’d like to receive in return.

Think First, React Second

It would be unfair to expect you not to contest someone else’s opinion if you believe them to be wrong, but what’s important is that you do so in a calm and measured way that doesn’t cause any agitation between you. This is essential in all aspects of teamwork and collaboration when you’re dealing with a colleague who has a completely different viewpoint to you. Sometimes you’ll meet in the middle, and sometimes you won’t, but the important thing is that you try to refrain from reacting emotionally — regardless of how strongly you feel.

Think about the last time that you clashed with someone on a work project, you probably worked it out in the end, right? Because at the end of the day you had to find a way to work together, and you did. Remember that the next time someone is really grinding your gears, because taking the time to think before you react will make for a much more productive working relationship.

Be Mindful of Cliques

Some team members will always gel more than others and that’s normal, but divisive issues in the workplace can often lead to cliques that can alienate and foster animosity towards “outsiders”. In a 2019 Clutch workplace survey, 8% of employees reported that they felt singled out or discriminated against because of their political views at work in the previous year. This is going to destroy your team and you need to avoid it at all costs. To prevent this, it’s important to encourage colleagues to find the common ground that they DO have and focus on that.

“I’ve never seen it so divisive as it is right now. I’ve seen people who’ve really had to avoid conversations [with co-workers] because their political views are so diametrically opposite. It leads to bullying in the workplace” — Employment Attorney Julie Moore, SHRM-SCP

A Strong Workplace Community Will Survive Political Disagreements

For a lot of people, their workplace community is a huge part of their lives and their no.1 priority is to maintain a positive and productive working space. It’s important to bear this in mind when political disagreements arise and learn to see the grey that exists outside of the black and white sides of each argument.

Your colleagues probably like you, and it’s unlikely that they want to purposely upset you or cause disagreements at work. If you remember that then you’ll find yourself being much more patient with them when they express opposing viewpoints to your own. When you have respect for your colleagues in your community, you will engage in conversation, listen, and politely respond to their opinions whilst expressing your own; rather than take things personally and automatically go on the defensive, which ultimately leads to conflict.

However, if you find that discussing politics in the workplace is just too much of a volatile topic to broach, then the solution is an easy one: avoid it. Set your boundaries and discuss only what is necessary for you to get your work done. Unless these conversations are essential in order for you to do your job then you really don’t need to have them. And if you don’t feel that you’re equipped to discuss these matters in a calm and rational manner then it’s completely counterproductive to even engage in these conversations.

But if it turns out that your colleagues are insistent on debating political issues 24/7 to get you “on side”, then that clash in beliefs is something that will affect your productivity and create a hostile environment to work in. Once you get to that point, it might be time to consider looking for a new team to work with, as the inability to have mature and objective conversations about important topics is something that may very well carry over to your day-to-day work and cause further issues down the line in that impede the overall success of your team and business as a whole.

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