Turning the conflict around so it’s about you is a tactic—a crazy-making tactic. According to a recent survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, 42% of U.S. workers have had political disagreements at work. Some workers feel unwelcome or even discriminated against. Not just you, but your colleagues and your organization, too. Copyright © 2020 Harvard Business School Publishing. Personal politics have redrawn allegiances and roiled tensions among staff members. And workers and employers are bracing for those dynamics to get worse. Habitual victimhood. Amid impeachment and the 2020 election, surveys show political fevers running high at work, undercutting trust and productivity. ", Beth Kloetzer, a supervisor at a library in Wilmington, Del., has urged her staff to read memoirs written by people on opposing political sides. All rights reserved. What this means for employees who get into verbal fights with co-workers is that the employer -- in almost all cases -- can indeed fire co-workers for verbal fighting. So long as it's a work-related injury, it's potentially covered. And workers … He describes his views as to the left of the Republican-leaning majority in his community. In a perfect world, we follow the textbook advice, treat these sources of conflict logically, behave like adults, and get on with it. And many people use their power well, for the good of the group. Politics feels so personal these days he worries a slip of the tongue could cost him business. Let’s stop pretending that somehow it is more rational, more sterile than conflict elsewhere in our lives. "Actually, I have a colleague that I just block her on social media because I was like, 'I can't see this,' " Kloetzer says. You need to figure out how being a victim serves you. "'And so the manager called me and was like, 'What do I do?' "The people who are Trump supporters probably keep a low profile for fear that they will get verbally attacked or questioned to the point that it would make them feel uncomfortable," McAllister says. If you're feeling stressed out, depressed or over-tired by your job, you may be suffering from work burnout. In These Divided Times, Is Civility Under Siege? A few months ago, a skirmish broke out on the factory floor of a clothing maker in Portland, Ore. The problem is, we’re not working in a perfect world, and none of us is perfect. That’s because fighting with one’s boss is just as confusing and destructive as fighting with a powerful family member. As a result, many employers will let go of workers involved in a fight, whether they were they threw the first punch or not. For example, the body of work by psychologist John Gottman and his colleagues includes years of observation and a codified scheme to describe different ways that couples fight—all of which enabled them to predict with great accuracy (94 percent in a 1999 study) which couples would split in the future. Habitual victimhood, however, has no redeeming value whatsoever. Q: Two employees showed up at work this morning wearing masks adorned with American flags. That doesn't always work out. Or at least a good friend. McAllister told him to remind protesting workers that there was a business to run and to stop heckling their coworkers. And…do you make yourself a victim? If you've had a verbal or physical altercation between employees, you may be wondering what to do next. Such comments reveal her coworkers' political leanings, which range from conservative Trump supporters to nonsupporters, to liberals and a few in between. Melehan says he thinks healthy debate is necessary for democracy and hopes tensions will eventually ease. the basis of the fight must centers around the job. When it’s pathological, shared goals don’t really matter anymore, and shared credit isn’t an option. Disagreements and debate at work are healthy. We each bring our own baggage to work each day. And the resulting strife feeds an undercurrent of workplace stress. It’s deep, for sure, and quite honestly if you find yourself the victim over and over, it wouldn’t hurt to talk with a good therapist. So why spend so much time and energy trying to prove that we are? Second, we need to cultivate real empathy and compassion for others. Where else in your life do you do this? Except that has not been the reality. We think they were looking for trouble. Work Injuries due to fights at work are compensable injuries as long as the injured worker did not start the altercation or start the fight. No matter what you do, you’re seen as unreasonable or you’re labeled as the one picking a fight. “You don’t want to run to your manager every time you want something to change,” Dillon says. You can’t do anything about being metaphorically kicked to the ground over and over again? Insecurity. How does this serve you? Why? In this scenario, they win and you lose. They may say something like: “I don’t see an issue here.” When you try to explain, you’re hit with: “You’re being illogical.” When things escalate, this becomes the ultimate insult: “You’re too emotional.” (Women, beware.) Sometimes we even start fights just to distract people. How do you feel about power—yours and others’? "It is something that people can get behind for a brief period of time, but eventually we all have to work with each other. Blue And Red Companies: How CEO Activism Is Reshaping Workforce Politics. In “right to work” states, employees can be terminated for any reason or no reason at all. The first thing we can do is to admit that conflict at work is real and pervasive, and just as painful as fights and struggles in other areas of life. Why? For example, giving up control means that we have a ready-made excuse and can’t be held accountable. "It might not change your opinion overall, but it might give you a greater understanding of why everyone doesn't agree.". Employees can't focus, the pace of work slows, and trust is broken. "Reading about people of different views, you grab hold of the things that you can relate to," Kloetzer says. "We're like Switzerland; you know, we're neutral," Kloetzer says. We are all insecure about something. That's especially true if they're in the political minority in their workplace. Harvard Business Publishing is an affiliate of Harvard Business School. Fighting with people who have more or less power than we do feels like bullying. And it will help. We want to have impact. Sometimes, you don’t even know you’ve been hit until later. Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. Fighting is not. She is the author of How to Be Happy at Work and a coauthor of Primal Leadership, Resonant Leadership, and Becoming a Resonant Leader. Most people want to feel that they have some control over their lives and actions—at work as well as at home. Passive aggressive people seem to be supportive, logical, and even helpful—until you read between the lines. Let’s take these each in turn. Their attacks don’t seem like attacks because they are so good at hiding their word-weapons. Kloetzer supervises a Wilmington, Del., library — typically a quiet environment for reading or researching in peace. How to Fight Burnout at Work. What happens when your freedom is threatened, or when someone tries to control you? "I don't want to make anybody mad; it makes me kind of walk on eggshells," he says. But first, we need to understand the real sources of conflict—not the textbook “struggle over resources” issues—but the underlying psychological reasons why people fight. "I wonder sometimes: Do people feel this strongly or is it just that they're driven to feel that way because that's the mood?" First, there are the people who pretend there’s no problem when there’s an obvious problem. Unfortunately, many people are at the mercy of this very human need. ", What's more, she expects it to get worse: "I know as we get closer to November 2020, it's going to become more and more of a problem. Desire for power. Politics was once safe fodder for chitchat, he says, but now he avoids the subject altogether — especially with clients. People who habitually choose this approach are bullies. "But then those same people were harassing the people who were actually working on the project," she says. ". The first thing we can do is to admit that conflict at work is real and pervasive, and just as painful as fights and struggles in other areas of life. Political Fights Are Leaving Workplaces Divided Amid impeachment and the 2020 election, surveys show political fevers running high at work, undercutting trust and productivity. 1.0m members in the fightporn community. At the same time, don’t expect him or her to fight your battles for you. This is natural and healthy: proactively looking for ways to influence and impact people for the sake of the group is the epitome of good leadership. Even if termination is not the concern, other forms of discipline can also be problematic. Such disputes are not only more common, but they're also more contentious, especially amid an impeachment trial and the lead-up to the November presidential election. This is because we know that even normal disagreements about things like resources are actually primal struggles about who has power over whom. That leaves people like Beth Kloetzer in a bind. These two … What drives them? There’s room for argument with this particular factor, particular since the lines between work matters and personal matters can be blurry. Is it really working? What are you insecure about? Disagreements and even true conflict are inevitable at work, for some pretty good reasons: the constant flood of information means that we are always touching different parts of the elephant and constant change requires constant debate. When these bullies get mad, watch out. "I do absolutely have that sense that that's true in Portland. Naturally, we have to learn to deal with aggression at work. Under California law, for example, a worker who's … Some, like Brian Melehan, seek refuge in silence. But it shouldn't surprise anyone that the law imposes limits on workers' compensation eligibility when fights occur. Annie McKee is a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and the director of the PennCLO Executive Doctoral Program. She blocks angry posts from her news feed from both sides. What are they insecure about? Wouldn’t it be better to just work with our shortcomings, rather than create complicated work-arounds that confuse people and inevitably cause conflict? Still, it is all too common to find perpetrator-victim pairs in organizations. They are the hyper-competitive, anything-goes, take-no-prisoners, narcissists among us. "Division sells," he says. Please subscribe to keep up to date with new content of all the best fights from old to new pro to street So, dealing with conflict at work starts with self-awareness. Kloetzer says. Workers' Comp for Workplace Fights. They’re especially dangerous because they often have vicious followers who do their bidding. You can work within the system, you can fight against the system, you can try to employ all these different tactics, but at the end of the day, having a group of comrades who are going to be your army in this battle is going to help immensely. It has calmed down a bit recently, she says, perhaps because she has urged her staff to read memoirs written by people on opposing sides, including Hillbilly Elegy, by conservative author J.D. We do our best during the hiring process to screen out potential conflicts and hire staff that we think will get along. And when insecurity gets triggered, we can find ourselves behaving in ways that don’t make us proud. Nobody’s perfect. Kloetzer — a Democrat — says, at times, it's difficult to avoid getting sucked into talking about the political events of the day, at work and online. Insecurity can be a good thing—it can mean that we are in touch with our shortcomings and that we are ready to learn. This kind of reflection isn’t easy, and it is tempting to let your biases and stereotypes guide your conclusions. hide caption. On factory floors and work sites and in clusters of cubicles, political divisions are playing out as real-life work drama. Fighting with a colleague feels like fighting with a friend or a sibling. Conflict at work comes in several forms. These people prove their worth by dominating. Another common approach to conflict at work is outright aggression. Melehan's family runs a residential construction firm in Lisle, Ill. The script is so predictable: “He does thus-and-so all the time and I can’t do anything about it.” Really? The 30-person staff is supposed to offer unbiased help finding information. Instead of working with others, the goal becomes to position ourselves above others. Fighting with these people is like shadow boxing. We try to hide our mistakes, avoid healthy debate, shy away from disagreements and even lash out unnecessarily, just to protect ourselves. And workers and employers are bracing for those dynamics to get worse. Courtesy of Teresa Reed And, some of our issues rear their heads again and again. A place to witness all kinds of fights from around the world. #OkBoomer Vs. #OkMillennial: Workplace Nightmare, Or Just A Meme? "I never, ever felt like I was in fear that my political viewpoint would somehow prevent people from wanting to hire me because they don't like what I think," he says. Is it rational, or are those old tapes from childhood still there, playing long after they stopped being true or useful? Amid impeachment and the 2020 election, surveys show political fevers running high at work, undercutting trust and productivity. How would it feel to be them? Why do people put themselves in this position? The conscientious objectors were allowed to opt out, says Darcey McAllister, who handles human resources for her small- and medium-size business clients. ", We Insist: A Timeline Of Protest Music In 2020. Vance, and Born a Crime, by liberal comedian Trevor Noah. We want to help people achieve goals, and we want the recognition we deserve. hide caption. This kind of self-awareness isn’t superficial—it’s deep. Then, we can develop ways to engage in conflict that keep us sane, help others, and hopefully support the organization. At the top of my list of sources of work conflict are: personal insecurity, the desire for power and control, and habitual victimhood. Then there’s my least favorite tactic of all—passive aggressiveness. This stance, however well hidden, puts everyone on high alert and on the defensive. “Everyone has a plan until they’ve been hit." That never used to be the case. Finally: Our feelings matter, and they need to be attended to first and always, not as an afterthought. John M Lund Photography Inc/Getty Images Here are a few legal considerations if your employees got into a fight. r/StreetFights: A subreddit devoted to street fighting videos and discussion. It had received an order to make T-shirts for the Trump presidential campaign — but some people refused to work on the project.