Politics Is Breaking Your Workplace! A Ticking Time Bomb?
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Politics is messing up work.
And no one knows what to do about it.
Offices are tense, people are scared to talk, and things feel way more divided than they should.
In this episode, we talk about:
✅ How politics is making work worse for everyone
✅ What it’s like for LGBTQ and government workers right now
✅ What companies should do—but usually don’t
Real stories. Straight talk. A few ways to fix it.
👇 Comment: Has politics made your job more stressful?
Subscribe if you want work to suck less.
📌 Timestamps:
0:00 – Intro
0:45 – Today’s topics
1:52 – About us: why you should listen
2:38 – The reality divide in your office
6:49 – One of the most important things a leader can do
13:15 – LGBTQ in a polarized office
19:28 – Government workers caught in the crossfire
33:30 – Be curious
34:46 – Story: the former model who asked me to a movie
39:30 – Xenophobia & workplace anxiety
43:55 – Vision–Journey–Culture–Results wheel
1:00:27 – What to do next
➡️ Go ahead and hit that like button!
Transcript
Welcome to the make work, not suck podcast.
[:Your office is not an island. It is a mirror of our society. The political divide here in America is spilling into offices everywhere and it's making work toxic, tense, and sometimes just unbearable. Oh,
[:this is gonna be good. Today, we're asking, has our political divide poised the workplace? Is your cubicle neighbor your ideological enemy? Stick around because we are diving into why politics might be the real reason work sucks right now.
[:I think this is such an important topic for right now, exploring how polarized politics impacts the workplace, right, impacts the office. Today we're gonna cover things like LGBTQ in conservative areas, the anxiety of government workers during chaotic administrations, the toxic undercurrent of xenophobia, and whether or not workplaces can actually remain neutral or, God forbid, even healthy in this kind of engage in this kind of climate.
[:And, Daniel, I know as much as we like to vent, we're not gonna just vent today. We're gonna share how leaders and employees can navigate this chaos without losing their minds.
[:Yeah. This is this is not the make the this is not the work sucks podcast. This is the make work not suck podcast. So we're gonna talk about what's bad, but then we're gonna talk about what to do about it as well. Work sucks.
I know. Work sucks. I know.
[:We need to get that as a little little little, button we can play. Plays a little clip in the background. What we got? Ninety seconds or thirty seconds we can play without paying royalties?
[:Sure. Blink 82. If you're listening, we we wanna use your song without having to pay royalties because we're doing this on the cheap. Alright. So if you're new to the make work, not suck podcast, my name is Daniel Steer.
I'm here with my good friend, Ryan Hodges. And between the two of us, we have spent years, decades, even as, founders, executives, coaches, consultants, working with organizations to help them deal with tough issues. We help people every day from a variety of different roles in a variety of different seats, build healthier, more effective workplaces that make the world a better place and make work not suck for their employees.
[:Yeah. We've navigated hundreds of workplaces through political upheaval, polarizations, and cultural tenses. Trust us. We have seen it and managed it all. Yep.
Alright. So the reality divide in your office. Alright. One listener, a comment. This is from a couple episodes ago.
We had a listener that came in and said tune in to Fox News, Newsmax, then CNN or NBC. It's two entirely different worlds, and those worlds collide every day at work. That comment nailed the problem. Our divide divided realities are following us to work. I mean, when we're sitting there doing an episode about you know, I think this was, the disconnect and the detachment at work, and the user comes in or the listener comes in and says, you know, watch these two polarizing news networks, and then that collides at work, that's such a reality check of how do we how do you even leave that at the door?
Can we leave it at the door? How much is this political divide that we see in our country making work suck?
[:When the news determines who you can trust in your office, I think your company culture is pretty broken.
[:Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Yes. Oh, your news channel determines who you trust in your office. Yeah.
We sunk to that level.
[:I think we have. I really think we have. But here's the tricky part is that I don't
[:know if and how workplaces can stay neutral because employees aren't neutral. Right? We all bring our experiences and our hurts and our pains and our backgrounds to work with us. And so employees aren't neutral.
[:But what do companies do when you're bringing a bunch of people from a variety of backgrounds, a variety of different contexts and expectations, and, and how do you bring them together and actually get them moving forward in a world that seems to be hell bent on dividing everything? Should companies step in and make a statement, kind of take a stand, or should they just avoid the topic altogether and stay away from politics?
[:That is a that is a tough question. You know, when you're saying that, it made me think, you know, back in I I say the day. Back in Back in the day. Before COVID. Maybe this is I'm going back to, like, I don't know, 02/2010, '2 thousand '8, somewhere in there.
You'd walk into an office and they'd have CNN or Fox News on. You didn't really think much of it. But now if you walk into a building and you see Fox News on, what what assumptions are you making?
[:Yeah. It it's the news channel that you choose is a statement about who you are and what you believe.
[:So if you are an employee and that votes one way or leans one way or has one belief, and you walk into your employment office every day or your work environment, and I guess this is more if you're going into an office and there's, you know, CNN or Fox News, whatever the opposite of whatever one you believe in, like, that's gonna be a little frustrating.
[:Sure. Yeah. Absolutely. Or do you just go with, like, BBC and and just be, like, you know, give the middle finger to both parties?
[:I mean, it it it is actually rather fun to watch some of the more worldly news networks make fun of Right. Everything in American politics. So it actually turns into a comedy show, but,
[:yeah,
[:that's not what most people have on. Right?
[:We we kinda deserve that, but, you know, let's take a
[:step further though. There have been meetings that I've been in over the past several weeks. And, I mean, it's always been there, but I think it's gotten worse, especially since the the inauguration where there are, you know, in these complete remote companies, there's political statements being made, like, why decisions are being made. And in some cases, it's pro the current president. In some cases, it's negative the current president.
And you've got a divide in the room. And when a leader is making a political statement about the current president, it it creates conflict and, like, people not wanting to be in the meeting, and it disconnects people. Right. So how do we navigate that?
[:I would maybe add to that and just say, I I think one of the most important things that a leader can do is embrace reality. Right? Like like, we can't deny reality as leaders and and retain the respect of our people. So so you have to be honest about what's going on, but there's two completely different interpretations of what reality is right now. And that's been growing over the last couple of years, but how does a leader or an executive, a business owner, a CEO, like how do you craft a shared understanding of reality for your people, for your organization when there are two completely different interpretations of what is happening right now.
That's tough.
[:I'm gonna throw something out there. I think it's where where I've been very frustrated in this current political divide,
[:and
[:I'll use tariffs as an example
[:Sure.
[:Is I think I think the landscape is there's a lot of unknown, and there are companies that are working on both sides of it. I think where it comes to an inappropriate level, especially for a leader, is when the decisions become a personal attack on their voting choice. Look. I'm okay talking about tariffs. We nobody knows where this is going or the impact it's gonna happen, and we need to make real world decisions about it.
But when you start just explaining your political stance and why the individual's a, you know, horrible human being, you're bringing your personal politics into a business decision that's just irrelevant. I don't care if you like or hate the current president. It is what it is until he's not. So all we can do is, as a business, is we can make sound business decisions about the environment we know. And when you're bringing your political stance, whether you're for or against it, it doesn't really matter.
And I think that's what we have to check at the door. I think it's okay to to to, you know, find out how the policies are gonna impact. Make the decision for the business. I'm not saying just put your head in the sand. Don't bring your personal politics to the business table about why something is or isn't.
Again, if you wanna go have a beer after hours with somebody or you wanna BS on personal time about politics, like, that's you do that on personal time. But don't bring negative politics into it. You know, I'm even okay if people wanna debate stances or things like that. If you go in with pure curiosity, you know, you don't believe in the current president, but you wanna understand what the policy means from someone that does believe it, that's healthy. That's curiosity, seeking to understand, wanting to learn.
But when you come in with a judgmental bias to the conversation, you already determined that everybody else needs to believe what you do, or you're gonna let that out there, that's actually a form of discrimination. That's segregation. That's bias. I mean, that's all the negative culture components.
[:You know, one of the things that I mean, this is a very real conversation for me with a current client. I think scenario planning, if managed well, could be a helpful way to help employees navigate this cultural division, right? To say, okay, let's. Let's imagine for a second that this happens, right? I'm not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing, but let's just assume that, you know, path a happens, right.
We're going to come in a second to path B and then we're going to go to path C and I'm not saying if I'm for or against path a B or C or how likely there are to happen. None of those things. Assume for a moment that this happens. What, what impact would that have on our business? And I've had to do that recently because I'm working with a client right now.
And one of their high potential people, is an H1B. Visa worker and she needs her H1B visa renewed, or she's not gonna be able to work here anymore. And regardless of what you believe is good or bad for America, that's important for this business. That's important for my client. And so it, and I knew that there was a risk that things were going to change there.
And so I had to get ahead of that and get the paperwork in as quickly as possible for the sake of the business, whether or not I agree with the politics or disagree is, is somewhat irrelevant for the good of the business. We know that this is a risk. We know that when Trump comes into office, all of the immigration laws are up for discussion. And so she's important to this business. We've got to get that done as ASAP.
And I wonder if there's an opportunity for leaders to kind of abstract the, Hey, I love you. Right. You're entitled to your opinion, But at this moment, I don't care what you think. We all need to think about the business and what does the business need. And that's an opportunity, I think, for people to begin to put on a different pair of glasses and look at the situation and and maybe come to a different conclusion than they would come to personally.
[:Yeah. I agree. Let's bring this back into the like, the spicy take you throughout a minute ago. When the news channel determines who you trust in your office, your company culture is broken. I think it's when you bring that political bias about the current political landscape, and you're creating disruption in the business.
But that's not the only one. That just happens to be, the the current one. I think there's a couple of different divides here. I mean, how about LGBTQ plus in a Midwestern state? That Let's go there.
Let's go there.
[:You wanna go there? Go there?
[:Let's go there.
[:One of the one of our listeners posted this comment. He said, well, you know, what's it like being LGBTQ plus in a Midwest office these days? Imagine the anxiety having to hide who you are or risk being the topic of, internal political debate. That's tough. Well, people shouldn't fear going to work.
Yet Polar's
[:idea makes basic human identity feel like a political statement, and that is just messed up. Yeah. And we we've brought too much of this into the workplace, and we've gotta fix it.
[:If someone's personal identity feels like it's a political statement at your workplace, your workplace culture is not a healthy place.
[:Let's dive into that one a little more. So, I mean, here's here's just some some simple facts. Right? Like LGBTQ employees experience higher stress in polarized environments.
[:Mhmm.
[:What what does that say about the value of your workforce? If you allow that to happen, you're allowing stress, which could I mean, just look at let's let's pull back the business side of for just a second, then we'll go to the more human side. You're you're potentially creating turnover, which increases cost. You're decreasing productivity because you're, you know, high stress means people are gonna be more checked out. You're disengaging.
You're creating unvertible work environment. You're creating toxic culture. That's just the the the no brainer business side. On the other side of it, it's a human being, and that's not how we treat people. Right.
Why do we allow
[:this? I think there's a lot of leaders and executives who let their personal beliefs influence their corporate culture. And I have, I've worked with clients and worked in organizations that do this really well and organizations that do it really poorly. I've worked with a lot of LGBTQ individuals, over the course of my career. Some of them felt very comfortable to be open and honest about that.
Some of them worked really hard to hide it. Some of those cultures were very open and welcoming and open minded. Some of them were very close minded and almost hostile to that. So I think it is an opportunity for a lot of cultures to look in the mirror and say, are we are we a safe place for people who disagree with us? Because whether it's LGBTQ plus or something else, if your culture is not a place where people feel comfortable disagreeing with you, you don't have a safe culture and that is a competitive liability.
Right? That means that your competitors are going to beat you because they have a better exchange of ideas, better exchange of values than you have. Right? You have pushed things out of the conversation that need to be a part of the conversation. And in so doing, you have limited your success.
So I believe that the organizations that succeed long term are open to different perspectives, different ideas, different world views. Even if you don't agree with them, it's it's not saying that you agree with them. It's saying that you are open to hearing their perspective in a respectful professional way. And the organizations that do that are gonna win long term.
[:It's the very simple thing of ignorance breeds fear. Fear breeds hate. Hate breeds destruction.
[:Mhmm.
[:It it's just learn. And, again, you don't have to agree with their, you know, in this case, LGBTQ plus. You don't have to agree with their sexual orientation or wanna be it yourself. Just learn from it. You you'd be surprised.
And at the end of the day and and let's take this to the business side. The quote, unquote enemy inside the business is trying to get the business goals achieved, you know, in in, you know, gaining market share and expanding clients, it doesn't matter what the color of your skin is, your your sexual orientation, or your gender preference. Like, none of that matters when it comes to the the goal the company is trying to achieve. Right. Because at the end of the day, everybody's a human being, and everybody brings unique perspectives to the table.
And I think it's just looking at let's bring it back to what are the goals of the company and who do we need to get there. And I do think this is a level of you know, I think in in the listener, they talked about, you know, LGBTQ in a Midwestern state. Yes. You might have more progressive, areas on the East Coast or West Coast, or I think it's even like a younger generation. I think it's just way more accepted in the younger generations versus an older generation.
But I think it's bringing in that it that's not what we stand for at the business. We're like, our enemy is not each other. Our enemy is our competition, not in a hateful way, but, you know, you could you can also Right. Do that negatively as well. But it it's bring it back to the mission, bring it back to the core values, and, honestly, just learn from one another.
Everybody brings a unique perspective to the table. And if you listen to each other and the uniqueness that everybody brings to the table, you might actually make a better product or serve the customer better or find a more cost effective way to do it. You might just be surprised, and then all this this hatred stuff just becomes mute. We don't have to make work suck because of our differences.
[:I've got another spicy take for you here. If your culture is not open and not receptive to different ideas, different perspectives, different world views, I think you've got a culture problem. And I think that is gonna bite you in the ass at some point in the future. A %.
[:Now let's take this a step further. So we've talked about, you know, LGBTQ in the, Midwestern part. Right?
[:Alright.
[:Let's take this because the the the listener gave us very good points. They're talking about government workers caught in the crossfire. Right now, you have a large number of government workers that are literally at the mercy of the political divide.
[:So
[:what about these government employees and contractors? Every administration flip brings massive shifts. Imagine working under policies you dip deeply disagree with constantly.
[:You know, it's interesting. I was, talking to a former client, current prospect, guy that I'm hoping to sign a deal with later this year. And he says, you know, it's interesting whenever a repub they're in the mass transit industry. And he says whenever Republican president comes in, funding for mass transit goes down and ridership goes up. And I was like, are you serious?
And he's like, I've been in this industry for thirty years. Like, that's the trend and everybody knows it. I was like, that's really sad. I am sure that, you know, he's he's kind of second, second order effects of government decisions. But I I can't imagine how much government employees feel politically weaponized, trapped in these policies, you know, they've they've all got their own personal values and opinions.
How do you create a workplace that shelters people from that?
[:I just wanna hang on for a second. I gotta go back to the state you said. So when a Republican president is in office, funding for mass transit goes down, but ridership goes up. So that must mean the inverse when a Democratic president is elected, funding goes up and ridership goes down?
[:That's what he said. And again, this, this guy's been in he's worked for, large metropolitan mass transit organizations and organizations that are service providers, technologies, hardware, software services, etcetera, to large metropolitan mass transit organizations. So Okay. I'm pretty sure the guy knows what he's talking about.
[:So I wanna use that for a second and go how the polarizing of just the the the left or the right can impact. So if your job is to maintain and drive, you know, public awareness of mass transit and this, that, and the other, your dynamic totally changes Mhmm. Depending on what president. And if you're the construction company that has all the construction workers and the stuff that do these big infrastructure projects, you're impacted just by a political stance. And so I think that's again, that's where that political part can play into it.
But let's talk about the government workers right now. You've got Yeah. Doge coming in and just annihilating. And, I mean, how about the you you go to the people that disagree with all of this, that work with these different agencies. How about the the the, you know, executives and VPs in these agencies that are being forced to comply Right.
With it. Now I think there's there's a level of some of this is good and some of this is bad, and I think a healthy a healthy dose of it, but I don't think we're doing it right. I mean, go back to our our Doge episode from a few weeks back, and we can get the whole vibe on that one. But I do think we're turning the the workplace from the government standpoint. I mean, here's the spicy take.
Politicians treating government workers like pawns, and guess what? Workplaces are not chessboards. These are real lives. Yeah. We've got to be aware of how we're impacting lives, and this is not about a political game, you know, who's this bigger contest on the left or right.
Unsaved agencies. Now, again, I'm all for efficiencies. I'm all for streamlining. I'm all for making things better and evolving, taking legacy programs that are 50 years old and evolving them today's storm. Like, there's gonna be disruption with that.
But I think using our our governmental workforce as political pawns, it's just not right.
[:I was at a CEO roundtable group near the DC area a couple of weeks ago, and most of the executives in the room were talking about the fact that it feels like 02/2008. Like, it feels like nobody knows what's going on. And this is specifically in the DC area. But there is just so much uncertainty, so much anxiety, so much chaos that people just feel paralyzed right now. Like business owners and decision makers feel paralyzed because there's so much uncertainty in the world right now.
And it is a tough place to be in the face of kind of government instability and all of the changes that are happening politically right now. Whether you think they are good or bad, put that to the side. It is creating chaos.
[:So if you're a VP in a government role right now, what's your advice to them? How can you make work not suck for your people? There's a level of out of control that you can't control the the politics that go on. But what if you're if you're a VP within a federal agency, federal organization, what can you do right now?
[:I mean, I would love to hear your advice. Here's here's what I would say. I would say be honest about what you know and what you don't know. I would say be transparent about the various scenarios and say, you know, here's the different ways that this can play out. Right?
Best case, worst case, most likely case. So that your people can begin making plans because this is what's so hard is that this is affects people's livelihood. It's, it's not just a P and L it's it's people's families. It's the ability to pay your mortgage. And the real estate market in DC right now is, is just chaos because people don't know if they're going to be able to pay their mortgage over the next ninety days.
So I think transparency and helping people think through where are we right now? What are the range of scenarios? What's the most likely scenario and then helping people develop their next best option. Because what I'm hearing is that as a lot of federal funding is moving out of the government, that funding doesn't disappear. It goes to the states.
So if you're a federal employee, The budget for your head count. Isn't gone necessarily. Maybe, maybe not, but look at the state levels and begin to explore. Are there opportunities emerging at the state level that might be a good career transition for you because those federal funds aren't gonna exist going forward.
[:So I I agree on this, but let's bring that all let's bring this back to the politics in the workplace. Because I think I think you're talking about, like, the impacts of Doge, which I agree with. But, like, what can we do, you know, Doge components aside, what can we do for minimizing the political impact within the workplace? Knowing that you may be working maybe maybe maybe you yourself and or your direct reports or your entire downline are working could potentially be working for on projects that go against their political belief or vice versa. They they go four, and you've got a a clash.
[:Yeah. Implementing policies that you don't agree with.
[:Here's my take. Is is one, I think, for the Doge side of it, what you're talking about, I think everything was was solid. I would say you gotta bring it back to the mission of the agency. What is the core mission of the agency? And, technically, you know, a president can say all he wants on, you know, x or news.
But at the end of the day, these agencies are written into law to do a function. And you gotta take it back to what is the function that the agency is there to serve. And, yes, you may have a you may have a a directive that's a little left or a little right. But at the end of the day, that agency exists to serve a purpose. And I think the more you can leave the personal politics outside of the equation and down to what is the agency's mission that we're trying to achieve and how can we do it with the directive we've been given, I think you'll find that you can kind of set aside the differences and keep back to the mission.
Because I'm willing to bet just because somebody doesn't like the, you know, the how congress is how congress or the senate or the current president is, When we actually look at our differences political, they're so minute on the macro level that
[:at the
[:end of the day, we're pretty much wanting the same thing. It's just we might have a nuance on how we wanna do it. So get back to the original mission of the agency and focus on how you can implement the current directive that serves the agency's mission as opposed to being pissed off with what the current president has decided and then, you know, sit back and do nothing about it. It goes back to core values and mission.
[:Yeah. I think that that is true for both government agencies and then also the second and third order effects. Right? The organizations that serve the government, the organizations that serve the organizations that serve the government. I mean, it is a massive web of, of companies.
And I think this is a little bit of a reality check to say, all right, why do you really exist? Right. Booz Allen Hamilton, massive consulting organization. Most of their revenue comes from the government. They are on notice right now because of all of the doge cuts, but why do you guys really exist and where can you really add unique value?
We've got to remind ourselves of that and dial back into that. Because we could have lost sight of it. Right. It's, it's easy to take money for a project. That's not quite on mission, right?
Not quite serving our purpose. And this is going to be a little bit of reality check for them to say, all right, what is it that you really do that adds unique value? And I think that is an important call for every organization in that value chain to say, all right, why are you here? And what is it that you need to do to to deliver the value that your organization exists to deliver?
[:Yeah. And, again, I wanna take this get it get it into the the political parts. It's when you're in those conversations. Everything we just said is very easily said. I think it's it's it's harder to do in practice.
And I think it's it's when you get into a meeting and, you know, Bob sits in there and is like, well, Jim over there is a Trumpster, so we're not even gonna get this done. What what are you accomplishing with that? I think what we're trying to get to is we can make work not suck by not letting our political bias come into the workplace. And and, again, what I'm trying to do is divide not not between not having conversation. It's not like all politics stuck at the door and we never talk about it.
It's having healthy rules around it or talking about how it can move the mission forward. Because if someone comes in and says, you know, oh, that guy over there is a Biden loving hippie.
[:Well, just an insult. Right.
[:What well, I guess at one point, when did it become I didn't think
[:you're a Biden loving hippie anymore. You're you're a Kamala hippie now. But, yeah, whatever.
[:Whatever it may be. Of course, the other thing is is, like, when at one point was it bad to support a president? Like, when in our history has it been a bad thing to say I support a president? So there's so many things wrong with that. But I think it comes to when you start using a prejudice against somebody because of their political view or because your political view and the current circumstance, that is what we have to eliminate.
Now I think in those situations, you could be like, alright. Well, you're you you'd say I'm a Trump supporter. So what what do you think that like, turn it around. Like, start the dialogue. Be curious.
Have conversation. Because, again, at the end of the day, what you're gonna find out is we really don't agree or disagree that much. It's just nuances. And, of course, it gets spun by the media. It gets inflated.
Again, media, they're getting eyeballs for for ad dollars. We all know headlines, dramatic effects sell. So let's just be human. And it's not it's not I'm not saying leave the politics at the door. What I'm saying is leave your prejudice at the door and have healthy conversation about the political landscape, and you can actually make work suck less because you're not demoralizing people if they disagree with your stance.
Yeah. That's key.
[:I would encourage people to be curious. I think many of us have assumptions around what our coworkers think and believe. And sure. If you're rocking the MAGA hat, you're kind of declaring to everybody who you are and what you believe. But it is surprising to me how many people do not believe what I think they believe.
And I think that it is a very good habit to go in with a posture of curiosity and ask people what they think. Right. And, and again, this is tricky. This is tough. It's very charged.
And so I'm not saying pick a fight with your coworkers, but I think there's a lot of Goodwill to be built in having conversations with your coworkers and just seek to understand what they think, what they believe. Because odds are, you might not be correct in thinking what they believe is true. Right. And I'll tell you the story, right? I don't think you have, you've ever heard this one before.
So many years ago, I had a co worker, a female co worker, former model, married woman, asked me to go to a movie with her.
[:Wondering where this one's going. I mean, you too, well, model, Mary. Yes. All right. Where are we going?
Russian
[:immigrant model. You know, English is her second language. Asked me to go to a movie with her.
[:Oh, so many steps to be made right now.
[:All right. Keep going. And I said, and I said, Hey, I've really appreciate you asking really enjoy hanging out with you. I just don't think your husband would be okay with that. And she says, no, he's totally fine.
You're gay. Right. And I was like, no, It's just like, oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. And I'm like, that's cool.
But I just don't think it's a good idea for me to go out to a movie with a married woman. And so I say that because this was a very conservative corporate culture. I didn't exactly fit the archetype of their corporate citizen. Neither did she clearly. But she had made an assumption about me.
She had assumed that I was I had particular, social, spiritual, you know, beliefs. And I was like, no. Sorry. That's that that is not actually who I am. And I say that because I think it is an opportunity for people to be curious and to say, Hey, can I know this is dangerous?
I know this is sensitive. I would love to hear what you think about this, and I'm not going to argue with you. I don't want to try to convince you. We might agree. We might disagree.
I don't know, but I would love to hear based on your experience in life. How are you seeing this? What are the good, what are the bad? And, and in that moment of vulnerability, I think we have a chance to build a bridge with people, a bridge to people that might not agree with us. And there's things that you're going to learn from them.
You might not agree with and that's okay. But I think there's an incredible opportunity for us to become better humans by just asking, Hey, how do you see that? How do you see that? Press release. What is it that jumps out to you when you look at that video or when you read that article, what jumps out to you?
Because we don't ask that question very much. We assume we know and having speaking from personal experience, there's a lot of people who have assumed things about me that are not true. So I would encourage every one of us to take a posture of curiosity and engage your coworkers in this conversation, not in a judgmental way, but in a curious way.
[:So all I gotta say that is amen, reverend steer. Amen, reverend steer. Mister steer.
[:Sorry. My, I I am not gay, and my dad's a pastor. So that that comes somewhat genetically.
[:I was about to say, you never denied being gay in that whole thing. So
[:I've been married for fifteen years to a beautiful woman. We have two boys, so you can draw your own conclusions.
[:There you go. Alright. So let's let's move on to this one. Xenophobes and workplace anxiety. So I think a lot of what we've said applies here, but here is where the the listener brought in.
The listener mentioned that, being native American and hearing colleagues casually advocate for deporting long term residents. They said this isn't just politics. It's straight up toxic.
[:Yeah. That's man, That is tough. When xenophobia becomes office chatter, morale's just going to plummet. But Ryan, I would be curious. Do you think companies have responsibility to police these conversations, or or does that just kinda open up Pandora's box?
[:You know what? I'm gonna I'm gonna pull up. There's a company,
[:I work with, and I'm gonna just read off their core values real fast because I think
[:I mean, these these are these these are good, but I think they're indicative of a lot of companies' core values. So let me find the, the document here. Here we go. Okay. So there there's some definition behind these core values, but the main core values Okay.
Caption it to serve, keep innovating, pursue excellence, win together, and get stuff done. Pretty good values. Pretty good. That. Now where is talking about deporting your colleagues passionate to serve, winning or winning together?
I mean, maybe getting stuff done. Yeah. Speed up the deportation. Get it done. Maybe.
But where is winning together in that one? Where is passionate to where is the innovation in that? And so I think I think if you actually looked at the core values of a company, and I think this applies for every topic we've talked out so far. Like, that's just not healthy to talk about. Now granted, I I don't think I think when you talk about, and maybe I'm making a little bit of a political statement here about meeting two, I don't think anybody is arguing for keeping the wrong people out of the country or, you know, the drug dealers and rapists and the the people that need to be managed, whether that's, you know, prosecuted and judged for their crimes or deported or or whatever that may be.
Right. But I think when we're talking about the average hardworking you know, whether you say American that is a, you know, natural citizen or it is a person that's been here for years, I don't think it is it is it is it's just as the person said, it's not just politics. It's straight up toxic to be talking about kicking people out of a country that doesn't make sense. Now, again, there are there are issues with our political system I agree with we should fix. There needs to be processes and systems and tools and things to make it easier and and more effective so people don't have to do it illegally.
Needs to be harder for the people that are illegal. Like, again, we I don't think anybody is against reforming the system. But I think when we go on the mindset of, like, mass deportation because of a, you know, xenophobic mindset, that's just not beneficial to anybody.
[:Yeah. So I'll give you a spicy take. I think if workplace xenophobia isn't uncomfortable, you've got a culture of talk of toxic waste leaders need to clean that up or their best talent is gonna leave.
[:Think about this. Top talent are people that are gonna be hardworking, respectable, do the right thing, good human beings. And if you're encouraging a workplace of toxicity where you're making fun of people don't get me wrong. I get office banter. I love the joking and stuff like that.
Sure. But when it's at the expense of the other person, that that's no good. And so you you're you're right. You're going to lose your top talent. Or if you are the top talent, you're probably looking at how to get out of that toxic workplace because it's just not right.
[:It's Top talent wants to get shit done regardless of your skin color or beliefs. If skin color or beliefs shape your ability to get stuff done in your organization, then expect top talent to leave. So how does this connect to the vision journey culture results? Right? Like, we've we've talked about that in a lot of different situations.
This one might be a little harder to connect to.
[:I I think this is gonna be very it's gonna be easy for us to say what we're about to say. I think it's an application. It's gonna be hard, but you gotta be disciplined to the follow through of the application. I mean, first, you start with the vision. You gotta create the clarity around the valuables, of respect and inclusivity, politics aside.
Mhmm. Right? It's gotta be tied back to, you know, what's the vision and get clarity on the values. Two, we gotta train managers to navigate sensitive conversations and ensure emotional safety. Now we are human.
We're going to make mistakes, and people are gonna say things. I was on a I was on a company meeting earlier today where somebody said something totally out of innocent, and everybody was like, and he was like, oh, my bad. I didn't I didn't mean that. Like, it was it actually it was it was actually kind of it was actually kinda funny, and the person that was set in didn't even take offense to it because we knew the environment, and the everybody knew how to manage the sensitive conversation. The I'll give you the example.
An individual was, he was, audio only on Zoom. So his box was black with his the the name in white letters, and it it was a black individual. And you had a a senior leader in the organization. He's like, oh, you're black. You must be in the car.
Oh. Admit was your box is black, not your car. I totally didn't mean it that way, and we had a good laugh about it, and everybody knew it was innocent. So I think it's one of those you know, again, I think training managers to navigate sensitive conversations and ensuring emotional safety, I think that's also creating emotional safety. If someone makes a statement like that out of pure innocence, don't get retaliation.
Now if they mean it and if they actually mean what they're saying, yes. Go to HR, file the complaints, do those things. But I think we need a healthy level of emotional intelligence and create those emotionally safe environments, and I think managers need to be, trained to have those conversations. I think
[:And I think managers need to invest emotional relational capital so they can afford to bounce those kinds of checks. Right? You spent time listening to somebody asking them open ended questions, not judging them, hearing where they're coming from, hearing their experience. You can make those kinds of mistakes and get away with it. And I'm not saying.
I'm not encouraging those, but you've got enough capital in the bank to bounce a couple of checks and still be okay. If you haven't made that investment relationally, those kinds of errors are going to create relational bankruptcy.
[:Yep. Here's another one. On the culture side, actively reinforce respect and discourage pub public or sorry, discourage, political toxicity. I'll give you for example. If there is a you know, if if you've come to a level of standing and I'm like, you know, we know Bob's a Trump supporter, and we call him a Trumper.
And we're like, hey, Trumper. What do you think? Well, This is what I think. And it it can be you you can have a level of interdependence where it can be not insulting. Sure.
But I think when that turns into well, because he's a Trumper, I'm not even gonna bother working on it, so I'm just gonna sit here in silence. Like Yeah. I'm I'm not encouraged for calling people Trumpers or whatnot. That's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying is, like, you've got to it's it's it's you can't have the toxicity of the the political side of it, and you've gotta actively shut down and discourage and and, reinforce the respectful sides of it.
Again, that's you can have healthy political debate. If you're curious on both sides and you wanna see each other's sides, seek to understand, I think that stuff is okay. It's when it turns into the political divide or the political toxicity or you start siloing or etcetera, that's the stuff that's gotta be shut down. Not saying no politics whatsoever. You can't avoid the problem.
You need to manage the problem.
[:If your company only wants to exist for the next ninety days, then zoom in on the current political administration. But if you want to exist for years, decades, or even centuries, you need different perspectives and you're going to need the ability to flux back and forth between those perspectives, right? If you're successful today, because you get rid of everybody who believes one thing and hire only the people that believe the other thing, you're going to get your ass kicked in the next season, right? Whatever that season is, whether it's four years, eight years, twelve years, sixteen years, whatever. Right?
So healthy, effective, successful organizations longterm have both perspectives And they build a culture that enables them to work together. And so I think it's important to understand where's the, where are we leaning today? Where's the political environment? What can I learn from you about what that means, but then also maintain my personal beliefs about the world and who knows? And at some point in the future, that's going to become the trend and we've gotta be able to work together through the ups and downs of those changes.
And, and that's really what successful organizations do. They don't polarize one way or the other, because if you do the life cycle of your business is only going to be the life cycle of the current administration.
[:Very, very true. Very true. Align your vision and culture to the business, not to the political landscape. And the last one here is results. Measure cultural health.
All techs should never trump, no pun intended, productivity. Measure your culture's health. When you see the decline, step in and start navigating the vision culture component.
[:Yeah. When polarization sets in, focusing on a shared vision can stabilize the workplace. It can stabilize the journey, and a strong culture will yield health results even if they have different perspectives personally.
[:So I got a spicy take for you. Alright. If your company can't handle political differences internally, how can they possibly handle actual business problems externally?
[:Oh, that's so good. I read a couple of book from Jack Welch, who was the kind of famous CEO of GE in its heyday. And he said, no idea will survive the real world if it can't survive a rigorous debate internally. And I think it's, it's a very similar idea to what you just said, right? If, if we can't handle disagreements internally, we're never going to succeed externally.
And if you've got an idea that somebody else can poke holes in, it's just not gonna survive in the real world.
[:Oh, that's that's good. Yeah. Jack's good. Alright. Let's move on to we got some actual advice.
So what can you do today to depolarize your workplace? There's five things we can start with. I'm gonna hit these five, and we'll go through them. Alright? So the first one is lead by example.
Second one is encourage empathy. Third, political clarity. I wanna get to that one. Four, support structures. And number five, open dialogues.
So let's start with number one, lead by example. Set the standard for respectful dialogue. Where does that start?
[:I think it's important to show how you interact with somebody that you don't agree with and how you respect somebody when you might not agree with them. And that is a really hard thing in culture today. We don't do that well, but I think leaders have an opportunity to model that behavior and say, Hey, I hear you. I understand what you're saying. I might not agree with you, but I appreciate you sharing your perspective.
And that framework is gonna build a healthy culture for people to understand and yet still disagree.
[:So a little bit of a trick question is, you know, lead by example. A lot of people a lot of people think, well, that's the leader's job. It it is. It is. It's why it's called lead by example, but it's up to each individual to lead by example.
Even among your peers, someone has to lead by example. And if you can lead with respectful dialogue, you'll be surprised on how many people follow you. Now not everybody is going to. There's always gonna be the one or two that stick out, but, again, that turns into a different problem. So it's not just expect the leaders to solve the problem.
It's everybody needs to lead by example. No one's exempt. Alright. Number two, encourage empathy. So it says here, promote conversations about personal experiences, not just politics.
Go. That one's tough.
[:I'm I'm not always great at this, but I try to ask three questions before I make any statements. So if somebody sharing something with me, I try to ask. Interesting. Tell me more. Why do you believe that?
Why do you think that happened? What do you think was the cause of that? Like ask two to three questions that allows them to share more before you share your opinion. And again, I don't do that perfectly, but when I do that well, I find that I build better relationships. I am more empathetic to the person that I'm talking to and I actually learn more.
And so rather than arguing with somebody about why they're wrong and why they don't get it and why they're stupid and all that kind of just ask three questions before. You give your opinion on the topic. And I bet you, you will learn more and be a better coworker because of it.
[:Well, I think this this also parallels with, you know, one of the seven habits from Stephen Covey, seek to understand or being understood. And he also says, our freedom lies between stimulus and response. Because you have the freedom to choose your response. And I think anything, especially in a political conversation, anything that triggers you, if your first thing is to defend, I think you've already missed the mark because you're you're you're giving them your freedom. Your freedom is to choose your response, and I would say then follow-up with those questions.
And you might be surprised if instead of getting pissed off, seek clarity, ask one of the questions you just didn't, and you might even change the entire dynamic of the conversation.
[:So Those open ended questions close ended questions can be answered with a yes or no. Open ended questions. Can't be answered with the yes or no. So it's why do you believe that? What happened that made you think that if they can answer with the yes or no, you're probably not asking the best question.
And so challenging yourself to say, how can I ask an open ended question to this person that I might not agree with, but I would love to understand more of why you think that way?
[:Alright. Number three, political clarity. Develop clear guidelines around workplace conversations. I think this is just defining the journey, defining the expectations, what we tolerate, what we don't. Plain and simple.
You wanna have a healthy debate about politics, you can do it, you know, breaks and whatnot. But we don't bring politics into we don't bring opinionated politics into business decisions.
[:I think saying we don't bring politics into business is a stupid thing to say because politics affect business. So you can't have a conversation about the future without talking about tariffs right now. Now I'm not saying tariffs are good or bad. Trump's great. The antichrist.
Like, I'm not saying that I'm, I'm just saying we have to be honest about the fact that this is reality. So it is challenging, but I think vitally important for executives to define the difference between scenarios and personal beliefs. I would love for you guys to have a personal belief conversation at lunch, at drinks, after work, whatever you want. But when it comes to the impact to our business, we've gotta be honest about what could or could not take place here and what our reaction is to those events as a business. And we need to be able to separate those, right?
Like those they're related. I get that, but we need to be able to separate them if we're gonna have healthy and productive.
[:Alright. Number four, support structures. Offer support groups or employee resources for marginalized workers. I think it kinda goes into a lot of what you were just saying.
[:Yeah. I I I think understanding which direction your organization leans and who's going to feel left out and how do we support the people that feel left out and make them feel that they're still valued, their perspective still matters, That we still want them as part of this conversation, even if the majority of the people in the room don't agree with them. And that's a really hard thing to do, but I think it's vitally important because anybody who buys, who goes all in to either extreme is going to lose in the long run. You might win in the short term, you're going to lose in the long run. And so having a more balanced perspective on your industry, on your business, on what's going on in the world right now is going to be a more effective long term strategy.
But one of the risks is that you end up losing the people who don't agree with the senior leader. And I've seen this in so many organizations where a senior leader has a strong opinion about something. Right or left, you know, whatever that might be. And everybody else who disagrees with them leaves and that organization suffers because the alternative perspectives are no longer represented. So I think it is very, very important for the long term health of an organization to have people who disagree with the senior leaders who see things differently to have support so that they are encouraged to stay and remain vocal in these conversations.
[:Yeah. And our last one here is, you know, open dialogues. Regularly discuss company values and inclusive openly. I think, again, it just goes back down to the more you can beat the drum of, you know, how your values drive the business forward and the inclusivity of the business, that's just gonna it's just gonna flush more of this out. The more you make focus on the values, the more the value or the behavior aligns to the values as opposed to creating anarchy in the business.
[:Yeah. Yeah. Totally agree.
[:All
[:right. Let's wrap this up. We know politics is messy. Workplaces don't have to suck because of politics. We would love to hear your story.
Most of this episode was a response to somebody who posted their perspectives and their experience related to a previous episode. So how is your workplace handling the handling the political polarization?
[:Oh, that's good. And like always, you know, subscribe for more episodes, share this episode with anybody you think that can find value at it with the you know, share it with the leader, share it with the manager, share it with coworkers, anybody that you believe that can get value from it. And remember, work shouldn't suck because politics do.
[:Thanks for tuning in. Next week, we will tackle another tough topic to help you and your team thrive even in the chaos and complication of the world as it is today.
[:And until next time, let's make work suck less together. Because if we do it together, work will suck less. Makeworknotsuck.Dotcom.
[:Make work not suck. Our podcast that talks about exactly that, our process, vision, journey, culture, and results. We present real world business solutions that make the difference. Our goal is to make work not suck, hosted by Ryan Hodges, cohost Daniel Steer. Join us each episode and make work not suck.
