Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Ask Joe: To sweeten or stir the pot

Ask Joe: To sweeten or stir the pot

Hi Joe,

I’m noticing that it’s getting harder to be around my work colleagues. Not all of us share the same views and we will vote for different parties. Management did a good job to offer some good processing to make sure we weren’t being uncivil with each other. On the surface, we seem to be fine. But the tension is so high. The side comments are not pleasant. And I think it’s only going to get worse this coming year. Any suggestions?


Saccharine Sweet

Hey Saccharine,

Sorry to hear that it’s tense at work. With so many ways that life is wearing us down, I can imagine that your “chronically nice” work environment is draining. Our work colleagues should and could be a source of support and inspiration; I call this “creating a work culture of mutual empowerment.” But before you can step into a work environment that could be thriving, some very important healing and reconciliation needs to happen in order to restore balance to an unstable system.

It seems that it might not feel safe to have some good heart-centered dialogue with some of your co-workers about the issues that are causing tension. I’m hearing this more and more from others. And now, with the tragic events that are unfolding in the Middle East, everyone seems even more to be caught in a spiral of needing to take sides and proclaim judgments and condemnations.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

It sounds like your you and your colleagues are stuck in one of the stagnating false polarities that I bring up in my book, Fierce Civility: the unconscious belief that “I am right, and if you have a different view, you must be wrong.” I believe that the assertion of “let’s agree to disagree” may seem like the “civil” thing to do, but look at how it is causing you and your colleagues stress and distress. It is holding you back from growth, collaboration, and creating safety and trust. In other words, every time you choose to agree to disagree, you are claiming that your need to be right is more important than the integrity and health of the relationship.

The “pivot” that I offer to break this stagnating, polarizing unconscious internal habit is to humbly and honestly ask yourself, “do I want to be right, or do I want to be effective?” Giving up the stubborn need to be right doesn’t mean that what you believe is not true, or that you have to believe what the other believes. It does, however, mean that you awaken in yourself your capacity to be curious, give the other the benefit of the doubt and recognize that it is absolutely impossible for you to know everything. If you can get this far, maybe you are ready todo some powerful, courageous and healing work for yourself and for those around you.

The process starts with activating deeper levels of non-judgmental critical thinking. It is also essential to recognize that, on some level, we have forgotten, or are frightened to remember, that the process of debating issues in a healthy way requires that something needs to be let goof in order to open to something new—and that includes viewpoints. Unfortunately, in our current reactive and volatile culture, we inadvertently believe that shifting one’s viewpoint means betraying ourselves in some existential way. On a deeper level, we now fuse our identities with what we believe; we have somehow forgotten that we have viewpoints, as opposed to being our viewpoints. Because of a lack of independent critical thinking, we have fallen into the rigid patterns of “identity politics” where we can no longer distinguish the individual from the issues.

If this is the case, then it makes sense why some of us will fight, sometimes with violence, to win or defend our viewpoints. Therefore, if someone asks us to question our beliefs, our fight-flight-freeze mechanism kicks in. Thinking that we are personally being attacked when someone expresses their opinions or beliefs, we close our hearts, shut down access to the reasoning part of our brain, and either fight for or defend our viewpoints and beliefs at all costs.

So, Saccharine, imagine how hard it has become to openly discuss challenging issues if we fuse our identity with our viewpoints. With this belief, we will automatically see anyone with differing views as a potential threat. And this is why it might not feel safe for you to initiate some truly open-hearted dialogue with your colleagues.

However, are there one or two you may be able to engage? Perhaps start with those colleagues whose viewpoints are closer to yours? Or maybe the insights I mention above might be enough for you to do your own internal inquiry which might activate in you more curiosity and compassion for those who hold different views. And this may soften (or sweeten?) the ways in which you treat others, which may, in turn, soften them. This is not a final solution, but certainly a first step.

As my colleague Vanessa likes to say, Saccharine, “add a little honey to neutralize the vinegar,”

Joe.

Learn more about Joe Weston and his work here. Check out Joe’s bestselling book Fierce Civility: Transforming our Global Culture from Polarization to Lasting Peace, published March 2023.

Have a question for Joe? Send an email to AskJoe@fulcrum.us.

To engage in further bridge-building, participate in a global mediation focused on world peace. More information here.

Read More

Members of Congress standing next to a poster about Project 2025

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Patty Murray look at their Project 2025 poster during a press conference on Sept. 12.

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Project 2025 policies are on the Nov. 5 ballot

Corbin is professor emeritus of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa.

It’s becoming crystal clear, as we near the Nov. 5 presidential election, that voters need to seriously check out the radical government reformation policies contained within the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. Here’s why.

The right-wing think tank has written not one, not two, but nine “Mandate for Leadership” documents for Republican presidential candidates, with its first playbook published in 1981. The Heritage Foundation spent $22 million —serious money — in 2023 to create Project 2025 for Donald Trump to implement.

Keep ReadingShow less
‘There is a diffused climate of threats and intimidation’: A conversation with Daniel Stid
Daniel Stid

‘There is a diffused climate of threats and intimidation’: A conversation with Daniel Stid

Berman is a distinguished fellow of practice at The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, co-editor of Vital City, and co-author of "Gradual: The Case for Incremental Change in a Radical Age." This is the ninth in a series of interviews titled "The Polarization Project."

The problem of polarization has been on Daniel Stid’s mind for a while.

Trained as a political scientist, Stid has spent time working in government (as a staffer for former Rep. Dick Armey), business (at Boston Consulting Group) and the nonprofit sector (at the Bridgespan Group). But Stid is perhaps best known for founding and leading the Hewlett Foundation’s U.S. democracy program. From 2013 to 2022, Stid helped give away $180 million in grants to combat polarization and shore up American democracy. Since leaving Hewlett, he has created a new organization, Lyceum Labs, and launched a blog, The Art of Association, where he writes frequently about civil society and American politics.

Keep ReadingShow less
screenshot of Steve Kornacki

You don't need to be Steve Kornacki to know which states (and counties) to watch on election night.

YouTube screenshot

How to win a bar bet on election night

Klug served in the House of Representatives from 1991 to 1999. He hosts the political podcast “Lost in the Middle: America’s Political Orphans.”

The odds are you don’t go to sleep at night and dream of precinct maps and tabulation deadlines like NBC’s breathless election guru Steve Kornacki. Watch him on election night and you will be dazzled and exhausted by his machine-gun-like sharing of statistics and crosstabs.

Keep ReadingShow less
The word "meritocracy" on a chalkboard
bowie15

The propaganda of 'meritocracy'

Degefe is a research associate in Duke University's Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity. Ince is an assistant sociology professor at the University of Washington.

Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) recently launched the Merit Caucus to prevent diversity, equity, and inclusion from dominating education. Owens, chairman of the Education and Workplace subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development, argued that the left is waging a "war on meritocracy" and is threatening America’s excellence, all in the name of equity.

Such sentiment is clearly becoming more prevalent, as evidenced by the Supreme Court’s decision to effectively end race-conscious admission programs at colleges and universities and by Texas, Florida, Alabama and Utah banning the use of state dollars for DEI programs in public universities, effectively closing these offices.

Keep ReadingShow less