Alys O’Neill, global consulting director at culture change consultancy United Culture, explores how we can navigate polarisation and cultivate safe spaces for debate at work.

The world – and, by extension, the workplace – has become even more polarised. Tolerance of different viewpoints is fading away and the art of debate is diminishing, the impact of which is being felt inside the workplace. 

Against this backdrop, communications teams must be more tapped into the cultural climate so they can continue to promote diverse thinking and constructive challenge internally.

As geopolitics become more fractious, the often-overused mantra of ‘bringing your whole self to work’ can – ironically – end up being a source of tension. Almost a fifth of people have fallen out with co-workers over politics. Conversely, many are afraid to speak their minds about their politics and beyond, which suggests that people don’t feel empowered to speak freely – or are becoming more guarded with what they share. 

Your whole self?

The problem is that despite people being encouraged to bring their real self to work, the experience often hasn’t always felt authentic. And when it seems performative and tokenistic, the mandate is exposed as a box-ticking exercise, which does little to advance the DEI agenda in a meaningful way. 

And that’s a problem at a time when large organisations are scaling back their diversity initiatives. 

It’s far more effective for leaders to be honest and transparent about why they want their people to be themselves: that offering different perspectives based on a variety of life experiences makes the business better and adds significant value. 

As such, what many really want to do by encouraging people to ‘bring your whole self’ to work is giving them the agency to speak up and make their voices heard.

And that, unfortunately, is getting harder. With business leaders being publicly called out for thoughtless comments and the world becoming far more litigious, professional feedback is now being sanitised as people are afraid of speaking out entirely. And some leaders are also becoming more reluctant to listen to their people because they don’t want to action the feedback if they disagree.

This fear of speaking your mind because of potential ramifications increases anxiety. Many people fear for job security and worry about harming their professional reputation if they dissent too frequently. A lack of open forums for debate and a reluctance to disagree is leading to decisions being made behind closed doors and in sidebar conversations. 

That has a huge knock-on impact. It breeds frustration as people don’t know what’s happening and don’t dare offer dissenting opinions – even when those voices would innovate and add value.

Reset the ground rules

Things need to change, which means leaders, managers and communications teams are going to have to help organisations define ground rules for healthy debate and a healthy workplace.

That means setting clear boundaries for everyone and encouraging behaviours that underpin success for both individuals and the wider organisation. Don’t get lost in jargon – be clearer about what you mean and what you expect to see from people.

Organisations will need to examine how to make workplaces safe spaces for people with different worldviews by setting common sense boundaries and building trust. Instead of dictating what topics people can and can't address, it might mean asking people to use common sense in not doing or saying anything that's likely to result in conflict or cause offense.

But at the same time, messaging can’t be too sanitised. People need to be encouraged to challenge the status quo and incentivised to be curious. That will often mean explaining outcomes and demonstrating tangible proof points to show where questioning behaviours and respectful debate have made a real difference to the organisation. It may even need to be part of each employee’s criteria for measuring performance and recognition. 

And, perhaps most importantly, leaders and line managers will have to role model these behaviours. They will have to openly invite challenge, be transparent in their decision-making and help to create a psychologically safe environment. Communicators can help by telling compelling stories that start to shift mindsets, but they will also have to work with leaders to help them develop and cultivate genuinely tolerant mindsets for their teams and themselves.

Build safe spaces for debate

Organisations are going to have to work on developing consistent platforms for people to ideate – and ensure they are actually inclusive of those with different backgrounds, attitudes and ways of thinking. Many internal innovation platforms are for the few, not the many.   

Inviting more people to participate can help to create safe spaces for debate – and have a positive knock-on effect on team interactions elsewhere. But it can’t be done in isolation and businesses are going to have to look at how they can help and support their people to be honest, transparent and more tolerant throughout the employee life cycle.

In essence, they will need to foster ‘constructive disagreement’ to better innovate. If everything is challenged, everything is naturally tested and validated. It engenders trust both within and outside the organisation – and helps to counter the creeping spread of political, social and generational polarisation.