Will You Let Religion Or Politics Ruin Your Office?
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Mar 15, 2016
It's rare that I actually write a post and decide to rewrite it. It's even rarer that I write a post and decide that's not quite the post I want to write and delete it. That's what's happened this time around; and yes, it was on a leadership topic.
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There are two things I really try to stay away from: religion and politics. This is an incredible year for the second topic, and there's a lot of fodder that can be used in discussing both good and bad leadership. The examples are numerous, but it's also problematic.
What's the problem? Just like when I write posts about diversity, I find that instead of a true discussion of the topic, people ignore what's being said and instead have to discuss what I call their "agendas"; that's if I can get them to talk about it at all. On the blog, those types of discussions don't happen often. But in other places, or in private messages that come to me... well, it is what it is.
Not that I'm scared of the issues I talk about; leadership is what it is. It's just that when you get into talking about either religion or politics, it becomes a much bigger issue than I really want to deal with. For that matter, it's one of the major reasons why both are something I'm glad that most businesses ask people to keep out of the office.
We don't talk to each other anymore; we yell and scream and get upset over things that, in the long run, don't really involve us all that much. Minds are almost never going to be changed on either of these, yet office cohesion, if it did exist, will never be the same.
Of course that turns out not to be the standard across the board. In health care, if a facility leans in a particular direction it's going to be obvious what those beliefs are. When I was consulting at a hospital in the south that supported a particular protestant religion, there were signs all over proclaiming it, along with Bible verses everywhere. My wife is presently contracted with a Catholic facility in the south, and she's stated the same thing is happening there.
I don't have a major issue with that except it pretty much means that those employees who believe otherwise learn pretty quickly to keep their mouths shut and go along... for the most part. I'm not religious so I made it clear to people not to invite me to any churches on Sundays; my wife has done the same. Since we're not traditional employees we can get away with it, but there are many other employees who, though they should have the freedom to live as they wish, feel that they have to acquiesce to the powers that be and participate in things they don't believe.
Frankly that's problematic in my mind, but I know I can't solve anyone else's issues in that regard. By the same token, introducing politics in that environment can be stifling as well, but that's a much different animal to deal with.
Why? Because these days politics is more about yelling and beating people over the head to believe as you do. One might think religion does the same but it doesn't have to; it's more firmly entrenched moreso than politics. It doesn't change year to year, or have to deal with the winds of change depending on who the political candidates happen to be.
In my opinion, no matter what beliefs an organization might have religiously or politically, it's up to leadership to make sure that everyone feels comfortable doing whatever they wish to do in their private time, and to work as hard as possible to keep both religion and politics out of the office. Those leaders need to put themselves in the skin of their employees and ask themselves how much they'd appreciate being on the other side of the coin and feeling the intimidation of being something they're not.
Look at that; an article that was one thing and is now something else has morphed from just being about leadership to being about diversity at the same time. Well, there's never enough written about diversity is there? 🙂
In my opinion, you are certainly right about these issues in the workplace. We’re there to work and not discuss stuff outside work that will interfere with what we’re supposed to be doing.
AS for my blog, I’d like to discuss more politics and religion, but I find the topics to be incendiary to the point where things can get ugly in the comments and we can lose readers who get mad.
It’s too bad that people aren’t able to engage in more rational discourse and have intelligent conversations that explore issues where readers can learn, expand their thinking, and express their own viewpoints. Many people get stupid about this though.
In a great irony recently a clique of bloggers who are “friends” of mine on FaceBook have been posting extreme things about a certain topic. I just ignore them and don’t engage since typically I don’t do much on Facebook other than keep up with what my kids and grandkids and a few friends and relatives are doing. I try not to say much else. Recently one of the aforementioned bloggers somehow decided that I represented an opposition side to their opinions, though I don’t ever recall saying anything there about anything I think, and announced that they were going to unfriend me because of what I believed. Well, that’s fine since in real life we’re not really friends. I just thought that was a strange thing for them to do. I wanted to write a blog post about this, but I don’t know if I’ll get around to it anytime soon.
Anyway, we are in impassioned times and I think maybe people should open up a civil dialogue about politics and religion because I can see our country and the world heading to a massive blow-up if some things don’t get resolved and better understood. I don’t think that dialogue will ever happen for the most part.
Sorry to unload here, but I think maybe this is part of what you were asking. But workplace and other places like that you are right.
Lee
Thanks for your comment Arlee; we definitely agree on office “politics” if you will. We actually agree on a lot of what you said here, though I know that we do have political differences because I’ve seen some of your Twitter posts… and you’ve probably seen some of what I share.
The thing is we’re allowed to have differences and should be able to talk about these things. Like you, I find that more often these conversations get to a point where you either want to hurt someone or never talk to them again. That’s why I block tons of stuff on Facebook and don’t connect with a lot of people who want to connect with me because I do check their profiles and see what types of things they usually post, and if it contains a lot of religion or politics and I don’t know them that well then I won’t connect, and that’s even with people whose beliefs are similar to mine. I have strong opinions on things when I get upset, even with people I supposedly agree with, but in general I’d rather not have to talk about it at all.
Maybe we mirror the religious and political climate of America these days; that’s kind of scary. However, I’d rather check out than let it get me mad for reasons that make no sense overall. 🙂
Religion and politics are just not something that should be discussed at the office almost everybody has a different opinion.
When people talk about either of these 2 it makes me feel uncomfortable.
I can understand that. Luckily I never discussed either in a workplace and I was lucky no one else did either. The closest I ever came to it was when O.J. Simpson was acquitted. Wasn’t much of a discussion as a difference in reactions, and that was that.