Change and Civility in the Workplace and Society
It seems like just yesterday we were all wrapped up in year-end activities and celebrating the holidays, and now we are almost 25% percent done with another year. This just emphasizes the adage that things change in the blink of an eye. As we contemplate where we are at this moment in time, none of us could have imagined the significant and unprecedented upheaval that our lives, personally and professionally, would undergo. As a result of all that has transpired in the two years, many of us feel overwhelmed, stressed, burnt-out, and downright pessimistic about the prospects for the future. Many people are uncertain whether the changes we have undergone will continue (yes, they will, because there is no going back) and this uncertainty has manifested itself in a continuation and exaggeration of behaviors that show a palpable lack of civility towards others.
As we concluded 2021 and prepared to head into 2022, many employers were planning a return to work for their team members. To be sure, a return to work in 2022 is quite different than a return to work might have been in 2019. In 2019 and prior, people routinely worked five days a week in their offices. Sure, there were a few ‘enlightened’ companies that provided for one day a week to be worked outside of the office, summer hours, or some sort of compressed workweek—but the reality was you were expected to be in the office more days than not. Even in those ‘enlightened’ companies there was always a tacit or unwritten expectation that the office environment is where people belonged, and the concept of facetime was seen as indicative of a person’s desire to want to advance within the company. Today, people are fed-up, and they no longer feel compelled to abide by a set of espoused values that confined their ability to be viewed as fully human. They have no interest in being controlled by the politics of organization or the society around them. The change that we’ve all undergone has thrust us into a situation where we have lost control and had no say in the matter. The lack of civility we are seeing is a result of that lack of control, and a change we did not want or ask for.
When my dad worked in the stockyards of Chicago back in the 1950s and 60s, there was an implied psychological contract that provided a day’s wages for a day’s work, and that job was yours for as long as you wanted it to be. Fast forward to our modern times, and we see corporations continue to downsize and eliminate positions despite record profits as a matter of routine. With this as a backdrop, how do we create the conditions for more civility in our workplace, and by extension in our society? Let’s take a look.
Wherever we look, we are confronted with an array of confounding situations that are difficult to understand, and though which we need to maintain the balance required to pursue our aspirational goals. As the German Philosopher Nietzsche once said, even the strongest have their moments of fatigue. We’re all fatigued, or have been fatigued, mentally, physically, spiritually. Sometimes all three at once! Here’s something we all intuitively know, and we need to make allowance for and accept as a reality: it’s okay to not be okay with the situation in the world today, but we cannot let that paralyze us.
The remote, virtual, or socially distanced world that we have experienced over the past 20 months is not going away. We are not going back to the way things were because the genie is out of the bottle. But we can and must make things better as many of us prepare to have employees return to the office. We need to ensure their physical safety, but more and more we need to ensure they feel psychologically safe in a world that continually reminds them of their fragility. People are on edge; we hear about it and if we pay attention, we see it. Addressing issues of change and civility are essential in our workplace and in our lives. Change is as old as creation; the natural order of things is dictated by change. As Maya Angelou said, “What you’re supposed to do when you don’t like a thing is change it.”
Civility comes from the Latin word “civis” which means citizen. We are all citizens of this world. Without civility, there is no community, no communication, no collaboration, and ultimately nothing binding us together. Civility is about much more than politeness; it is about shared service and sacrifice. It is about self (responsibility) and others (accountability). It is about claiming and caring for one’s identity, needs, and beliefs while not denigrating or invalidating the identity, needs, and beliefs of others. Further it is displayed through personal actions, interpersonal relationships, and two-way communication.
Put more simply, civility allows us to disagree without being disagreeable. It’s about respect for people—all people, all citizens—and not just the respect of a person. It entails the ability to self-regulate, which is the ability to curtail one’s self-interest when needed. Civility is about looking at the systems we have put in place and understanding that what we have done in the past has gotten us to where we are today, but it will not be enough to get us where we need to be in the future.
There have been, and there will be, times when people will behave in an uncivil manner towards you and others, either directly or indirectly. Incivility starts with a thought, which leads to aggressive words, negative behaviors, and if unchecked, physical aggression.
A lack of civility in the workplace creates conditions that result in decreased adherence to accepted norms and performance, a lack of engagement and motivation, increased stress, unethical behavior, and at its worst discrimination, injustice, inequality, and exclusionary practices.
The results we have achieved are perfectly in-line with the systems we have created. If we require a different result, we need to change our systems and our thoughts. We need a critical rethink, which means some systems will survive, others will fail, and further we will need to create new systems for situations we have not even contemplated.
Now, let’s try to synthesize this by sharing some things you must do to address change, create civility, and offer a psychologically safe environment for the members of your team as they return to work.
- Our existence must be tied to something bigger than ourselves. We do not live in isolation, and we are by nature social creatures. Let’s focus on ourselves less and others more.
- Provide people with a chance to share and author their story. During the past 20 months some people have fared quite well, but others have struggled. We can’t assume people are a monolith. They are as varied as leaves on a tree or the fractal patterns of a snowflake.
- Do not invalidate the feelings of others. In the words of Dale Carnegie, “Remember when dealing with others we are not dealing with creatures of logic but of emotion.” Everything we do has an emotional component.
- See others as psychological equals. Ethnocentrism says my ideas are either better or worse than yours because they are mine and whether in the affirmative or negative, they are both fallacies. We can and must accept the fact that we can learn from anyone at any point in time if we are open, willing, and treat others as equals.
- Challenge assumptions and do not always go to our default position, whatever that is.
- Allow ourselves to be vulnerable and share with others. Doing this doesn’t make you weak and less human, it makes you strong and more human and others will see that and reciprocate.
- Share your journey. Sharing is caring and it helps others connect with you.
- Finally, don’t have an impoverished, fixed mindset. We need to engage, inspire, and empower others by showing we care for them, and we must communicate, communicate, communicate. In many cases people are offended not by what was said or done, but by what they believe was said or done. This is because we don’t see things as they are—we see things as we are.
stock.adobe.com / Andrey Popov
