Research note: some say football is a life or death matter. It's more important than that.
A tool to spot & triage issues that can impact the workplace
There is an observation that, since I wrote it down, I keep coming back to.
In a multi-polar world nothing & nobody is too sacred for critical analysis
In Nahum 3:6 I wrote:
There are off course rumblings of a corporate DEI backlash, especially in Finance & pockets of SV. See for example e/acc’s attempts to win the battle re: which values the A.I complex will hold, because, looking at history, we know that advances in technology tend to lock one particular framework or ideology in.
In hindsight this might be a decisive battle. In the meantime? Russo, Musk, Ackman and others are grabbing headlines and driving “a wedge between CEO & CHRO”. Headlines that are making C-suites in finance and tech seemingly reassess its EDI programs and promises.
But these headlines and rumblings might be misreading how Western elite centres operate. What the “backlash” seems to be doing, is negotiating the margin of dissent.
And while the sentiment is true, and most of the workplace dissent is somewhat cosmetic in nature, on a day to day basis it still takes up bandwidth.
The dissent still has to be triaged and addressed.
A way to do that can be found in a quote that has stayed with me since I first heard last year in the documentary, the Human Factor.1
“You’re taking an existential conflict and you’re making it a political conflict. This is the end of diplomacy through denial. This is the end of diplomacy through rejection. This is a historic breakthrough.”
It is such a powerful distinction, that can cut through quite a few knots.
Is a particular issue existential or political?
Is a particular issue non-negotiable or negotiable?
And building on that;
Does a particular issue require transactional or interactional support? As in “cut a check and keep out of it” vs “let’s talk about what out collective position is”
Let’s look at how this can work in practice
As an exercise you start by taking all the demographic data in your company.
Then plot that against your [to be set up] research re: tribal interests, so that as an DEI/HR team you have a “wholer picture of the employee’s whole self”.
A good way to do that is to keep a running count of elections in the various countries of residence and origin2.
Elections tend to, on a whole, do a decent job of naming the issues.
They might not always pick the right ones to focus on, but that’s another issue.
As an example it does not take a genius to figure out reproductive rights are an existential issue for women., especially in the USA, especially in 2024.
And it is also no stroke of genius to figure out that women do not like others telling them much about this issue.
Shut up and cut a check in support through the wellness programs or otherwise.
DEI on the other hand is also existential.
It is here to stay, yet the form and shape is constantly in flux.
Both for company and employee.
So ongoing dialogue is a must.
RTO [return to office] is a far more political issue, aka negotiable. Yes the room for negotiating might be slim in the eyes of employers, but the leverage is with employees.
While the existential issues are more likely to be life experience issues that employees bring to work, political issue will be more local, material & affinity3 based in nature.
For political issues, it helps to have continuous talks with the elite centres in you company.
Those that keep the engine humming.
Last thing you want is to lose talent to a better material offer, when there is so obvious room for a [better] deal.
So in a world where now everything is subject to critical analysis, a world where the oppressor/oppressed lens is dominant, but rarely solid, the above quadrant and questions can help spot & triage issues that are.
Which can help leaders from being caught off guard while keeping things.
For a more formal exploration of the above [one that goes deeper than this post] you could do worse than reading the free book “Political Beliefs”4
In the end, as with many things in the coming A.I era, the inputs [in this case the distinction and questions] are what creates the real value.
Hence the call to arms in issue #2 for people to really start focussing on their own points of view and taste.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10890044/?ref_=nm_knf_c_2
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1369801X.2020.1718537
https://fairerdisputations.org/its-a-vibe-how-sexual-orientation-lost-the-sex/
https://www.routledge.com/Political-Beliefs-A-Philosophical-Introduction/Traldi/p/book/9781032409108