How to Prevent Divisiveness in the Workplace

Preventing divisiveness in the workplace is crucial for fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration. As leaders, it's essential to understand the underlying dynamics that drive counterproductive behaviors and take action to shift them. This article delves into key tools and frameworks for preventing and addressing divisiveness in the workplace, including Aristotle's Golden Mean, the STOP Method, and the Tilt Framework. By understanding and utilizing these tools, leaders can gain insight into the root causes of divisiveness and take targeted and effective action to improve the situation. Whether you're a team leader, HRBP, or Talent Development Leader, this article will provide you with the knowledge and strategies needed to promote a positive and productive work environment.

The Power of Aristotle's Golden Mean

Divisiveness in the workplace can be caused by a variety of factors, including strong personalities, subcultures, and a lack of alignment. However, one of the underlying causes of divisiveness is the failure to find balance and avoid extremes in our behaviors and attitudes. This is where Aristotle's Golden Mean comes in.

Aristotle's Golden Mean is a philosophy that advocates for finding balance and avoiding extremes in all aspects of life. In the context of the workplace, it means finding a balance between the opposing forces of underuse and overuse. For example, if a leader is too passive, they may be underusing their leadership skills and not providing enough direction for the team. On the other hand, if a leader is too aggressive, they may be overusing their leadership skills and not allowing others to contribute.

The Golden Mean philosophy can be used to identify and understand the root causes of divisiveness in the workplace. By understanding where the balance is lacking, leaders can take targeted and effective action to improve the situation. For example, if a leader is too passive, they may need to increase their assertiveness to provide more direction for the team. Conversely, if a leader is too aggressive, they may need to increase their receptivity to allow others to contribute.

By using the Golden Mean philosophy, leaders can increase their self-awareness and gain a clear understanding of the underlying dynamics that are driving their behaviors. This can help them prevent and reduce divisiveness in the workplace by identifying and addressing the root causes of their counterproductive behaviors. Additionally, the Golden Mean philosophy can also be used as a powerful tool for self-management and self-leadership, helping leaders avoid triggering counterproductive behaviors as often and improve their own performance.

In conclusion, the Golden Mean philosophy is a powerful tool for preventing and fixing divisiveness in the workplace. By using the Golden Mean to increase self-awareness and understand the underlying dynamics that drive behaviors, leaders can take targeted and effective action to improve the situation. The Golden Mean philosophy can be used as a framework for understanding how to prevent and fix divisiveness in the workplace and as a powerful tool for self-management and self-leadership.

The STOP Method

Preventing divisiveness in the workplace also requires leaders to increase their own self-awareness as a means to increase their wisdom. One powerful tool that can help leaders achieve this is the STOP Method. The STOP Method is a four-step process that helps individuals to observe their self-parts, understand their essence, recognize the least happy quadrant, and make conscious choices to improve the situation.

The first step is S for Stop before reacting in an extreme way. This gives you a moment to pause and think about your ultimate goal and adjust behavior accordingly. While extreme traits can be useful to get someone’s attention every now and then, if repeated too frequently it can cause teams to divide into camps and stop working together. 

The second step in the STOP method is T for “take a breath” and consider the fear that is driving the extreme feelings. It could be a fear arising from true dangers and in that case should be communicated once you calm down. More often than not, extremes arise from ego-fears that are more about protecting our inner self-esteem. 

The third step in the STOP method is O for “observe” your inner motivations. If we fear we may lose status or power or approval or freedom, then it’s an ego-fear at work. If you pause long enough to let the feeling pass, you will come back to more reasonable thinking and communicate more effectively. 

The final step in the STOP Method, is P for Proceed once you’ve calmed your mind and can operate from inner strength vs, inner ego-fear. Depending on how much your ego was triggered the time you may need to reach a state of calm depends on how fear it caused inside you. Yet fear is always related to the past and the current situation may or may not be served by that past memory. It’s much better to consider every situation as entirely different and new. Then we won’t make the mistake of trying to control the future based on a bad memory from the past. 

The STOP method helps leaders increase their self-awareness and self-management to gain a better understanding of the underlying dynamics that are driving their behaviors. This can help them prevent divisiveness in the workplace by identifying and addressing the root causes of their counterproductive behaviors. Additionally, the STOP Method can also be used as a powerful tool for self-management and self-leadership, helping leaders avoid triggering counterproductive behaviors as often and improve their own performance.

Understanding and Balancing Behaviors with the Tilt Framework

The Tilt Framework is a valuable tool for understanding and balancing behaviors in the workplace in order to prevent divisiveness. The framework is based on the idea that there are four patterns of behavior that can lead to divisiveness: Structure, Clarity, Connection, and Impact. These patterns can help individuals identify how they may be overusing or underusing certain personality traits, leading to imbalanced behavior.

For example, overusing the Structure pattern can lead to micromanagement, while underusing it can lead to a lack of direction and accountability. Similarly, overusing the Clarity pattern can lead to rigid thinking and inflexibility, while underusing it can lead to confusion and lack of alignment. Understanding these patterns and finding balance can help prevent divisiveness in the workplace.

The Tilt Framework can also be used to address cultural, beliefs, and other differences that may contribute to divisiveness. These differences can lead to imbalanced behavior, and the Tilt Framework can help individuals understand how they may be contributing to divisiveness and how to address it. By understanding and balancing these behaviors, leaders can take targeted and effective action to improve the situation and prevent divisiveness in the workplace.

In addition to increasing self-awareness, leaders can also use the Team Agility Predictor to assess team cohesion and determine if the team is divided by strong personalities or if it is cohesive and ready to perform. This can be done by assessing the four tilting behavior patterns in teams: Structure, Clarity, Connection, and Impact.

The Tilt Framework is a powerful tool for understanding and balancing behaviors in the workplace in order to prevent divisiveness. It can also address cultural, beliefs, and other differences that may contribute to divisiveness. By using the Tilt Framework to increase self-awareness, leaders can take targeted and effective action to improve the situation and prevent divisiveness in the workplace. The framework can also be used as a tool for self-management, self-leadership, and identifying the patterns of behavior that are leading to divisiveness.

Conclusion

Divisiveness in the workplace can greatly impede progress and hinder growth. As leaders, it's crucial to understand the root causes of the underlying dynamics that drive negative behaviors and take quick action to address them. We've discussed key tools and frameworks that can be utilized to prevent and reduce divisiveness in the workplace. By utilizing Aristotle's Golden Mean, we can gain a deeper understanding of the balance required for preventing divisiveness. The STOP Method is a powerful tool for increasing self-awareness and self-management to address the moment divisiveness arises. The Tilt Framework, in combination with self-awareness assessments, can be used to identify and address patterns of behavior that lead to divisiveness. By implementing these tools and frameworks, leaders can create a more cohesive and productive work environment that promotes psychological safety. To take the first step in creating a more cohesive and productive work environment, schedule a call with us at Tilt365.com to plan your Team Agility Lab experience.