While individuals in their personal lives and politics may be able to afford hyper levels of political divisions it is more difficult, expensive, and counter-productive when over politicization begins to thrive in our workplaces, networks and communities. While hyper politics can have its place for an organization if and when it is threatened by political action or is in danger of being a political pawn, it is a dangerous game. When an environment--real space or social media--becomes overly politicized and when everything is judged in political or polarized terms, cooperation toward common goals becomes nearly impossible.

In a workplace, network, or community where people are striving to find the best and most ethical next-steps, the process of over-politicizing, labeling, and then rejecting people and ideas can stop thinking in its tracks. It short circuits problem-solving. It disables a group from searching for the full meaning of a situation. It creates enemy lines that cannot be crossed. In such a toxic environment working together toward common goals can seem like a distant memory.

It feels dangerous and incorrect to even notice and talk about hyper politicization; but our successful learning curve right now depends on dialog and deepening understanding which demands an ability to perceive and intervene in over-politicization of ideas and actions.

Some real examples and interventions:

Several years ago I helped a church congregation to create a strategic plan. One of the issues bubbling under the surface was a strong criticism from some congregants that resulted in vilifying the pastor for taking the church into “far liberal” territory through an environmental ministry. The critics perceived that too much time and financial resources were “pouring” into the environmental ministry while other social and spiritual activities were starving for lack of the pastor’s time or the church’s support. The critics were convinced that the church had gone too far and was becoming known in the community as a “liberals only” congregation; conservatives not welcome. The advocates for the ministry felt attacked and wrongly accused; they felt they were doing “God’s work” by forming a church-based effort to take care of the earth. They did not see their work as a partisan political gesture.

To quell the rising emotions in the discussion I suggested that we start with mapping information and perceptions so that we could at least have a shared picture. We took a simple approach. We drew an “east-west” continuum where one end signified extremely conservative ideas/actions and the other end signified extremely progressive/liberal ideas/actions. The middle stood for “neutral ideas/actions” that could be accepted as helpful but not “political”. We began assessing every environmental action the church was implementing in the environmental ministry. It went something like this:

When the assessment was wrapped up it became clear that the actual environmental program was not wildly progressive or politically skewed. In addition, it was attracting and mobilizing young families and teens into a volunteer ministry. With this knowledge the congregation could move forward to truly strategic decisions about priorities, resources, programmatic structure, etc.

The information analysis diffused political accusations to make room for real problem-solving.

In another case a network of multiple organizations was describing its purpose and work in language that had not been appropriately defined throughout the network. As the network members became more successful and visible a rumble of accusations began to emerge about how the mission was being interpreted and implemented. Some members were seen as being too soft on issues, siding with allies who could undermine the mission (e.g. too many corporate partners who didn’t fully subscribe to the mission); other members were seen as being too harsh, taking the network too far into a progressive territory with prescribed solutions. It already was accepted that they were pledged to be a “big tent”. As a network most members wanted to make room for a diversity of ideas and solutions. While they held mostly cohesive views about civic rights and responsibilities they did not want to push the network into an either/or political identity. And yet they were on the verge of self-destructing over misunderstandings, politicized assumptions, and accusations about others’ intentions. Critical language was becoming inflamed and collaboration was becoming an endangered concept.

In this case it was important to analyze the mission and intended outcomes, and to define terms. For example some basic definitions had been left vague during the founding of the network in order to mollify lots of members of different views. Years into the work they had to go back to basics. In their case, the questions swirled around integrity about civic innovation:

What IS innovation?
If something is new to me but not to you can that be innovation?
If a solution is groundbreaking in my world but not yours, can we both see it as innovative?
Is your panacea my poison?
Who are the appropriate allies?
Who do we need to help carry the agenda?
Do partners who can help us in one way but possibly hurt us in another have a place in our work?
When money is the issue how much do we have to do the bidding of our funders and does this pull us left or right?
If our work is threatened how do we deal with the political leadership without becoming openly partisan?

This network went back to basics to define terms and articulate outcomes and priorities. The network needed a new strategic plan that could hold everyone together with clarity so that members could set their own agendas yet converge with others (despite some individual differences). The return to basics and deciding on more explicit “rules of engagement” helped this network to find its core and to create guidelines for monitoring its own boundaries and holding essential outliers.

In both these cases there were similar steps that helped the networks back-down from the brink of over-politicization. These included:

Identify the behavior of making assumptions and accusations that vilify others (instead try to incentivize assuming the best or being more analytical about errors).
Sort the realities. Use a continuum, or a matrix, or a fork in the road tool to help the group to map and label realities
Once a shared picture is established ask the group to find the actual strategic problems
Be ready to use a highly engaged problem-solving process. In the best networks the members are passionate; they care. Process has to match their intensity, not sidestep it.

See What I Mean delivers a strategic approach to cooperation. If you’d like help systematically planning for cooperation within your organization , we’d love to work with you. Please schedule a Discovery Session.

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Author: Stephanie Clohsey

Overcoming Politicized Rhetoric in times calling out for Cooperation not Division.