TRUMPWORK

Workplace Unity in a Trumpian Age

6 November 20204

This image isn’t the real Donald Trump. Actor Sebastian Stan’s version of him in the movie The Apprentice was hard work - to get the tics, the drawl, the blend of charm, menace, intelligence and narcissism which has worked the American audience of voters into an historic re-election.

The Apprentice focuses on the early years and “making” of Donald Trump and in particular how he turned on someone he relied on acutely to help him in his work: the venal lawyer Roy Cohn.

In his Mar-a-Lago victory speech in the early hours of this morning President Trump talked a good game of humble thanks to his team but the behind the scenes stories tell a different story. A team made frantic by never knowing what their boss wants. A team whose boss sets them against each other.

He spoke quite a bit about work - about “the hard work” which got him re-elected but also about the work his country faces in his famous MAGA mission - to “Make America Great Again”.

“We must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools”

- Martin Luther King

He spoke of unity but in practice to date he is the master of division. And this matters because his re-election the first time ( let alone the second) brings into sharp focus one of the biggest workplace issues facing his country: culture war at work.

What will co-workers talk about over the water cooler? What atmosphere of unity will be fostered under this kind of President at this kind of time?

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Will it be women who feel that their rights have been eroded and disrespected who can’t face colleagues who express satisfaction in the election result?

Or will he unify workforces around arguably the only common cause which matters in the workplace : the work itself?

Hard to do without the right culture. And culture is hard to come by without the right leadership, right?

Two thirds of workers in US have experienced “incivility at work” or 190 million acts a day -according to https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/topics/civility

The riven workforce has been rising for some time: issues ranging from Gender to Gaza to different generational divides: that is before you add in Manager/Workforce issues around RTO.

So the performative divisions of the holder of the most important office in the world now has to stop now that his 900 rallies have finished.

DEEP LISTENING

I went for a walk in London yesterday with Emily Kasriel who is an expert in - and author of the forthcoming book about - “Deep Listening” - the art of conflict resolution arising out of, yes, letting someone get a word in edgeways and more than this: facing the difference in their perspective and feelings.

The truth is that few of us possess these skills. We often feel division and polarity is right and normal. So President Trump has done us a favour in highlighting that this approach won’t work: if he is serious about “healing” and uniting the country, then language, listening and community will become vital.

Find out about Workathon’s programme’s and experts on conflict resolution, workforce tensions and our anthropological approach to tackling increasingly complex work landscapes where the leadership may not be fully equipped to understand the seismic shifts: email expert@workathon.io

Credit where it is due: Donald Trump led his team to victory. But organisations are not campaigns. The work is about stitching together common understanding and unpicking division.

Let that work begin: in the White House and in workplaces everywhere.