Do Politics Belong In The Workplace?

If you were to look at the people that you most interact with at work, what would you see? Do you know their political beliefs? 

Yesterday, I was working with 2 different groups of leaders around the ideas in the book The Leaders Guide to Unconscious Bias" 

One of the exercises that the author encourages the reader to do, is to analyze their 'trust network,' to bring about awareness of who they interact with most, how diverse that group is, and how much their trust network is challenging or supporting their unconscious biases.

Each person selected between 5 and 10 people that they regularly connect with at work. Then, based on the below categories, they gave a + for similar and a - for difference. 

Age
Color
Education
Expertise
Family Status
Gender
National Origin
Personality
Physical Ability
Physical Appearance
Political Views
Religion
Sexual Identity/Orientation
Socioeconomic Status

One of the areas that people said, 'I don't know' was political views, which prompted a conversation about whether talking politics was appropriate at work or not.

We also talked about if having "rules" around what topics are okay or not okay, was limiting people's sense of belonging because they didn't believe they could bring their whole self to work. 

One rather obvious example we talked about was the fact that many companies are taking a political stand and pulling out of Russia. 

So, what do you think?

Do you think talking politics is appropriate at work? 

Originally posted on LinkedIn

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