Them and Us: Differences That Aren't Really There

This simple distinction can undermine corporate culture, reinforce silos and derail strategy.  Here is an exploration of how unnecessary boundaries are formed and how they can be smashed down.

I am always chagrined when I visit different companies and witness what I call the “Them and Us” phenomenon.  What happens is that someone from one part of the company refers to another person or a group as “them” and to his own colleagues as “us”. 

This is subtle and often takes a trained ear to pick up on the subtext of what is being said.  I believe‑‑and various research seems to support—the notion that this peculiar way of referring to colleagues is actually at the root of organizational silos, conflict and much dysfunction, making collaboration and change not so easy.  So, I decided to peck away a little at why people see others as different and what that means to working together.

On a macro scale, the Them and Us phenomenon is universal and appears to be part of human nature.  We learn from recent anthropological research that a tribe’s internal ability to coalesce as an entity­­‑‑to internally define, bind, cooperate and nurture the tribe‑‑may give that group an evolutionary advantage.  Carried to a logical extreme, the more refined a group’s beliefs, values, culture, the more likely it is to succeed, and, along the way, to be distinctly different from other groups.  So far, so good.  We all need connection to a community for identity and affirming relationships.  On the other hand, we are also familiar with the ugly history of prejudice and discrimination‑‑the most public and political manifestation of viewing others as separate and different.  Ethnocentrism, colonialism, fascism, Jim Crowism and other historical manifestations all cast the Other as a target, while WE-US is righteous, noble, and guiltless.  One group becomes “better”, and the boundary between it and other groups is sharply defined in terms of positive and negative, good-bad, familiar-different, in-out, believers-non-believers and the like.  So, the seeds are sown for potential dysfunction.

In a contemporary organization, the difference between Them and Us is more nuanced and less primal.  Ask a salesperson what he or she thinks about working with a service delivery team, and you’ll hear “Oh, they’re great to work with. Very responsive, lovely,” and the like.  But when push comes to shove, that same salesperson may cut a self-centered deal with a client that will be an advantage for sales but leaves the service team to handle delivery specs that are challenging and even potentially unprofitable for them.  “That’s just the game of sales,” would be the sales person’s explanation.  “They are not into collaborating,” would be the service explanation.  Them-Us. 

Even members of the same team fall into this mindset.  The members on the West Coast are “them” and those at Headquarters are “us”.  Team members on a different floor in a building can become “them”, while people on “our” floor are “us”.  While it may appear to be an innocent reference, when you think about it, “them” reveals a distinction that really isn’t there. 

While it is natural to fall into this pattern of thinking, it is contrary to what it takes to be successful in a complex, global business.  Instead, the organizations I have worked with have aspired to become collaborative entities where talent and resources are leveraged cross-functionally and where cooperation and power-sharing can turn into increased value for customers.

Them-Us: The Insidious Source of Silos

Despite corporate goals and strategy built on collaborative initiatives, I find people having trouble breaking out of Them and Us thinking, perhaps because if they did lower their barricades, they would feel defenseless without their very own “Us” identity.  Why is this so?

In Changing Minds, Howard Gardner points out that we develop theories (explanations) about how things work that are resistant to change.  For example, sales people develop the assumption that making targets at all costs is everything and are rewarded accordingly.  If you’ve been in sales from the beginning of your career, that idea is, as Gardner puts it, “engraved in your mind.”  When operating with Them—a service delivery team in developing a proposal—sales people would tend to listen to other ideas but, without malice or deliberation, put the Other’s input in a lesser light.  The result is that these groups become “accidental adversaries”, a systems thinking archetype defined by Peter Senge in The Fifth Discipline and later by Jennifer Kemeny.  Accidental adversaries describes how partners can unintentionally undermine each other’s success.  These emotional attachments to Them and Us don’t respond to rational appeals for collaboration and cooperation.   “Us-ness”‑right or wrong‑is who we are.

At the corporate level, the result is silo-ism, the breaking apart of an organization into fiefdoms where the interface between groups is more conflict and stasis than a flow of ideas and productivity.  I recently came across a situation where the CEO of a multi-divisional organization chastised his highly experienced and well-paid direct reports—all division presidents—for “acting like children” when they consistently couldn’t let go of their “Us-ness” in resolving inter-group problems.  And that was happening in an organization where collaboration and cross-functional leveraging was a strategic premium.

When viewed in this light, the Them-and-Us phenomenon becomes a key player in corporate change and organizational climate.  I suggest it is the hidden molecule that comprises the various forms of resistance to change that we have all experienced.  Robert Kegan, in Immunity to Change, would call Them and Us a “hidden commitment” to big assumptions that help us maintain the status quo and remain impervious to change.  

What does this mean for leaders who struggle with strategically turning their businesses into “Cultures of Excellence” or who promote “Integrity, Cooperation, Compassion, Creativity” and the like?  Apparently, expectation setting from the highest level, explaining business plans and rationale, describing benefits—the usual armamentarium of change management—can only go so far.  The Them-Us phenomenon needs to be part of the strategic equation.

Eliminating Them-Us Dysfunction

Build a Performance Management System That Rewards Collaboration

One obvious and tactical remedy is to erase misalignment between goals and rewards, focusing on cross-functional accomplishments and team recognition.  Remove contradictory goals, all opportunities for gaming functional targets, replacing or augmenting them with outcome measures that reflect accomplishments achieved through cooperation.  If these targets are focused on improving the customer experience, each contributing function can claim a role.  That shifts the focus from what have “US” done to how have all our assets ‑‑all the “Us-es”‑‑ impacted our valued customers.  Not surprisingly, this is currently a hot-topic in education and health reform where integration of value is a clear direction.

Nurture Cross-Functional Capability in Individuals and Teams

Another approach is through capability-building.  Working effectively across an organization requires that an individual demonstrate an astute understanding of how the whole organization works, appreciate the pressures and aspirations of different functional areas, have a keen ability to apply influence and team skills that lead to problem-solving and progress.  These are sophisticated, “A” game-level skills, requiring a higher level of engagement and prerequisites like empathy, emotional intelligence, and confidence.  Developing these higher level skills or finding role models to emulate takes time and is on-going. 

Focus On the Mechanics of Working Together

Each cross-functional interaction involves key “moments of truth” when each party has to deliver on mutual expectations.  For example, when starting an IT project, certain information has to be exchanged, discussed and agreed upon for the work to begin efficiently.  How that meeting plays out in reality is a moment of truth:  If it is done well, each party experiences value from a useful and productive interface; if not, then inefficiency and trust issues prevail for the remainder of the project and beyond.  Mutually engineering this interaction with care has a huge dividend in dropping real or potential animosity between groups.

Lead From the Front

Probably the most powerful tool that can break through Them and Us is leadership.  When the head of an organization expects—no, demands—that silos come down and business units start cooperating, the cultural die is cast.  All it takes is demonstrable resolve.  Former GE CEO Jack Welch once reported one of his most difficult decisions was to terminate a high-level, high performer who wasn’t a team player.  The message is clear: the culture values teamwork and collaboration; Them and Us is over.  The lesson is that talking about the vision of a united culture and leveraging talent across the organization is a worthy and necessary leadership move.  However, imposing and driving organizational rules about how the culture will work and then enforcing those rules is the convincer to anyone who doubts what the leader wants. 

And Then There Are People-To-People Relationships

Absent that kind of dramatic demonstration of intent from the top, an individual contributor can take a personal leadership stand to understand the context their counterparts work in as a first step to collaboration.  Years of attitude research show that when people know and work closely with each other, their perception of the Other changes to the positive.  Creating personal relationships is a change multiplier and knocks down silos.

Of course, Them and Us will always be with us.  We need to associate with groups; it gives us uniqueness.  The challenge in organizations is to shift the “Us” from an insular business unit to the larger, united organization.  The goal is to build a company of multiple “Us-es”.  The challenge for individuals is to be aware of who they are labeling as “Them” and what that means to that relationship.  The goal is to establish relationships without prejudice.

How to Build Influence Relationships with Clients, Peers and Partners

If we examine what is going on in vague work relationships, we can reverse engineer a framework for building any solid relationship based on certainty and confidence.

P

ick your influence situation.  Has this happened to you?

• You have an initiative that requires the buy-in and involvement of another department.  The other group is pre-occupied and stressed out.  Nevertheless, you can’t proceed without them. 
• You need to resolve a knotty problem caused by the performance of people on a different team who are working with you on a project.  You have no leverage in dealing with them.
• You discover a colleague in your own work team is performing a task you normally do.  When questioned, she responds that an internal client asked her to do the task.  “It was easy, so I did it.”
• After talking with some stakeholders, your team makes a number of decisions on a project.  Later, a person who is a tangential stakeholder at best complains, “I should have been invited.”  There is pressure to open up the decision for further deliberation.
• You are blind-sided by an internal client who calls you to ask about projects that other members of your team are doing for her.  You have no idea how to answer her detailed questions.

These situations can only be managed through the practice of effective influence.  The work we do for or with others who have different agendas, goals and even business values literally hinges on our ability to be good at getting people to “get along”.   

In our recent work, we have clarified a simple way to build relationships and use influence with others.  The remedy is to become client-focused—regardless who the “other” is‑‑ and purposely engineer an experience that meets their expectations, resulting in clarity for all, confidence in what is happening and why. The result of a relationship based on meeting another’s expectations is effectiveness and value.  When expectations are clear all around, trust isn’t far behind.

The Key: Focus On Clarifying “Moments of Truth”

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he key to influence is to focus on the critical moments in the client (or peer, partner) experience that must be done exceptionally well; the other person’s perception of your skill and effectiveness comes from how well you handle these important points in the relationship.

For example, how new work is initiated is a critical moment.  Starting off with clarity and a shared mental model of goals and process is undoubtedly a good start.  Understanding how the other wants to communicate—content, media, frequency—is another.  How well conflict is handled is also a moment of truth.  These and others have to be soundly managed by you, the influencer, who does the steering and shaping of these moments.  If these are not well executed, you have created a sense of uncertainty and doubt in the mind of the other from which it is difficult to recover.

In a way, these “moments of truth” are not unlike the experience you have when checking into a hotel or getting your car serviced; you have certain expectations for that exact experience that, if not fulfilled, create a disappointment that undermines your view of the brand you are dealing with.  The idea is to take each moment of truth, anticipate what can go wrong—what will distract, create confusion, and breed disappointment and uncertainty—, understand what the client cares about in those moments, and then engineer a useful and valuable experience in its place. 

Here are the “moments of truth” we’ve identified in a typical influence environments with internal clients, peers and partners.  In fact, high-performing salespeople have discovered that making key moments in the sales process valuable for customers is central to relationship building and sales success.  Focusing on making “moments of truth” bullet-proof is undoubtedly the core skill in influencing others.  It also becomes your brand, just as FedEx or Marriott have branded protocols for clients.

Think of each of these situations; determine what a client’s, peer’s or partner’s perspective and expectations might be when they find themselves in that moment.  With that in mind, decide how you--as a team or as an individual‑‑, can purposefully make the experience effective and meet their expectations.   The result is your “Brand”.

§         Start Something New.  Contracting at new beginnings—whether it is a new project, relationship or problem to solve—focuses on clearly explaining and/or mutually designing how the process ahead will unfold.  If there is a formal, multi-phase process of development, the goal is to explain how it will work, how it can flex, who will be involved, what the roles are and what the others involved can expect.  While a formal process may have a designated a “kick off meeting”, that meeting has to be conducted so that the client emerges with a sense of certainty about what will happen and why.  Start Something New is an opportunity to plan the future with the client, peer or partner so that it works for them.  When expectations are clearly set and a path to follow is in place, the future is more certain.

§         Deal With the Unexpected.  Recovering from the inevitable problem is clearly a moment of truth.  Can you decide beforehand how you will handle slip-ups?  Telling or working out guidelines for handling when things go wrong before they go wrong creates another layer of confidence in the relationship.  A discussion that anticipates and plans for bad times, describing what steps will be taken, what options might be available, etc. yields a ready-to-go plan and a sense all around of being ahead of –rather than being overwhelmed by‑‑problems when they emerge.  Alternatively, can you‑‑in your own mind‑‑frame up how you will break unpleasant news to the other person so that it is clear, direct, results in a forward step, and concludes with a positive feeling about how this was done?

§         Manage Conflict.  There are situations where a client, peer or partner will have points of view that are different from yours.  You can position conflict positively, or you can just let it happen.  If you agree to view differences as a positive opportunity to improve work process and outcomes, then you can problem-solve.  If you and your client, peer, or partner view difference as a contest, then you have an argument.  Explicitly steering your client to a positive view of conflict is in everyone’s best interest, and it is another core influence skill.  The experience of resolving differences can become a creative, inclusive and memorable “moment of truth”.  Your goal in a conflict is to learn from the lack of agreement and find a common path.

§         Keep Informed.  It may appear to be a small detail, but how and what you regularly communicate makes a difference to the client, peer or partner experience. This gets complicated when there are a number of functions involved, and each has a different need for information.  To be effective, you have to know who needs to be informed, what media to use to communicate and who needs to keep you informed.  Regularly recapping the big picture works; use charts and at-a-glance exhibits.  We’ve heard from our clients that email isn’t effective anymore—the challenge is to get back to talking with people; it is clearly the best answer.  The question is how to get more face-time.  Think lunch, hallway and elevator discussions, cubicle drop-ins, beers after work.

§         Huddle on Decisions.  One of the most challenging “moments of truth” is decision-making in an influence environment with specialists, generalists, clients, partners, levels of management, etc.  The question of who has approval, who recommends, who is involved, can be defined upfront for the majority of the decisions that need to be made.  But that’s not where decision-making breaks down; it’s the decision that doesn’t fit the pattern, especially where there are overlapping responsibilities, multiple roles that have a stake in the outcome, and people who feel they should be heard.  The challenge here is to take the time to literally figure it out, and the rule of thumb is inclusiveness. That means discussing options in a group or with another—not via email‑‑ until a consensus emerges.  Being able to facilitate an all-stakeholders “figure it out” decision session or an impromptu hallway meeting with a partner is a vital influence skill. 

The Payoff: Your Personal and Your Work Unit’s Brand

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f these “moments of truth” are executed effectively and consistently, your clients, peers and partners will experience a relationship that works.  If you are conscientious about informing your client-base—“advertising”‑‑ how you work, you are creating a brand promise.  Your clients, peers and partners will know what to expect when working with you.

On the other hand, we’ve seen when these relationships don’t work.  If internal clients, peers or partners are disappointed at the beginning of a relationship because of a cloudy start, it is very difficult to recover.  Trust is the first casualty when a “moment of truth” doesn’t live up to what the client, peer or partner cares about.  Regardless of what happens afterwards to rectify or mitigate, the other person will be on guard, watching and cautious not only now but in the future and not only with you, but with everyone from your organization.

Immediate action step:  Think about—or ask—how your clients, peers and partners view you and your organization at these critical moments.  Put yourself into their experience and see how it feels to working with you.  Using that as a start, build an influence process from there.

10 Suggestions on How to Reach Consensus

One of the major benefits of a consensus decision is that it brings team members who start off with differing points of view to a common understanding of all the issues.

Another Meeting Invite, and you dread hitting “Accept”.  You know what lies ahead is another push-and-pull session with your team nemesis whom you consider to be a wind-bag, endless and circular discussions, unraveling what you thought were conclusions, rude emailing while trying to talk to someone and an alternating sense of boredom, frustration and finally quiet resignation. 

Okay, so things in your real team life may not be that bad.  But, seriously, who likes rambling, rudderless meetings? 

There is a way to keep your eye on the prize: have really good and thoughtful discussion and solid decisions as an outcome.  If your team can come away from a decision feeling it is “right”, based on the circumstances, you’ve all done well.  What we are talking about is consensus, a basic team skill.  Let’s explore.

Compromise or Consensus?

There are basically two ways to make a challenging team decision, compromise and consensus.  A compromise is a way of getting a decision that people can live with.  Generally, the result is only satisfactory.  Some words which describe a compromise are “half-hearted,” “reluctant,” “settlement,”  “concession,” “arrangement”.  Despite that, compromises are important and expedient answers to some problems.  The problem with a compromise is the outcome doesn’t meet everyone’s expectations, or it may literally compromise someone’s values, ideas or beliefs.  In fact, there are always some losers and winners in a compromise decision.  When that happens, the losers may feel half-hearted and reluctant about putting that decision into action; the winner becomes disenchanted with the effort the others are making.  In some ways, a compromise can plant the seeds of later conflict.

Reaching Consensus

On the other hand, certain decisions demand a group commitment to work.  That kind of agreement calls for a consensus.  Basically, the process of consensus involves getting people with different points of view to start seeing things in a similar way, or at least to begin narrowing their different perspectives.

In a consensus, if the points of view of each member are considered, discussed, compared and discussed again, everyone begins to sees all aspects of the problem.  Members begin to learn about others’ perceptions and a decision or approach emerges as differences are understood and narrowed.  This outcome goes beyond something people can “go along with”.  Instead, it is a decision team members believe in as the truly best way to go, given the circumstances.  Because the issue has been examined, re-examined, tested through discussion, critiqued and analyzed, all members of the team can “see” the problem and the solutions from many different points of view.

As you can see, one of the major benefits of a consensus decision is that it brings team members who start off with differing points of view to a common understanding of all the issues. In a way, it’s a learning experience. Through discussion of how members see the problem, everyone begins to share perceptions.  Differences don’t appear as great as they once did and everyone agrees, given the facts, about the alternative that makes sense.

Consensus Guidelines and Tips

Here are some ways to narrow differences in points of view among team members and work towards commitment.

1. Each team member should state how he or she feels about the situation and why.
* Go around the table; give everyone a chance to have their say.
* Stop team members who are dominating discussion and poll everyone else.
* Ask members who are silent what they think.

2. Team members should as for facts, definitions or explanations and try to uncover what different thoughts or words really mean to others.
* Team members have to explain their views.
* Focus on words, like, “What’s a significant delay?”
* Ask for clarification when faced with questionable statements

3. Clarify discrepancies of opinion with facts.
* State facts and ask other team members to compare opinions with the facts.
* Summarize competing points of view and ask members to support with facts.
* If there are no available facts, ask members to gather data before continuing.

4. Be open-minded. Modify your own views when faced with compelling facts and opinions.
* Listen to the facts underlying differing points of view.
* Test the facts being presented against your viewpoint.
* Weigh the impact on you and the team of continuing to resist ideas in the face of convincing facts.
* “Try on” the other point of view and see how it feels. Is it really that different from yours? Are the consequences acceptable?

5. Identify similarities and differences among the points of view in the team.
* Make a list of similarities and differences on a flipchart or whiteboard.
* Ask different members to state what is similar about their ideas.
* Crystallize the differences among team members in a simple statement, such as, “It seems some people view cross-selling as a threat, others see it as an opportunity.”

6. Reinforce open-mindedness—the willingness to listen to other views—as well as the need for cooperation.
* Remind each other about the team’s rules concerning open discussion. (Your team ground rules should reflect that; if you don’t have team ground rules, you have some homework to do.)

* Ensure people time to talk and that they have said what is on their minds.
* Review the team’s production goals if necessary and stress the need 
to work together to reach those goals.

7.  Remain non-defensive and unemotional when challenged and avoid angry encounters.
* Stay silent and calm when being criticized. Wait until the other team member has finished before commenting.
* Take notes reflecting the other team member’s points.
* Summarize the other team member’s opinion in your own words before you talk.
* If the meeting is getting emotional, ask for a short recess; try to relax.
* If you can, be empathic with other’s views. Say, “I can understand why 
you would say that.”

8. List the positive and negative aspects or consequences of each point of view.
* Assume the team has adopted a particular approach. Ask members to discuss the advantages and disadvantages. Repeat with the next approach.
* Explore the risks associated with each idea. Test how realistic different people’s assessments of the risks are. “Will we really be causing serious confusion among ourselves by making independent calls on prime accounts?”

9. Ensure that all team members have had an opportunity to participate.
* Make it a point to ask each member at the meeting what they think.
* Remind members they have a responsibility to speak their minds.

10. Try to define the element of risk associated with every decision and develop an approach that minimizes that risk for everyone.
* Ask people what concerns them about a specific course of action.  “What do you think will happen if we do this?”
* If concerns are based on a misperception or misunderstanding, explain the true facts.
* Balance the advantages and risks of each approach.
* Ask the team what level of risk it is willing to accept.

Why it’s Worth the Time to Gain Consensus

Here are some concepts worth remembering about reaching decisions in teams.

* Consensus is one of the most powerful team skills. Members who understand how to reach consensus find that decisions are fully supported and implemented. What’s more, members believe in the group’s decision because the team has examined each facet of the problem and, through discussion, has finally seen the best way to proceed, given the circumstances.

* Remember, compromise implies half-heated agreement. There is doubt, lingering disagreement and the potential for second-guessing the decision, especially if the results are less than expected.

* The consensus process works when team members take the time to share perceptions about a decision and what it means to them.  Everyone must be given a chance to describe how they see the issues.  Only after these initial viewpoints are clear can the team proceed to identify areas of agreement and disagreement.

* Finally, the real key to consensus is for team members to remain flexible about their point of view. The exchanging of ideas is an opportunity for team members to learn from each other. An effective team member tries hard to remain open-minded, non-defensive and flexible, rather than determined to have his or her way.