Ep 212, Us vs. Them at Work? There’s a Better Way

Welcome to Conflict Managed. I'm your host, Merry Brown. This week on Conflict Managed, you welcome Laura Kriska. Laura is a Harvard Business Review contributor, TEDx speaker, and the author of three books on trust, culture, and collaboration, including The Business of We and The Accidental Office Lady.

Her career began at age 22 as the first American woman to work in Honda Motor Company's Tokyo headquarters, an experience that launched a 30-plus year career are helping global teams, leaders, and organizations close the us versus them gap that quietly erodes performance, culture, and results. At a time when workforces feel more divided than ever across culture, politics, generations, functions, hybrid versus in-office and identity, Laura works with organizations worldwide on what actually creates change.

Her approach goes beyond slogans, focusing instead on research-based practical actions that measurably build trust. Laura's life work centers on inspiring what she calls a we-building revolution, moving people beyond awareness into meaningful action that narrows the gaps holding teams and communities back. Good morning, Laura, and welcome to Conflict Managed. Good morning, Merry.

Thanks so much for inviting me. I know we're going to have a wonderful conversation given all that you've done in your career and your interest in healthy work environments and promoting engagement and all of these wonderful things that we are trying to get at. But before we get to what you're doing currently, I would like to hear about the first job you ever had as a young person. So i was a lifeguard i think when i turned 16 i got my certification and that lifeguarding role actually led me to my first professional job because in college i was about to spend my junior year in japan and honda motor company had created this really big factory in ohio where i grew up and where obviously I was living.

And so I contacted the people at Honda asking for some kind of scholarship because I was going to Japan. And they wrote back and said, we can't, we don't have any money for that, but we can give you a summer job. What are you qualified to do? And they had just opened a sports center.

And so I was a lifeguard at the sports center, and it was brand new sports center. So very few people were aware of it. It wasn't used, but there was one Japanese woman who was very diligent about swimming laps almost every morning. And I was determined to use Japanese.

You know, I was going to live in Japan. I spoke a little bit, but I was, you know, I've just like, I'm going to use Japanese as a lifeguard, any chance I can. So when she would come in to swim, I would say, you know, good morning. And then I would, you know, say phrases.

And she was super surprised that the lifeguard could speak Japanese. And so we would talk every time she was there. And she, at the end of the summer, said, I'd like to introduce you to my husband, who was, you know, working there at the factory. And I had no idea who he was, But it turned out that he had graduated from the college that I was about to go to in Japan.

It also turned out he was the vice president of the whole manufacturing facility in Marysville, Ohio, which turned out to be a really good connection for me. Yes. So that's basically how I got started with my relationship at Honda was through my very first job as a lifeguard. I love that story because I'm a firm believer that nothing is ever lost all of our experiences, are there for us to guide us one way or the other but it's such a wonderful story because we don't know what's going to happen when we're at our first shop a lifeguard mcdonald's newspaper what we're what's there to learn what are the opportunities and I just I love so much about the story.

So not only this, you know, you go to be a lifeguard, but then it turns out to be this skill that got you someplace else. And then because you wanted to work on your language, right, it's just this and this and this, right? And that's, you know, when we look at our lives, that's how a lot of like networking opportunities come up. Not always because we see the one thing and we're going for it sometimes, but many times it's a circuitous route that you probably could not have planned that, right?

And yet it happened. Absolutely. And I think when I look at younger people today, I have a few of those in my own family kind of about to go out, going out into the world or going out on their own. When I look back at my 22-year-old self, or at that time, 20-year-old self, one of the things that now I see was so important is that I was not shy about trying to speak Japanese.

My Japanese wasn't that good. I hardly knew, you know, I had a few phrases under my belt, but I wanted to connect with Japanese people. You know, I'm about to spend my junior year in Japan. I wasn't looking for a job.

I wasn't networking, per se. I was just trying to connect across a language barrier that I was about to be, you know, was about to be my whole life. You know, I was going to be the outsider in Japan. And so when I reflect on the young people that I see, you know, it's hard when you're young to take those kinds of actions, to reach out.

Someone might not speak Japanese. You might think they do, and then you're embarrassed because they don't. Or, you know, it's hard to take actions that make you a little vulnerable. And I was not afraid of that.

I'm not sure why. I guess my wish and my passion for Japanese was stronger than my human, you know, concern for embarrassing myself or, you know, not wanting to be vulnerable. And I think that's just really important I wonder what you think about that Especially when people are starting out in their careers. Yeah, I really appreciate that reflection.

And as you were talking, I was thinking about being authentic. We throw that word around a lot. What does it mean to be authentic or to bring your whole self to wherever you may be? But the story, and I think one reason that people shy away from networking is because it is seen as inauthentic.

But if we take a step back and really think about how am I showing up? Why am I showing up? What is it that I want? then we're willing to do the uncomfortable we're willing to make the mistake because we know what our intention is and if we are aware that the distinction between intention and impact and willing that maybe i'm going to miss the mark but that i'm going to own it with a sense of humility but proper proper pride is knowing what you know knowing what you don't and willing to make amends right and this is this is all of us where we're starting out or mid-career or at the end we all should be trying to be better tomorrow than we were today we're all in the process of change and growth and so i just i hear this really beautiful picture of being a self and having a goal and willing to put in the work to get it and even i think as a younger person maybe you don't know certain kinds of pitfalls which can help you strike out on your own like like go and do it but sometimes of course we get too stuck in our head and what if i'm this stuff but then i think a better question is but what if you don't if you don't try you won't get it right.

But it's hard to measure what you don't try. Yes. So it's so easy to just pause. Oh, I'm busy or I was going to, but then I, the moment passed, you know, I, I liked what you said earlier about the humility.

And I think especially, you know, I talk a lot about cultures, bridging, connect, bridging us versus them gaps. This is my thing. And it's hard sometimes to put yourself out there. But in my life of the thousands of times I have put myself out there, as long as I have two things in mind when I reach out, as long as I'm respectful of other people and genuine in my wish to connect.

So being respectful and genuine, even if I, you know, use a language and the other person doesn't speak it, you know, I might feel bad. I might insult someone and I absolutely would take responsibility and apologize in a timely fashion if that happened. But I will tell you, you know, 95 plus time percent of those times in my life when I have done that outreach, when I've maintained those two qualities, I mean, I can I can hardly remember a time when I was ever rejected. I might have been wrong and, you know, taken ownership and apologize, but I've never been rejected to the point where it made me not want to keep trying.

I think that's that's really important to think about because we catastrophize a lot what if what if this person takes it the wrong way what if i make this giant faux pas and i went through a midlife change career change in 2021 and and trying new things and stepping out and i would say i haven't been rejected but i have felt uncomfortable and i've decided that, There's something that I want. I want this new career. I want this new thing. I don't like being uncomfortable.

Which one do I want more? Right. And so just accepting it. OK, I'm going to go to this event and I live in a small town in a small area and people know each other and I don't know them.

So there's a good chance I'm going to feel uncomfortable or I can or not. And not only, you know, it's so surprising what happens when you show up and you're just willing to go through it. Right. The only way through is through.

And we just try to we try to figure it out on the outside. But life is in the living of it. Right. the connection.

Yeah, I have to ask you a question. So can you give me any, I'd love to hear a detail about what that was like for you. So I have been living in this small town in West Tennessee since 2002. It's when my husband and I moved here for the local university.

And so I switched careers in 2021. And so I was moving from university to the business community. And it turned out I'd lived here a long time. I knew nobody except for my university people.

So in this transition, trying to figure out this new role, this new business that I had, I, you know, I wanted to meet the people in the community. And so one reason, one way I figured out to do this was join multiple chambers of commerce, go to the different events. But as soon as I showed up, I realized everybody in this room knows each other to some degree, and I'm the new person. And so feeling that you know like standing in the corner or approaching somebody inserting myself into a standing there everyone's very polite but the amazing thing happened the more i showed up the more i knew people the more comfortable i felt and in these relationships that i have that have grown from that time in a relatively short amount of time have just been these prizes that these pearls i never knew that i was missing i didn't know what i was going to get from them, And it didn't take away the sting at the time.

It does not feel good, but doing it anyway. Yeah. So that's a part of it. Yeah.

And I guess hearing your story and reflecting on what you said earlier, it's not just for new, you know, college graduates going out into the world. It can apply at any point in your career. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, even if you're in a large organization and you've been there a long time, we all know that change is the name of the game.

And just innovation. Innovation is usually going to happen when we reach out, when we find out about the departments. We find new people. New people as in brand new young recruits.

New people to us. People have been around for a long time. And the more connections that we make. But making connections, like any kind of stretching, can feel there can be tension.

Definitely. But that's okay. It's okay to be awkward. In fact, we ought to expect some of that.

And I honestly think, Mary, that some of that feeling of awkwardness is what has prevented professionals and humans from bridging these longstanding, outdated us versus them silos in the workplace. They're just around. Every company that I work with has their default us versus them. You know, when I was in the manufacturing world, it's white-collar versus blue-collar.

Engineering versus manufacturing. In the financial institutions I work with, it's front office versus back office. Or, you know, headquarters versus subsidiary. I mean, they're everywhere.

They're predictable. They are inherent. And what shocks me is how people look at them, especially when they come into an organization, and just take it at face value that Oh, that's the way it is. That's the way it always has to be.

And the way that I saw this really change was in manufacturing. As we know, the white collar, blue collar difference is, I mean, it's been around as long as Ford was manufactured, you know, whenever he started manufacturing cars. And when I started working in Honda. Of course, there's manufacturing environment and then the office and engineering, but they do not distinguish nearly as much.

And in fact, they do specific, they have specific strategies for closing that gap. For example, in Ohio, in Marysville, Ohio, in the factory, every single person wore the same uniform. It was a white uniform with your name on the patch, a patch, you know, with your name on it. And the president wore it, the lawyers wore them, the people on the assembly line wore them.

We all wore the same uniform. The parking lot, there was not executive parking. There was no executive cafeteria. And just these strategic decisions closed that white-collar versus blue-collar gap.

And that is true in most Japanese manufacturing organizations. And I never would have. So I started off in a company that did not distinguish, did not fall back to this default. Oh, white collar is up here, blue collar manufacturing is down here.

So when I started to learn more about the automobile industry and United States and how we tend to do things, I was shocked. Like, why would we have all of this separation when we have the same goal, which is to produce really great cars and you need lawyers, you need engineers, you know, you need business MBAs, but you also need people who understand plastics and, you know, manufacturing and, you know, all these things. And so anyway, so that's how I see this default thinking of, That can easily be changed.

And that's what I like. I like to encourage people to notice what are the default us versus them dynamics within their organization. Oh, that's just a wonderful reflection. Because so many times we go into a system and we just take it, as you said, as given.

This is the normal. This is the way things are done. And they must be done for a reason. And we supply our own narrative.

Or maybe somebody tells us. Yeah. So then we go about our way. Like, well, this is what we're supposed to be doing.

And then we wonder why we're not communicating. We wonder why there are silos. We wonder why people are dissatisfied or not seen as valuable. And we very rarely, and this definitely comes with conflict as well, we very rarely look at the systematic reasons or things that contribute to things that have been going on, what's been allowed, behavior that's been allowed or not been allowed to happen.

And so why do you think this idea of almost like a classless, is that what you would say? Or how would you categorize this, everybody dressing the same, not a preference given your role in the organization with these sort of perks? Yeah, I would describe it as much more group oriented viewpoint. And, you know, the U.

S. tends to be much more individualistic in our approach to life. And it's not that one is good or bad, but it's that in certain circumstances, you know, to achieve complex, big tasks, a collaborative approach is going to be successful over an individual. An individual will never be able to achieve what a group can achieve, even the smartest individual.

Yeah. So that's, I think it's not so much just class, but the way you perceive the group dynamic. Yeah, I mean, that's just such a wonderful question. What do you want to achieve, right?

Is your system, the way you've set things up, is it the best way to achieve? What is your goal? And so if we think about, well, what is it we're trying to achieve? As you said, right, collaboration, you know, I am very smart and so are you.

But if the two of us collaborate, what we're going to achieve is going to be that much better. And then as we add those layers, so if we want this kind of collaboration and we want this kind of insight, what are those barriers, those invisible barriers? And the more people we get thinking about this, the more barriers, things that we don't even see as barriers are going to come to mind. Right, right.

So one of my favorite things that I'm doing with clients is I facilitate a simulation exercise that helps people see silos. And it's a game. It's a fun kind of you're building something together. It has four parts and people are in different groups and it goes very quickly and they they have a clear goal, which is in any organization there.

You know, we are educating students or we are making cars or we're investing finance money. And and the participants are told about this ahead of time. However, what generally happens, because there's a time deadline, people tend to focus on their thing. You know, my part.

It's called the team machine, but they focus on their part of the team machine. And generally, as a facilitator, I'm taking notes, watching behavior. Because it's a game, because it's done in a lighthearted way, people bring their real behaviors to this game. And what they're not aware of is that their behaviors will be revealed as they are doing this.

So, for example, I was doing this with a group, and there are a limited number of resources, just like in real life. And one group took all the resources. They're little wood blocks. I have one right here.

Excuse me. So these wood blocks, you know, they're a fixed number of wood blocks. And so you could say these are widgets or this is money or time or whatever it is. And so one group took almost all the blocks so that they could do their part.

And so all the other groups were left without the necessary number of blocks. And so the group that took all the blocks finished their part very quickly. And they're so proud of themselves. And then you know it came time for the whole group to connect and the others were like you took all the blocks and they're like no you know we we had to finish and we finished on time and, it brought up a great question for them to reflect on which it was how does this behavior how does this exercise reflect your real work environment and it's not a hundred percent you know parallel Well, but they were able in this exercise and through this exercise to look at themselves and ask important questions that are almost never asked because people are busy, because they have these default narratives that go on and nobody questions things.

And so through this 90-minute activity, they completely looked at how are we not maximizing our optimal collaboration? What are the bottlenecks? And one of the bottlenecks is resource distribution. Mm-hmm.

Oh, that's great. It's so nice to be able to, you know, these things that are in our minds or sometimes we are not very tangible, but you'll be able to see the real life result of. And it is interesting. Again, we think about systems.

You think about an organization might say, we're going to act as one. We're going to achieve this. But now we're going to put these departments against each other for resources. Right.

This happened all the time. Yes. I mean, every organization has one this, one that. I mean, I get tired of looking at it.

Yes. I totally agree with you, Mary. And then I see it. I see it.

So I was at a university teaching at a university for a very long time and teaching philosophy. Right. So, you know, the philosophers got to stick together because nobody is really advocating for the philosophers. Right.

And so but every discipline has that. Right. And so, well, I need to speak for this and I need to speak for that because that's my job and that's what I see. And the thing is that's right because nobody else sees that and that is not their job as much as it is yours and so there's holding both tensions of I see this part I see how this is important in what we bring but also we're a part of the whole right and so it's not one or the other it's this and that and and there is a kind of tension there.

Yeah. And just like in the workplace, people have to have their areas of expertise. They have different mandates. Absolutely.

And they need to keep in mind what social psychologists call the superordinate goal. Is that a phrase that's familiar to you? Well, I imagine I know what it is, but please go ahead. So I just learned it a couple of years ago when I facilitated this exercise, this team machine exercise with a professor at New York University.

And he studies collaboration. His name is Dr. J. Van Bavell.

And he and I published an article in Harvard Business Review about this story that I'm about to tell you. So I took the team machine to his lab. And we had, you know, 12 or so, 15, 20 people. And I put them through this exercise.

And again, I have done this with many, many organizations on four continents for over 15, 20 years. So I know what to expect, and I gave them the instructions. I set them up just like I do every corporate group. And this group of collaboration researchers at NYU finished in half the time of any corporate group I've ever worked with.

Some corporate groups never finish. They just don't achieve the goal. About 75% do achieve, 25% don't. But no one in the history of the team machine had completed the team machine in half the time.

So we're just, you know, scratching our heads like, what just happened? I was like, well, we budgeted 90 minutes, but now what are we going to do? And one of the factors was that during this exercise, when the different groups were focused on their own task, Jay said, are we allowed to work with other groups? And there are instructions, and they had been told this, and I said yes.

And he starts shouting out, there's a superordinate goal. There's a superordinate goal. And I had never heard this phrase before. And no, I, you know, I didn't know what it was.

But they, as academics, understood this superordinate goal, which is a goal that is achieved when groups that normally don't collaborate or, you know, work together, they have to achieve that goal by collaborating. So that is a very specific phrase. Everybody in the room understood it. And they immediately started communicating across the boundaries, sharing information, sharing resources.

And that's one of the factors that allowed them to complete this in half the time. So then what can leaders, you know, this is not in a real company, leaders don't, it's not a game. It's their real life work. And so the question I often pose is, well, what's your superordinate goal?

And everybody, you know, can identify it because it's, you know, why are you in existence? What is your organization providing? What's the value you're providing to customers? So, for example, in Honda, it's to provide, you know, a world-class vehicle that's safe and affordable, all these things.

So it's important to identify the goal. But then leaders have to constantly remind people about what that goal is. They need to frame all the activities around these goals. They need to talk about other groups keeping this superordinate goal in mind.

So there are all these ways that leaders on teams within the C-suite, that they need to understand the superordinate goal. I'll say that again. They need to understand the superordinate goal and communicate it repeatedly in many different ways to the people on their teams. Yeah, absolutely.

And that goes, I think the repeating goes into the incentives, right? It's one thing to say it and, again, pitting people against each other. Who's going to have, you know, this kind of outcome or this kind of product, you know, and whose numbers are better, however we understand that to be. Yeah.

And then if that's what we're prizing, then that's the kind of behavior we're reinforcing. Exactly. Yeah. And so if you think about one of the biggest resource, the incorrect use of resources that I see is extreme income inequality within an organization.

And where you don't see that is Japanese companies. Japanese companies across the board, historically, are much more equitable in their income distribution. Even the top, you know, the president and the CEO of huge Japanese companies are making maybe 25 times or 30 times the amount of an average worker. You know, it pales in comparison to some of the distribution extremes that we see here in the United States.

And so just the way we're rewarding people, as you just said, reflects whether the organization is prioritizing a superordinate goal or not. Yeah. And I see it also reflecting individualism, right? So this individual contributor has gotten this much worth.

And that then reinforces. And then when you're in an organization, you see what am I being paid against, what other people are being paid. And now I'm looking at how much effort I should be putting in. Oh, you're rewarding this person this way.

I'm putting as much effort in. I'm not getting that pay. So I'm going to cut back. Again, it's this reinforcing of the I'm here individually instead of collegiality, right?

How are we working together? And this real understanding that we are not going to succeed unless we understand that we need all of the parts to make the whole to whatever it might be that we are trying to produce. But if we minimize one side, I think it's really important to help people see what happens if this division goes away. What happens if these people aren't able to innovate?

What happens if everybody suffers, right, to get people to see, oh, me and you, me and us together. So in the States, we're not going to get away. We're not going to get away from individualism. But I think we can prize the individual and add community, community in the right way, framed in the right way, which I think, unfortunately, if we talk about it, a lot of times it gets framed as family, which I think is a detrimental way to go when we think about the group, the community, in the States, at least, because talking about family, people have all different kinds of experiences and there are different kinds of expectations.

And usually your family doesn't do a mass email layoff. Right. Yeah, I don't, I agree with you. So I think that's the thing that I want to kind of pivot to.

And I know you talk about trust and developing trust. And when we think about loyalty, we think about trust and all these sorts of things and engagement and psychological safety. We think about how all these things work together so that people are free to be their best self and to really participate. How do you how do you bring about in 2026 in the kind of world of work that we have right now, trust because as you know we don't have trust in an organization within our team and things are very brittle and not working very well i have a trust continuum actually i can show you a picture of it.

This is a very basic image I use in my keynote speaking and when I'm doing talent development and various exercises with clients, which is this four stages of trust. This is not a mystery to anybody, any of your listeners or, you know. The trust starts when someone's a stranger like today. Right.

Today, about 30 minutes ago, we were strangers to each other. Right. And in a very short time, professionals can go from stranger to acquaintance. Right.

We're going to by the end of this phone call, I'm definitely going to feel like an acquaintance. And most people in the professional world also can do this so this trajectory is very simple and then if you and i were working in the same place moving from acquaintance to colleague also not a mystery you know you talk to people you learn their names you learn about their interests their backgrounds you have work projects together you know the the basic mechanics of work help people get to colleague-level relationships.

So, again, this is not a mystery. But the. Really important thing is getting to this, trusted colleague level relationships. We all know that when you have trusted colleagues, everything is easier.

You can find out about problems when they're small. You can be vulnerable. You have this psychological safety to say to somebody, hey, I messed up. I missed a deadline or whatever it is.

And quickly find a solution. You know you you'll come in on a saturday to work if you've got you know a trusted colleague who says i really need your help today you know these are the the little ways that we our actions are different than when we are colleagues so again i'm not saying anything so far that any of your listeners i think would disagree with so but the question is how do you get that and what i've noticed is that, you know, again, 30 years working on that four continents with thousands of people, when there is some type of difference, a real or perceived difference, there can be a barrier right here.

And then add in hybrid work, global distribution, you know, people not literally in the same place. This barrier has gotten worse over the past few years. And people just get stuck at this colleague-level relationship and they don't do the work to move into trusted colleague-level relationships. So the way to get to trusted colleague is self-disclosure, sharing information.

Working together, doing what you say you're going to do. Again, these are things that people, you've done this. You, Mary, have done this many times in your life. You've moved with people from stranger to trusted colleague.

I've done this many times in my life. But how do you do that with people you're not in the same space with? Maybe somebody who speaks a different language. What about if a person who's working within your organization on the other side of the world, and you're probably never going to be in the same physical space as them?

That's where my we building is is part of the solution is taking action this is the critical thing taking action to build your relationship with across this difference so a very simple example starts with names learning to say people's names accurately using their names when you're speaking with them. If they happen to speak a different first language, learning to say hello or good morning in their language. And then when you're having a virtual call with that person, being aware, oh, is it morning there or is it evening?

And then using the appropriate phrase. These are just the simplest tasks anyone, any professional could take to start bridging that gap between colleague and trusted colleague. I love that because it is simple, but it takes intentionality, right? It takes me planning and thinking and wanting.

As we said before, what is my vision? What kind of place do I want to work? How do I want to work with others? Do I value other people's input?

What is the goal? Always the goal in mind, but then thinking about what it feels like to work with. And those little steps, though, don't usually just happen. And sometimes we're in places and we have these golden things just pop up and it's just very natural.

And that's lovely. But we cannot rely on that. Can I pause there? I'd love to hear what you mean by that.

What is a little golden thing that pops up? Well, I've heard people, I've done quite a few podcasts, over 200. And so sometimes people will talk about and even use this language of like the golden time that people have had in work relationships. And maybe it lasted on this team for two years, three years, five years.

And it was a group of professionals that just all like-minded. Sometimes we meet somebody and we're like, you're my person. We get each other. And it's just off the bat.

And it's so easy. It's easy. And when there are problems, they're not big because there's this ability to converse and a desire to want to move beyond and a kind of reciprocity, but also operating the principle of charity, which is if somebody misspeaks that we don't assume malintent, but we assume we give people the space and the grace to, you know, and that the feeling, and a lot of times sometimes you don't know when you're in it. You certainly know when it's gone.

And that's what I mean. But that is usually rare and you can't count on it being there. But there are certain things we can do to bring us closer to that. As you're talking about.

And I think those golden opportunities are, like you said, they're rare to begin with. They're more rare because of global distribution. People aren't in the same spaces, you know, because of virtual work. And the fact that workplaces have people from different backgrounds in a way, you know, in 2026, that they just didn't, you know, 10, 15, 20 years ago.

I work with a big international bank here in New York, and I've done a lot of work with their newly hired clients for the past couple years. So I've encountered maybe 3,000 of them, and there are 40 different languages spoken, those languages. Professionals. They all work in the same field, same company.

40 different languages. I mean, and I have been working with that institution for a very long time, and that's the most number of languages. It used to be around 10, 10 different languages. That's still amazing, right?

That's just... Yeah, and I think a lot of people would encounter that and think, oh, oh, you know, it's even harder to connect, where I think, oh, this is an interesting opportunity to When you find out, for example, someone speaks a different first language than you do, and make a genuine and respectful inquiry about that language, and it expands your world when you can learn about this. So I'll give you a real example. Someone said, I will often ask people what languages they speak, and someone said they spoke Amoro.

And I was like, what is Amoro? I had never heard of it. Have you heard of it? No.

I asked and I actually I looked it up later and it's a language spoken in Africa. It's a dialect in Ethiopia. And, you know, I know that now. I don't know if I'll have a chance to use it, but I'm glad to know that.

And if I worked with that person on a regular basis, I'd probably learn to say good morning in Omoro. I'm sure I'm capable of saying that. I'm pretty sure every single person that ever listens to your podcast is capable of learning how to say one phrase in this other language that's... Anyway, so those kind of little actions can really start to build this trust with people who are very different from ourselves.

It's such a wonderful example because I think it is a great opportunity if we are looking for these opportunities. A lot of times we fool ourselves with perceived sameness, right? So I'm in this silo. These people speak my technical language, right?

You know, so like we are doing the same kind of thing. We're on the same kind of team. And so I assume a kind of sameness. And so sometimes that makes me less curious or do the work that I need to do to actually know you instead of what I perceive you might be like.

But when you have somebody from a different culture or maybe you think that, you know, they have a different first language, then you already think there's a difference. And so if I want to bridge that divide, I'm aware of it. I need to do something. And that curiosity can spike in me if I want to bridge this gap.

And so it can be a real opportunity to say, OK, I want to get to know you and this is what I'm going to do. Right. I totally agree with that perceived sameness and those assumptions that we make that can lead to conflict to the, you know, back to the topic of your podcast where, you know. When, just like you said, when there's a language difference, there's almost an assumption that there will be a difference.

And so when I've worked with people, for example, with the U.S. And the U.K.

, and there's kind of this assumption of sameness. Oh, we all speak the same language. Sure, there's a pronunciation difference or they say bubbler and we say water fountain, you know, ha ha ha. But it's cultural differences are both visible and invisible.

And it's the invisible culture differences that most often lead to conflict. Yes, 100%. I mean, conflict largely arises from a miscommunication, which is usually built upon, I have an expectation, you have a different expectation. And they are, as you said, largely invisible.

And so in my own work, one thing I want to do is make the invisible visible through conversation, through dialogue, and setting expectations in our multi-generational, our global workforce. And the more we do that. Have people articulate their expectation or what they understand, what it means to be on time or to be professionally dressed or whatever it might be, to be a team player. What does that actually mean?

The more we do that, instead of just assuming everybody has the perception that I do, we will have less unnecessary conflict, right? Conflict's not the problem. It's good. It's good to be able to disagree well with others.

That's very important. But it's the unnecessary, which If we had conversations, we could talk about and find the best path forward. If you don't mind, I'll share another little image, which is related. Oops, there we go.

Which is exactly what you just described. I use this concept of the iceberg concept of culture. Maybe something you've heard about before. It was a sociologist, Edward Hall, I believe, who came up with this.

And his notion was that there's visible information and invisible information in any culture. So if you see someone wearing a kimono, you know, you think, oh, they might be Japanese or something. If you see them bow, you know, these are visible examples. But underneath the surface are values, assumptions that drive the visible differences.

And so just like you were saying, what I advocate people do as they're going along this trajectory is with through conversation, uncover, you know, reveal more and more of what used to make visible what's invisible. And so with a Japanese person who's bowing, that's actually reflecting very hierarchical social relationship. And so having conversations with them to understand, oh, when I'm in front of my seniors, I'm never going to disagree with them publicly. So that's what may have been an invisible behavior, you know, that like in private, that Japanese person would tell me, oh, I don't like this idea at all.

But in public they you know nodded their head as someone was saying that information and that caused conflict for me like why why you told me you didn't agree with this you know and and yet you're behaving this way but if i have the conversations and of course i'll get out of the way of my own picture the goal is to have this trusted colleague so that you really understand so much about what the other person is, what their values are. And you don't have to like them. You don't have to agree with them.

But if you understand them, the conflict that you do have is what you're describing. It's not aggressive. It's not based on ignorance. It's based on inherent predictable differences.

Absolutely. And as you were talking, I was thinking about all the shorthand that we use. We use shorthand within our own disciplines, but then with our colleagues, the more we know them, the more we can, as you said, predict, the more we can communicate. Like, you know, what is communication?

Of course, it's not just the word said. It's all of the other stuff underneath how somebody is understanding that meaning and then how I understand their response. And the more we can... Develop that shorthand and have trusted colleagues.

What I see a lot in my work, of course, is trust that's been broken. So either somebody not willing to move from colleague because the other person seems unstable and seems untrustworthy, or I thought I had this relationship and then this person broke this trust. When you see that trust eroded or somebody not willing to extend because the other person seems like it wouldn't be wise to trust this person. What do you do in those circumstances or what kind of advice do you have for people?

That's such a great question. I often look through a cultural lens. And so the kind of conflict you're describing, the loss of trust, I will start with trying to understand, is there cultural component to this. So just using that example I just mentioned, privately with a Japanese colleague, they tell me, I don't like this new initiative.

I think it's not a good use of our time. But then in public, in a meeting, they don't openly disagree. They just stay silent or even nod. And so I could lose trust and think, what a liar.

No backbone. And I've heard of these exact kind of conversations, these kind of situations when U.S. People and Japanese people are working together because of these cultural differences.

So before people, you know, when they bring these problems to me, I will help them look at the cultural lens. Are there cultural levers at play that are invisible to you because you just have not logged the time? You don't have the opportunity to understand these things. And a lot of times in the groups that I work with, there is a cultural reason.

And so if you can get through the explanation and understanding and say, oh, OK, so in this Japanese business culture, it's really unseemly to, you know, directly, you know, not agree or show disagreement with a senior in public. But there are other avenues to do this, right? If you understand that, it's much more palatable and you may choose to still disagree or, you know, do your thing, but you need to have that information, educating yourself to understand what's happening.

And then if there's conflict, you know, around that, you can deal with that directly. So that's usually that's my approach is looking through a cultural lens first to see what is at play. But I will also say, Mary, having worked with many professionals, again, lots of people across the globe, there are American jerks, Brazilian jerks, Japanese jerks, Chinese jerks, like every country has people who are difficult, that has nothing to do with their cultural background or their language or whatever.

It's just they have not earned the trust and they should not be given that trust by others. So when people show you who they are, when you've done the work, then patient, look through a cultural lens. Sometimes it's important to set clear boundaries around who you're working with and who you trust. I love it.

It's all brilliant. Because the first question is curiosity. A lot of times when we feel aggressed in some way, agreed, you know, disrespected, it's very natural to take that personally, that that person's intentionally harming me. But if we can learn to pause and get curious to find out what actually is going on, is there a cultural issue?

And cultural here can be whether it's global culture or a family of origin culture or absolutely i work in this sector you work in that sector and even in the states i'm from the south and you're from the the west or the east or however we might think about that this is again not excusing you kind of behavior but getting curious as to why it's happening right and that can help bring down our own emotional response so that we can really see the lay of the land so that we can act in according with our own values and in a way that is best for us in our organization and so if the problem really is that this person is stabbing me in the back you know or or this person doesn't you know the way the reason they're doing this is because they think this is what it means to be a team player well if i think you're trying to be a team player and this is but it's not striking me this way now i can have a conversation about hey how do you want me to approach you this happened like you to approach me and then we can work on that to be colleagues or trusted colleagues right and one way we can get to trusted colleagues i believe is by doing hard things together right developing that resilience and if i do that with you i have done something difficult with you and now i probably have more trust because i saw how you went through that conversation with me instead of.

Whatever villainized me or cut me off, or I see that you are actually somebody that I deem rational, that I can work with. And so I think the more we can step back and really see the cause of something that is not sitting with us, and also, of course, looking at us, why is this bothering me? Right. I totally agree.

I love that. Yeah. So, Laura, how did you get into this work? How did you, I know you've written many books, How did this, how did you find yourself like, this is what it is that you want to do in your career?

So I was born in Japan. My mom and dad were missionaries. And so my life started in a different country. I was two when we came back to the United States, so I have no memory of that.

But because my parents are organic WeBuilders, because they were inviting people from different backgrounds into our home, they were curious people, and they loved Japan. They just loved that experience. I grew up with this affection for Japan and also a curiosity myself about different places. So when I, you know, growing up in Columbus, Ohio.

I was, you know, I thought it was kind of special having been born in Japan. And that really drove this, you know, again, curiosity and intellectual pursuit of learning Japanese. So I selected a college. I went to Denison University in Ohio.

But I selected Denison in part because they had an exchange program with Japan. And I just knew that's what I was going to do that my junior year. And as I started off saying I was a lifeguard before going there. And I got involved with Honda around that time.

And then when I graduated from college, I wanted to go back to Japan. And Honda offered me a position. And I was sent to Japan. I was the first American woman to ever work in the Tokyo headquarters of Honda.

Which, you know, when I look back on that now, I think, wow, that was, you know, actually, I have a picture of it. Oh, that's so nice. 22. I love it.

I was too clueless. I was absolutely clueless about the world, about business, but it was a great experience. And then that led to writing my first book, which was about being the accidental office lady, the first American woman. And then I started, you know, helping people navigate the difference specifically between Japan and America.

And then it expanded over time to helping anyone successfully navigate the us versus them gaps that are disrupting productivity, interfering with trust, and helping people have successful business lives. But also, you know, in communities and having more unity, which I'm a big fan of achieving. I love that story. I too am a huge fan of unity.

And I just think it's really interesting, this us versus them and that curiosity of, We could all take a look at our lives and see where we do it, where we do it and we're not even aware of it, where we do it. And it's a good thing in some in some areas, you know. And but really thinking about when I was never good to other somebody such as I mean, this is how we get war because they're less human, less deserving. Right.

This is. Oh, my God. But really, it's like, why is it us versus them? Like what what is going on there?

Who's benefiting? but how are we being hurt and how am i contributing to that narrative how why am i doing everything in a bumper sticker right this is this tends to happen like when we straw man other people right this is my work as a philosopher i was very interested in trying to help students to articulate their positions and to understand other people's positions doesn't mean you have to have it but right to try it on and to think about it and to understand and the more we understand And the more proximity we have, the less likely we are to other.

Absolutely. I have said from a long time ago, and it's a really big part of my most recent book, The Business of We, which is face-to-face interactions of increasing depth are the path toward better collaboration and more unity. You know, face-to-face interactions of increasing depth. And so that's why the proximity is so critical to that equation.

I'm really interested in multi-generational work environments. This is where we are. And there is a lot of othering from older workers to younger workers, younger workers to older workers, and the people in the middle. There's just all this sort of my team versus your team, my generation versus your generation.

And some of it is in fun, but a lot of times there's a bite to it. You know, there's something wrong with the other. And I think that's what I see in culture. but when I see it in practice, I see a lot of people saying, I benefit from, I have learned from working with these older people.

I have learned from working with these younger people. And it is just so hard to keep this narrative that they don't want to work anymore or they don't know what's going on if I actually am working with a quote-unquote way of them. And I see, oh, I can learn from you, you can learn from me. I just think that is the path forward to everything, is to see what we have to contribute.

That difference can be beautiful, right? And to not say there aren't differences, but what do we do with those differences? How do we understand and not minimize? Right.

I dislike the narrative that we're all the same. There are no differences. Why do you have to see difference? Like, there are differences.

They exist. But we don't have to let them disrupt or, you know, be the only thing. And one of the things about generations that I'd like to say is that unlike most other us versus them gaps, generational differences are inherently different in this way. Every 50-year-old has been 25.

And so, and a 25-year-old will be 50 if they're lucky. You know, that's the, so other us versus them gaps, like if I'm doing a country gap, Japanese versus American, well, I will never be Japanese. I can understand a lot. I work hard to be appreciative, but I will never be Japanese.

And so this is interesting to me. It's always been interesting that the generational gap is inherently a little bit different. But low-key, I don't think we should make such a big deal about it because I'm using their slang, low-key. Low-key, I just learned these phrases, and it's so much fun to interact.

Like you said, some of the differences can be lighthearted. And I think this is one of the ways that generational gaps can be, that gap can be made closer. And that's on the more senior generation. We are the ones that need to be taking action because we were them.

We know what it's like, and it's easy. It's an age-old thing for the older people to be complaining. I used to walk two miles barefoot in the snow to school, and you were taking the bus and complaining. You know, it's - yeah.

And so I really like it when I see - . The more senior generation actively trying to understand what's important to the younger generation rather than just complain about it. Absolutely. I think it is a really interesting point that gets lost in this us versus them narrative when it comes to generations is that it is normal.

I mean, we think about the lifespan and whether or not it's, you know, in post-industrial revolution and we find certain kinds of things and generational differences there but there's always been this and as a part of it's like you know as you grow and develop and you come out of this cocoon and you're trying to do things on your i mean it's just very normal so if this is a normal process and the 25 year old god willing will be a 50 year old right if everything goes according to plan and then they will be a 70 year old and right this whole thing they're going to come through this so how do we i'm interested in turning these these differences into our assets so that for the life of your organization you should hope to have generational differences you should hope to have right this is a detriment if everybody's one cohort of age.

Absolutely yeah you can't have succession with that a part of wanting the we right so wanting people to see and value that. So on this note, my last question for you is, as you look into the future of work, what do you think needs to happen so that not only will all workers be treated with dignity and respect, but that they'll be encouraged to thrive and flourish? Such a, I mean, it's a little question. Yeah, and just, oh, by the way, I mean, there's so many factors.

I would really like to see more equitable distribution of resources overall, especially in the United States. And a more, you know, more we cultures, organizations that try to eliminate the negative consequences of us versus them gaps, whether that's between departments, whether that's between generations, gender, identity, whatever it is, and recognizing that some us versus them is appropriate and necessary But really understanding that to collaborate across these differences is going to result in better business and a healthier, more rewarding workplace that gives people a happier life.

Well said. Well, Laura, I see this hour. She's completely escaped. I could talk to you for a long time.

So thank you so much. I really appreciate the work that you're doing and your insight. Thanks so much, Mary. Take care.

Dear listener, I don't know if you could tell, but I could talk to Laura forever. I am all in on the work that she's doing, and I'm definitely going to pick up her new book, which is called The Business of We, The Proven Three-Step Process or for closing the gap between us and them in your workplace. I mean, come on, don't we need that? You know, I'm interested in conflict, and conflict is a lot of when we just other people.

So how do we find that curiosity? How do we look at it systematically so we have less of the unnecessary drama and more collaboration so that we all have healthier work environments? So thank you, Laura, so much. Conflict Managed is produced by Third Party Workplace Conflict Restoration Services and hosted by me, Merry Brown.

You can find us online at 3pconflictrestoration.com. Come back. We have new episodes every Tuesday.

And if you would like and subscribe wherever you are listening or watching this podcast, it would be much appreciated. Our music is courtesy of Dove Pilot. And remember, conflict is normal and expected. Let's deal with it.

Until next time, take care.