Liberals Versus Conservatives in Your Office: How to Cool Tensions

With looming elections and other hot-button issues top of mind, people have deep concerns that are fueling divisiveness and incivility at work — enough to affect productivity and absenteeism, researchers say. What can leaders do to encourage civility? Consider teaching people a novel technique, jujutsu persuasion. This approach requires people to carefully listen to an adversary’s arguments and then respond with respectful counterarguments framed with the adversary’s values instead of one’s own.